AFTERWORD
-- AN ADMONITION
Now I must address the fundamental
reason for writing: these words are an admonition, and they form an accusation.
Why am I paralyzed in my left arm and leg? Because I had a stroke. Could
it have been prevented? Yes, by eating properly and by heeding the early
warning sign of a stroke that I laughed at. Four hours before
I had any other sign of a stroke, I had a heavy hand. It was noticeable
to me, but I had never seen a heavy hand listed as one of the early warning
signs of an impending stroke. The advertised warning signs do not list
hand at all. And nowhere is the feeling of heaviness mentioned.
True, weakness is mentioned, but weakness came to my hand and arm four
hours after a heavy feeling I had in my left hand. This may seem nit-picking
or just semantics, but it is not universally understood that a hand that
feels heavy is tied directly to a weak muscle and should immediately be
recognized as an early warning sign of impending stroke. Since my stroke,
I have talked to many, many people who had never been associated in any
way with a stroke about warning signs of a stroke, and not one of them
had the remotest idea that a heavy hand could be a forewarning of a stroke.
Medical professionals would pick it up. But they have been trained in
this field. I would pick it up now, but I had to learn it the hard way
and pay the penalty for not being better informed. A rather high price
to pay for being ignorant. But I am not stupid. I have seen hundreds of
TV programs, magazines, posters, handouts, newspaper articles, etc. giving
early warning signs of physical problems of all sorts, and they do an
excellent job as far as they go, but they badly need to go further.
Immediately after my heart
attack, I asked for someone to tell me what the true symptoms of an impending
heart attack were. I actually doubted that I had experienced an attack
because I had not had that horrible pain in my chest that everybody said
was part of an attack. No elephant had stepped on my chest. I only had
a small pain in my left armpit. Hours later it radiated down my left arm
to my hand and fingers. This is what sent me to the hospital. I then learned
about symptoms. I was given so many that for three months after my attack,
even a mosquito bite would send me hurrying for my nitroglycerin tablets.
Then, too, I learned the hard way.
I do not now know for sure
whether, if I had gone immediately to the hospital when I felt the heaviness
in my hand, this stroke could have been warded off; but the odds would
have been greatly in my favor. All authorities on the subject say "yes."
The clot busters were available then. I live near the hospital. I could
have been there in fifteen minutes instead of four and a half hours later.
Recommended time for help is less than two hours. What a price to pay
for ignorance.
I would urge members of the
medical profession to do a better job of letting everybody know of all
symptoms of impending medical disaster. They are doing a good job now
but they can go further. Spell it out in simple language. Give it in detail.
Create a net of information on the subject. If just one Ed Jelks is saved
by that net of information from the colossal calamity of a stroke, it
will be worth it.
I would also urge nurses to
listen to their patients. While I was hospitalized, a new medicine was
prescribed for me to take regularly along with my other medicines. All
of my medicines were brought to me at mealtime, and a nurse stood by until
I took the pills. The second day I was nauseated at meal time. I could
not eat well and told the nurse. I was told that it was normal for people
in my condition to feel nauseated. This continued day after day, week
after week, with me taking those pills, and eating very little, and saying
I was nauseated, and being told it would pass. After being discharged
from the hospital I went home with a reminder to be sure to take those
pills. At home I weighed myself and found I had lost eighteen pounds.
I was very weak.
Most of us have a personal
physician with whom we have a good rapport. I do and, although he was
not on my case, I appealed to him as to why I suffered so from nausea,
which had no relation to the illness that hospitalized me. He told me
that sometimes medicines could cause this nausea, but he could not take
me off a medicine another doctor had prescribed. I decided to take myself
off the new drug, and immediately my appetite returned. The doctor who
prescribed this medicine then prescribed another medication that is working
well. No one was listening when I was saying I could not eat because of
nausea; they were too involved in listening for something else.
As I write these words, it
has been almost a year since I had my stroke. A few months ago I was invited
to become a part of a Peer Visitation Program sponsored by the American
Heart Association. To be a member required an eleven-week training session
conducted at Emory by professionals drawn from many nearby hospitals.
The basic theme of the course was on listening -- really listening ---
to the stroke victim when visiting.
I am trying to do my part.
I have written these words. As a trained volunteer visitor, I will talk
to anybody, anywhere, and at any time about my own experience as a stroke
victim.
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Copyright c 1997
by Edwin B. Jelks
