THE STROKE

Sometime between 5 AM and 6 AM on August 5, 1998, I had a stroke. I didn’t know it was a stroke, in fact, I had no idea what was happening. There was no warning, it was an ordinary morning. I felt like I always felt, everything was completely normal.

 

I had recently got shafted and forced to “share” my CNC job with another guy who was a drill press operator. So that morning I was on drill press duty which made for a very bad attitude. I was 43 years old and it was painfully obvious to me that I had accomplished nothing with my life, I had just gotten demoted from an essentially dead end job. You can’t get much lower than that.

 

But I had a plan. I was going to become a full time preacher. I had been a Christian for 18 years, had been preaching and teaching since the first year. For reasons I never fully understood, several different preachers and pastors from several different churches kept hindering my plans while using me to fill in for them. But I was determined to the point that I was seriously considering starting my own church.

 

I was fully committed to Christianity.

 

But I had problems with it, too. My relationship with God was what I called stormy or dynamic. It wasn’t the ordinary guy in the pew on Sunday morning kind of relationship. I read the entire Bible several times and the New Testament over 85 times in several different translations. And I had read several hundred books from preachers that shared my particular spirit filled philosophy. I saw things in the Bible that made no sense, contradictions, errors. I attributed things of that nature to my own lack of understanding and sin. But I also saw a church described that as near as I could determine didn’t exist.

 

I believed it was my calling to build such a church.

 

That was what I was thinking about as I sat there pulling the drill press lever repeatedly at work that morning. It was the only way to make it through the monotony of the day. Machine shop work is repetitious enough as it is but operating a drill press is not only repetitious it requires virtually no thinking at all. It needs just enough attention to keep from drilling a hole in your hand and basically staying awake. I tried to keep my mind occupied with the things of God.

 

Suddenly, my right arm plopped down on the workbench, devoid of any sensation. I quickly turned the press off with my other hand. I had no idea what was happening, my only thought was that the situation was rather odd. I began touching my right arm and hand surprised that there were no feelings in either. Again I thought this was quite odd but I didn’t panic. There was no fear during any of this, I was as calm as could be. I began praying because I knew something was wrong and I believed God could heal anything.

 

I’m not sure how long I sat there pondering my arm. I began thinking I must really be sick although what sickness removed all sensation and muscle control I had no idea. It seemed like going and hiding out in the bathroom, maybe splashing some cold water in the face, might be a good idea. So I tried to get up.

 

I promptly collapsed on the floor. It wasn’t just my right hand and arm, my right leg, hell, my entire right side was gone, non-functional, dead. One of my bosses was at a workbench about 12 ft away but he was so intent on what he was doing he never noticed me laying on the floor. The fall didn’t hurt at all and the floor was cold, at first. Then the coldness went away.

 

The sounds of other machines grew more and more distant. All sensation in my entire body ceased. There was absolutely no pain whatsoever anywhere. I began drifting away into an infinite blackness. My mind stayed active but nothing else was functioning. I could see myself laying on the floor, a look of perfect peace and contentment on my face. I had entered the presence of God and all fear was gone. I was drifting away to death and it was wonderful. I know what absolute bliss feels like.

 

I was completely, totally alone, and I was perfectly all right with it.

 

But the drifting away stopped. The coldness of the floor returned as did the sound of the other machines. I could feel my left side again and I could see that I was on the floor. My chair was nearby so somehow (I am not really sure how I did this) I pulled myself back into the chair with my left arm. My boss never saw any of this.

 

I sat in the chair without moving for at least another 45 minutes. I know that because the rest of the morning crew which didn’t start until 6 had started to come in. Every last one of them ignored me. Apparently, seeing me sitting there blanked out completely was not an unusual sight. I continued praying.

 

I developed a severe case of dry mouth. I thought I could probably call out for help loud enough for someone to hear but it seemed like that was much too hard to actually do. By the time the morning shift was getting into full swing, I was desperately dry. Finally, one of my friends (yeah, right, friends! More later) came by to talk. Well over an hour had passed. When he walked up I informed him that I needed two things, a glass of water and an ambulance.

 

The look on his face was priceless.

 

I got the water but the boss (who never saw my ordeal) took me the two miles to the hospital in his pickup truck. By the time we got there my right arm was moving back and forth with a mind of its own. My blood pressure was an unbelievable 280/160. And everything was starting to hurt. Bad.

 

I didn’t care. I was in the strangest mental state I had ever been in. They poked and prodded me, they drained my blood, they gave me lots of drugs, they put me peculiar positions to run their tests, they made me very uncomfortable. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything they were doing. I didn’t care about how weird I was feeling. I didn’t care that I couldn’t remember how to walk. I didn’t care that my right arm was moving all over the place by itself and that it was getting incredibly painful.

 

I didn’t care about anything.

 

That simple little statement right there is the one thing above everything else that the stroke did to me that I have been unable to get anyone to understand, except for other stroke survivors. I simply do not care about anything. I don’t care if I live or die, I don’t care if I ever see my favorite TV show again, I don’t care if I ever read another book, watch another movie, hear another song, I don’t care if I ever go to church, I don’t care if anyone ever loves me, I don’t even care if this freaking pain ever stops. I just don’t care.

 

Actually, that can be a curse or a blessing depending on the situation.

