It started off like any other February day with our usual trip to the fitness club for morning exercises. What made this day different was that Bill, my 93-year-old husband, slipped and fell on some ice on our driveway, striking the back of his head. He said it didn’t hurt.
But the next day he complained of feeling tired and each day after that he felt a little worse. Still, we didn’t see any connection to his fall. By the fourth day, however, he was so weak he couldn’t even get out of his chair for lunch. It finally dawned on me that something was seriously wrong and I needed to call 911.
It turned out I was four days too late. All this time, because he was on a blood thinner for his high blood pressure, he had been bleeding in his brain. The neurologist at the hospital where the ambulance took him later told me that it was one of the worst cerebral hemorrhages she had ever seen.
The symptoms are similar to those of a stroke and by then he was unable to talk coherently, remember things, or walk. This was a man, who, before he retired, had been a successful United States Government chemical and aeronautical engineer, someone who had his own chem lab in the basement next to a beautiful woodworking shop furnished with tools handed down from his craftsman father. A man who could fix anything.
After the first week in Intensive Care he was moved to a floor which specialized in stroke victims where he spent the next month. Little by little he began to show improvement. His next stop after six weeks in the regular hospital would be a rehabilitation facility where he could receive the daily intensive speech, physical, and occupational therapy he needed. There he would have to relearn the simplest tasks like how to speak, how to feed himself, how to get out of a bed and into a wheelchair, and how to care for himself in general.
A rehab hospital very close to our home in McLean, Virginia was found which had a bed available and he was transferred there by ambulance. Here, he was kept busy most of the day with one kind of therapy or another. After several weeks he graduated from using a wheelchair to a walker and when he wasn’t occupied with therapy we practiced using his walker in the halls and some days we even had time to take in a movie in the rehab center’s small theater! There was also a Happy Hour on Tuesdays that I especially liked with wine, snacks, and lively conversation!
As I look back during all this time, probably the most positive factor in his long slow recovery has been his attitude. He never stops trying, no matter how discouraging his progress must seem. His attitude is simply amazing. He is always upbeat.
Another positive aspect is that we are the parents of three doctors (and one lawyer) which kind of made us celebrities in a medical setting. One or the other of them was often visiting and conferring with the rehab staff on their father’s care even though their specialties (rheumatology, infectious diseases, and oncology) were far afield.
After several months, it was decided that Bill could continue his recovery at home. And so, on May 8, 2014, exactly three months after the initial injury he returned home.
While he was in the rehabilitation hospital I had taken the opportunity to prepare our two story home for his return with grab bars in the bathrooms and shower, and a stair lift so that he could sleep in his own bed.
So, now, here we are, six months later, settled in our own house, with Bill dependent on me for almost everything, including something I was not expecting: making all the decisions by myself. I won’t say it’s been easy. It hasn’t. I have to say, though, that after 61 years of being the dependent one, I am getting pretty good at being the boss!