Elise’s Story

Site created on May 29, 2020

Elise Laedtke has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke.  This occurred sometime during the evening of Wednesday 5/27/2020.  
Thursday morning Tom found Elise difficult to awaken and thought she wished to sleep in.  Shortly thereafter, he checked on her again.  She was awake but couldn't comprehend or follow commands.  She was unable to speak words.  Tom took her to the nearby Fairview Southview Hospital emergency department for evaluation.  The lab testing was unremarkable (and Covid-19 was negative).  The CT scan showed a significant left brain ischemic stroke due to a middle cerebral artery occlusion (Clot).
Elise was admitted to the hospital ICU, hemodynamically stable.  She is breathing room air and seems comfortable.  Hospital care consists of the ICU nursing staff, hospitalists, and a neurology team.
We are not aware of any risk factors for a stroke and there were no suspicious symptoms prior to the stroke.
Unfortunately, visitors (even family) are not allowed to visit Elise in the hospital due to the Covid-19 precautions.  We thank all of our family and friends for their love, prayers, and support during this difficult.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Thomas Laedtke

Elise continues her intense therapy sessions each week, with both Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy rehab.  Recent focus activities include word enunciation, word choices and sentence completion, writing, math problems, money calculations, telling time, kitchen area tasks, and puzzles.  Our home health aid Tabitha assists us from approx 9a-1p weekdays and she has been wonderful, helping with transportation and participation with these rehab appointments, homework, house activities with Elise, and excursions.  We see slow but steady progress with Elise's speech and overall recovery.

Cameron continues with his UofM courses on-line with virtual learning and Anna visits our home (basement office) weekdays with her Best Buy Corp marketing job.  I continue to juggle many activities, including our home/family and my medical practice.  My Fairview Endocrinology practice has been "virtual visits" since 3/2020, seeing 10-15 patients daily and short trips to the nearby Fairview Edina clinic to manage paperwork and visit coworkers daily.  

We are so appreciative of our friends and family interactions, and support groups.  Elise needs more time out of the house with friends however... any activity such as house visits, walks, 1-on-1 conversation, shopping, excursions, happy hours, Pickleball... with the usual COVID-19 precautions.  These interactions are a big help to me also.  Unfortunately, she is not yet able to text or email, so contacts must go through my cell phone.

Thanks for your support.

Tom

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