 

At first, the doctors were telling me I had a TIA (a mild mini-stroke) but that changed to full blown stroke by later in the day. They started reassuring me that the pain would pass and most of the weirdness would go away shortly. They determined that the stroke was caused by my extremely high blood pressure. They didn’t realize it but that made the stroke my fault because being the fanatical Christian that I was, I was trying to conquer my high blood pressure with a combination of faith, diet and exercise with the major emphasis on faith. I literally believed I could beat it by prayer and faith. I was wrong.

 

Only one doctor, a neurologist, whose bedside manner was non-existent, told me the truth that day. He point blank informed me that I would never “feel right” again as long as I lived. He was right. All the other doctors kept telling me things would get better soon. Soon kept getting further and further away as time went on until finally they gave up trying to reassure me.

 

Can you imagine what it feels like to severely sprain your wrist and your shoulder at the same time? The pain starts in the tips of your fingers, runs all the way through your arm, into all your shoulder muscles, and down through your right ribcage. It kind of feels like there’s a band of spring steel being stretched through your arm that’s right at the breaking point. Now then try to imagine that 24 hours a day every day for nearly 10 years. The only drugs strong enough to have even a mild effect on that are also strong enough to render me unconscious within a few minutes.

 

Both of my feet are numb across the toes which causes some balance problems. The right side of my face is also slightly numb. Sort of the way you feel after the Novocaine is wearing off at the dentist. It gets worse as I get more tired. My right eye frequently feels like it has popped out of the socket and is dangling down my face by the optic nerve. At first, I was constantly running to a mirror to make sure because the feeling was so strong. Now, I only have to double check every once in awhile. It takes real effort to smile, I have to concentrate. People constantly get on my case because I don’t smile. I would love to make them feel what I feel for a few minutes, I’m sure they would stop smiling, too.

 

One thing that did clear up within a few days was a bizarre 2 inch high band around my right thigh. I could feel absolutely nothing in that 2 inch area. It was like that slice of my leg didn’t exist. There was feeling below it and feeling above it but nothing at all right there. Very weird.

 

My arm stopped moving by itself after a couple of days but it kept getting more painful.

 

Another weird effect was that I could not remember how to walk. I could stand up but I couldn’t move. I had to have a nurse or a therapist hold me up and tell me how to move my feet. I would move one foot and then be totally lost again. They would tell me to move the other foot, I would, and then incomprehension again. I had no idea how to walk. I knew that I used to know how but it was now beyond my abilities. I didn’t actually care.

 

But I did find a real good motivator. I wanted to be able to get from my bed to the bathroom because, frankly, bedpans and urine bottles just don’t do it for me. So with that goal firmly in mind, I learned how to walk. I had crutches, a walker, and eventually a cane but I was determined to do it without. It was a very happy day when I finally left the cane behind.

 

As if all of that was not enough to deal with I also had to contend with being a drug guinea pig. I should have been dead with blood pressure as bad as I had. Unfortunately, I don’t tolerate medicine well. I managed to get every bad side effect you could get without getting any benefit. Over the next couple of years we went through nearly 3 dozen drugs before we found a combination that worked. Even my 4 drug combo I use now still causes some nasty side effects but it keeps my pressure half way reasonable. I was spaced out and in a dense fog through all that trial and error as well as being mentally numb from the stroke itself.

 

My problem with medicines was partly why I was so determined to beat high blood pressure with my faith. I had gone through a great deal of trial and error before I rebelled. I hated those meds with a passion. I learned faith doesn’t work.

 

So my doctor decided I was depressed. Get him on Prozac! Stat! So what if it makes you into a zombie. So what if it makes you suicidal. I’ll tell you so what. I refused. Nothing for depression. Nothing for pain. I’ll take the BP meds because there isn’t any choice. But not for the other stuff. No.

 

I was a member of two churches. Both pastors showed up at the hospital at the same time. They competed with each other to see who could say the more powerful prayer. Then they both left in a hurry, they had more people to minister to. Three families from one church came to visit me once. That was the entire amount of support and compassion that I got from two churches. One guy from work came once. That was the entire amount of support and compassion I got from my friends at work. Something like that opens your eyes as to what people really think about you. After I got home, no one called me, wrote me, visited me. No one offered to help us. People started acting like I had the plague and was going to infect them.

 

I later found out that alienation is very, very common for stroke survivors.

 

With all this going on I realized something deep down in the core of my being had changed. I was not myself. I didn’t think like I used to. I sure as hell didn’t feel like I used to. Constant pain can color your perceptions in ways you can’t imagine. Realizing your lack of importance to your friends and family can cause great heartache.

 

Realizing that your God had no use for you is even more profound.

 

What do you do when your whole life is altered to the point of being unrecognizable? What do you do when you literally don’t care what happened or what’s still happening? What do you do when your God abandons you? How can 18 years of faith just stop? How can the word of God suddenly lose all its appeal, offer no more inspiration, and just become a poorly written book of old stories? How can the joy of prayer become something you aren’t even interested in ever doing again?

 

That’s what a stroke did to me ten years ago.

 

It came out of nowhere. It offered no warning, the worst symptom I ever had was that I sweated too easily. It didn’t ask if I wanted to change. It didn’t care if the changes it wrought were devastating or permanent. It didn’t care how much it would cost. It didn’t care if it ruined my life.

 

And I didn’t care, either.