Bernie Grunwald

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your prayers and support and your words of love, hope, humor, and encouragement for Bernie! Along with any stories of Bernie's many weirdness es. Thank you for visiting.   Here is where the story starts:

The day after election day, Bernie suddenly felt his arm grow numb and announced “something is not quite right with me.”  We immediately called 911 and after Bernie lucidly explained his symptoms to the EMTs, they brought him to the ambulance for evaluation.  He had a seizure right there (his first ever) and was taken to Duke Raleigh.  When I arrived at the ER, I was terrified to find him unconscious and flailing wildly.  It took hours to get him calmed down enough to get a CT scan.  However, he remained agitated while non-responsive to stimuli for the next 36 hours.  He was admitted to the ICU where he remains but a cause has not yet been clearly identified.  Of course, I was panicked. Our good friends Luis and Lupe flew down from New York and Bernie’s sister Jeanette drove up from Atlanta to help.  They and other dear friends have been amazing- cleaning and shopping and errand running and mostly dog caregiving (Ivan is so old, he can barely walk).   I am truly blessed to have such lovely support -plus tons of other offers. Unfortunately, due to COVID only one designated person can visit a patient in the ICU for their entire stay.  That’s me, of course, so no one else can see him,  Baruch Hashem ( Thank God), Bernie opened his eyes yesterday, recognized me, and squeezed my hand.   But challenges remain.  He's currently in a state of what the doctors call “hyperactive delirium”   His speech is very slurred, he fidgets constantly, has short term memory loss, and periodically loses contact with reality  One moment he can explain where to find a battery in the office along with the code number printed on it; the next moment he can’t remember who is President ( what a blessing that is). We are pleased to know that he has not had a stroke or continued seizures.  Not sure what the future holds though we are hopeful of a full recovery. So that’s where we were on November 6.