On Saturday, August 31, my wife Cheryl suffered a massive stroke that crippled her left side, leaving her at least temporarily unable to use her left arm or leg. This was totally unexpected, and was devastating to us. As with every difficulty, it drove us anew to rely on the Lord and His word. But even in the midst of the stroke and its related problems, we found a lot of humor along the way, that helped us keep our sanity — or maybe you should be the judge of that!

“YOU’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!”

Monday morning, August 26th, Cheryl experienced the first symptoms of what would become her stroke. She had walked three miles that morning with our neighbor Lea Ann. She was filling me in on various stories from her walk, when she said, “I think you need to help me; I’m losing my balance.” But before I knew it, she had fallen to the ground. On my foot. I was trying to help her up, but I had a big problem. I could not get my foot out! It was one of those “tragi-comic” moments — right out of a tv sit com. “Ow, my foot!” I hollered. 

Cheryl started laughing, and eventually rolled herself off of my foot. 

Cheryl told this story to one of our good friends from church, and he said: “911; what is your emergency?” “My wife is on my foot!”

NOT A HANDYMAN!

Cheryl recuperated quickly from that fall, and unfortunately chalked it up to low blood sugar because she hadn’t eaten since lunch Sunday. But a couple of days later, after being diagnosed with high blood pressure and being put on medication, Cheryl again became weak and asked me to walk her to the bathroom. She was making it ok, until we got to the little toilet room just off of our master bath. At the last moment, she fell to the floor, wedging herself in the few inches between the toilet and the wall. It was a difficult spot! Making it worse was that during the fall, Cheryl had dislodged the toilet seat. First item of business was to fix the seat back on, so that hopefully we could get her up there. Problem was, I couldn’t fix it! I just couldn’t get those little tabs back one right! 

“Hand it to me!,” Cheryl said, while still lodged beside the toilet. With one hand, she fixed the seat, and slipped it back on the toilet, and somehow we got her up!

Later in the hospital, she told this story to our sons. They told her: “Don’t worry Mom, we’ll come down and put grab bars and things up in the house. You won’t have to worry about Dad trying to fix anything!”

“THE BRUISE”

Although the stroke seemed to culminate on Saturday the 31st, it actually unfolded over several days; because of the way the symptoms presented themselves, we were not aware until much later than we might have wished, that it was indeed a stroke. One day that previous week, Cheryl, very tired and starting to lose her balance some, decided she wanted to take a nice hot bath. She did, but shortly after getting out of the tub she fell for one of the first times. She actually fell backwards, onto the sill of a little window that sits about a foot off the ground, right by the tub. She thought to herself, “I may get a bruise out of that …”. Little did she know! 

Once we left ER and went to the hospital in Galveston, EVERY single doctor, nurse, and tech person, who saw her posterior — and so many do in these places, Cheryl said you just lose all your dignity/inhibition — asked, “What happened? Did you fall or what?” or “That’s some bruise you have there!” Cheryl said she was glad to have such a good conversation starter for everyone! In fact, doctors and nurses would enter her room, saying: “I hear you have quite the bruise!” — they were talking about it all over the floor! After about the fifteenth person in the hospital mentioned her bruise, Cheryl said: “The next person who comments on my bruise, I’m going to ask them if they want to sign it!”

We were at Galveston for almost a week, then went to Encompass Rehab in Pearland, Texas, for what we expected to be a two week stay (more on that later!)  The first night in, one of the technicians came into the room and greeted us with: “So I hear you’ve got quite the bruise!”

THE MEAN DOCTOR

Virtually every worker at the ER, the hospital, and the rehab center were compassionate and helpful to Cheryl. Save one doctor. Confronting Cheryl the first day he told her: “This is your own fault. There is no one to blame but yourself.” He then went on to address some of her issues. When he was through, he asked her, “Do you have any questions or anything else?”

Cheryl was furious. She let him have it right back: “Well, if you’ve finished chewing me out!”

“POOP ENTHUSIASTS”

After a couple of days in the hospital, a rehab team came in: two young ladies who were VERY enthusiastic and encouraging — even when it comes to the most mundane things. Cheryl had been in the bed for several days and had not been able to get up to go to the bathroom, but she wanted to try. They said “We’ll help you! We’re all about it! We’re poop enthusiasts!” Cheryl got a big kick out of their enthusiasm — and their catchy title! 

“GOOD NEWS”?

The doctor recommended that we send Cheryl to an in-house rehab for two weeks after her discharge from the hospital. We would have to pay for this out of pocket, but because he said those two weeks were crucial for her best chances at recuperation, I was determined we’d do it no matter what the cost.

Nearing the end of the two weeks a very nice lady from the financial office at Encompass came in and said, “I have good news!” She explained to me that since we were self pay, the rate was lower than for an insurance claim. This would allow us either to stay a bit longer, or get a refund from what we’d paid! (Cheryl later told me that she was thinking: “Take the refund, take the refund!” We had been away from home for almost 3 weeks and she was ready to get back; but I knew we were not ready.) This was fantastic news to me, so I told the lady that we would take the longer stay.  As soon as she walked out of the room, Cheryl burst into tears. She had been counting down the days until we left, and it was like we’d “moved the target” on her. I tried to tell her that we weren’t ready to go home; she wasn’t strong enough and we couldn’t take care of her at home yet; that this was for the best. A few days later she would admit that this was all correct, but she just couldn’t see it that afternoon. 

