I can clearly remember the excruciating pain. It was as if someone was slicing the backs of my ears off while trying to scalp me from the line of my brow to the crown of my skull. Not being able to sleep, just falling in and out of light flickers of consciousness, this was by far the worst migraine I’d ever experienced. Or so I thought.
Four days into this head pain and I was not getting better. I was getting worse. What began as a tinge in my temples had now erupted to massive head pain, vomiting, sweating, chills, and the inability to focus my eyes. Damn it. I had to call a doctor. I am not a fan of going to the doctor, but I had recently begun a new job and was pissed about already missing three days of work. It occurred to me that I didn’t have a primary physician. Who the hell do I know that’s a doctor? I’ve got to get back to work. Oh, I know, Cat. I can call my friend Cat, she has Christine’s number and Christine is a doctor. Thank god for CPAFE, (CPAFE is the Central PA Association for Female Executives, a group to which I had belonged for several years and had just finished up the stint as President. All my good connections were from CPAFE). Cat answered when I called and gave me Christine’s office number.
Christine’s receptionist answered and I, slurring my words, pleaded my case. She agreed to see me that afternoon at 2pm. Keane had run out for a bit, so I called him and told him I got an appointment.
I remember getting out of bed and taking a sip of water out of the bottle that was sitting on the floor by my bed. Within ten seconds, and two footsteps I had quickly and unexpectedly projectile vomited the water I had just consumed, along with the banana I had managed to get down for breakfast, all over the floor and facing wall. Lovely. I sighed and realized it would be a really dick move of me to leave this mess for Keane to clean up. Not too mention the smell of banana was enough to make me want to rip off my nose. I got a roll of paper towels out of the hall linen closet and began to sop up my mess. Wiping off the walls and such. I remember feeling as if my head was going to explode every time I bent over or looked down. Luckily Keane arrived home while I was finishing up and found me sitting on the bedroom floor, sweaty, smelly, and nude, trying to clean up the mess. I explained to him what happened and apologized profusely. I do that a lot. Apologize.
He told me all was ok and finished cleaning up the mess, (which I am sure to this day was done so half assed I should have just left it for him to begin with). He grabbed a pair of comfy jeans and a sweatshirt for me to put on. I was so weak and disoriented I couldn’t dress myself. Keane helped me on with my bra, panties, jeans, and sweatshirt. I managed to pull my annoying mane of sweaty hair back into a ponytail. It was the first of many times to come I would not be able to dress myself.
The doc’s office was about a fifteen-minute drive from home. I remember feeling like it was an eternity to get there. I just wanted this pain to subside if even for a few minutes. Halfway there I looked over at Keane. “I can’t feel my right side”. “Can you move it?” he asked. I tried. I tried to move my arm, my leg, my fingers. Nothing. “No.”
We arrived at Christine’s office and Keane had come around to help me out of the car. When he opened the car door, I remember feeling like my left side was pushing my right clean out of the seat. I would have fallen on my face if I had tried to get out alone. My right side seemed to have disappeared.
I can’t imagine what the hell I looked like hobbling into that office on Keane’s shoulder. It must have been alarming because Christine looked concerned from the get go. Keane sat me down in her lobby and she looked at me. She asked me three questions. “Are you on birth control?” “Yes.” “Has anyone in your family ever had a heart attack?” “Yes, my mom.” I don’t recall the third question. She looked up at Keane and asked me where I wanted to go. She was calling an ambulance. “I am not going to examine her. We need to get her to a hospital. I think she is having a stroke.”
“What?” That was the look I gave Keane. In the almost thirteen years we had been together, I never saw him afraid of anything. Not until that moment.
The next thing I can recall is some young guy standing over me as I was lying on an exam table in Christine’s back office. Hell if I know how I go there, but I was there.
He was the EMT asking me a few questions to which I have no idea to this day if I answered. They loaded my ass into the ambulance, and I remember the EMT guy trying to chat us up. I do remember him asking me if this was my first time in an ambulance. “Yep it is. And it sucks.” He chuckled and replied, “Yeah, mine too.” Now if I was feeling up to my normal witty, wise ass self I would have either had a ball busting or flirtatious comeback to his attempt at being cute. But in the state I was in all I could muster out was. “Funny.”
It was the most uncomfortable vehicle ride of my life. Apparently they strived to hit every crack, bump, pothole, and uneven crevice in the road. I am sure I was bitching up a storm about it because my skull felt like it was in a fucking blender on the ice-crush speed.
They managed to get me to the hospital in one piece and unload me out. Not too much is clear after that. I have waves of recollections in and out but mostly what I remember is the blinding pain.
That’s what happened. How it all started. Two years ago today. The several months that followed were nothing I could have imagined. I can’t help but replay the voices in my head, reminding me. They don’t know how I made it. I was expected to leave in a body bag. But I didn’t. Here I sit, in the best shape of my adult life. Dead two years today.
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