First post:
Jul 23, 2020 Latest post:
Jul 22, 2022
Here I am writing something I never thought I would ever write, let alone writing about Joe, but here I go.
Let me start with the beginning. Joe was at work on 7/21/20 at about 1:15pm he was talking with a vendor Stan, when he noticed that Joe was losing his speech and that Joe was turning a bluish color. Stan called for our office manager Staci to come over they determined very they need to call 911. Staci then called me a work, I drove as fast as I could to the shop (pulled some nice Dale Earnhardt moves) I got to Joe before they loaded him into the ambulance and they had him to the ER within 10 minutes of everything starting.
On the ride to the ER they had assessed that Joe had suffered a stroke. While in the ER they ran a CT scan to assess how severe and what steps to take. He was place on a TPA which is a blood thinning agent, they also determined that his heart was in AFIB. They took him directly into surgery (that was the last time I was able to see him that day) to remove the blood clot and were “moderately” successful as the doctor put it, but turns out the whole clot was removed but the damage had been done
While in the ER it was very clear that Joe could not speak and he had some paralysis on his right side, so we were hopeful that once surgery was over that might change. It did not.
Today 7/22/20 I was given a blessing of being able to see him for 4 hours. The nurse and doctors could see the agitation Joe was having by not being able to speak and knew he needed me to be there to help! And it did! His CT scan from this morning was unchanged which is good, but still showed the damage that had already been done. His heart is still in AFIB which meant a very extensive Echocardiogram to make sure there are no clots still left in the heart so they can start him on blood thinners to help the AFIB. And we started PT & OT! He was not a happy camper! But he did it! He sat up, he fed himself, he can hold a cup! All little miracles that we will take! He still can’t get his words from inside to the outside but he damn well tries! We are using a board with commands on it for now so he can communicate, but as you all know a simple yes or no just won’t do it sometimes.
So that’s how we’ve gotten here. I want to use this forum to be able to have people post messages to Joe that I can share with him. I will post updates on his progress. Let use this for positivity and show Joe the love that has been pouring out for him.
