Don Albrecht

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. 


It all started in the early morning hours of Thursday February 2, 2017. Dad usually sleeps in the recliner, but for some reason he was in bed and fell out of bed around 3:30 am. Mom heard it and after a few minutes she realized his left side was paralyzed and she couldn't understand what he was saying, she called 911. 


Dad had suffered a major stroke, an ischemic stroke, where a blood clot has dislodged from a hole in his heart and traveled up to his brain and lodged, right behind his right eye. It shut off oxygen to a large area of his right brain. He was able to get a clot buster called TPA, but the clot was so large the buster couldn't break it up. 

He has been in Lincoln since February 2, 2017, spent about 2 weeks in the intensive care unit, had surgery called a craniotomy with bone flap to remove a portion of the skull to allow the brain to swell and once he was improving was transferred to madonna rehabilitation hospital in Lincoln. He was able to talk and swallow some soft foods, drink thick liquids, sitting up for hours at a time, and doing intense rehab while in the hospital area of Madonna. He also had a tracheostomy and was on the ventilator for about a month. Because of his exposure to dust all of his life his lungs have taken a major beating, and we are finding out how bad they really are. He finally got off the vent and had the trach removed, then was able to transfer down to the Acute rehab area of Madonna.  Here he is able to receive about 3-8 hours of therapy a day.  


 We will try to keep this updated as much as possible.