We’d been talking about it for just a minute when there was a knocking at the door and a man entered, saying: “Hi, I’m Anthony, the staff psychologist.”
Cheryl says, “You sure have good timing!” She let him have it, poor guy. She asked someone about him later. She was concerned that after talking to her, he may have changed professions!

SERVANDO

One of Cheryl’s primary therapists was an energetic professional by the name of Servando, with whom Cheryl has a love/hate relationship. He had some real “mojo” and got so much work — and progress — out of Cheryl — but she teased that she didn’t like him because he pushed her so hard. 

Servando stuck his head in our room one day, and like everyone who came in, noticed the scores of cards taped up on the cabinet: “Look at all those cards!” 

Cheryl said: “People like me.” 

He shot back: “They must not know you like I do!” 

In fact, during one session Cheryl asked Servando: “What does your name mean, do you know?” He said “I think it means something like ‘servant of God.’” Cheryl, who was currently suffering under his service, responded: “Are you sure it means servant of GOD?”

But I think the truth of their relationship came out at the end, when Servando and Cheryl exchanged a big hug as we were getting in the car to leave! 

TELLING ON SERVANDO?

The CEO of Encompass Pearland had a real presence at the facility; in fact he would stop by every room for a brief chat with each patient, every day. We felt like we really had a relationship with Mike, an unexpected comfort at a facility like this. One day, after what Cheryl considered to be a particularly grueling session with Servando (and also one of her most productive!) Mike came by her room as usual. After visiting for a minute, he said something like, “Well, I just wanted to check on you …”, but Cheryl interrupted him and said, “Wait, I thought you’d come by to apologize for Servando!” 

“Why, did he work you hard again today?”

“YES!” Cheryl complained. 

“Good!” Mike laughed.

Cheryl thought: No one is on my side!

“REAL REHAB?”
One session, Cheryl told Servando: “You know what I thought rehab was? That y’all would roll me into the gym on the wheelchair, lay me on a comfortable mat, and give me massages all day until my muscles started working again.” He got a good kick out of that.

In fact, one day a different therapist was scheduled for a brief, 30 minute session with Cheryl. She asked, “Since it’s so short, I’ll give you a choice: what do you want me to do?” Cheryl told her the story about “real rehab” (she kept everyone at Encompass entertained; one doctor later told her; “We all enjoy your stories!) so this therapist told Cheryl, “I can give you a massage.” 

Cheryl was exultant. “I want you to wheel me right past Servando so he can see I’m finally getting a massage.” 

“Sure,” she told her. I walked behind them as she wheeled Cheryl into the gym, up to the mat. Servando was facing us as we walked in, and the mat was just behind him. 

Cheryl taunted him: “Servando: now I’m going to get some REAL rehab!” 

Servando smiled, and “for some reason” turned around as if he purposefully intending to watch. Little did Cheryl know what this therapist had planned: she made her sit on the mat, and squirm and wriggle herself around to get into the massage position — Cheryl said it felt like she was a turtle turned over on her back — a whole therapy session in itself — before she could get her massage. Servando was laughing as Cheryl took his name in vain while she flailed on the mat! 

But: she DID get a nice massage at the end of all that work!  Finally: “some REAL rehab!” 

YOUR HUSBAND

Cheryl has enjoyed kidding me about these next stories, and wanted me to share them. I stayed with her at the hospital and the three weeks at rehab, and attended each of the sessions with her, and the staff noticed, and they were very kind to me. In fact, Cheryl sometimes thought they were more attentive to me than to her! 

One nurse (we’ll call her Margo 🙂 was giving Cheryl a shower late one night and said to her: “Your husband is a keeper!” 

Cheryl: “Yes, he is. We’ve been married for 42 years.” 

“42 years! Well, if it doesn’t work out, let me know; I’m single!” 

Cheryl got a big kick out of that! 

A couple of nights later, an oriental nurse who had been very understanding and helpful towards Cheryl came back into the room. This time she whispered: “I have secret,” she said.

“What is it?” Cheryl asked.

“You have good husband!” she whispered.

Cheryl said: “It’s not a secret — do you know Margo?”

LESSON LEARNED LATE!

The day before Cheryl’s discharge from Encompass, Yvonne, Cheryl’s other primary therapist, who had a very laid back, patient spirit, came by our room a little earlier than we’d expected.

“I’m here early;” she said. “My 9:00 patient said she didn’t feel well today.”

“WHAT?!” Cheryl said. “You mean that’s all it takes? Just say ‘I don’t feel like it today,’ and you get out of rehab? I’m just finding this out the next-to-the-last day?”

The next day, Yvonne showed up for Cheryl’s first session.

Cheryl greeted her: “I don’t feel up to doing anything today.”

“HUH,” Yvonne chuckled.

Cheryl said: “But that other lady got out of it!”

Somehow it didn’t work for her though! Poor Cheryl. Don’t worry about her though; for all her protestations, I think all in all she dished out as much as she took! 

Cheryl & I with the Encompass Pearland staff: (from left to right around Cheryl) Ky, Yvonne, Mike, me, and of course Servando!