Ralph’s Story

Site created on October 12, 2019

St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute
12300 Metcalf Ave
Overland Park,KS 66213
Room 2001

(Rehab is a new bldg attached to the south end of the hospital. Entrance is on the east side, facing Metcalf.)

First and foremost, CaringBridge is free.  You do not have to donate.  It is a great site to get information out. Donating is optional. This is Sandy, his wife, posting the updates.


On Thursday, October 10, 2019, Ralph woke up at 5:30am, trying to sit up in bed and coughing.  He has had acid reflux at night in the past so I thought that was the problem.  But because it persisted for a few seconds and he wasn't answering me if he was ok, I got up and turned the light on and could immediately see he was having a stroke.  EMT came fairly quick and took him to KU Med (not the closest) because of their stroke center.


He could not receive the clot busting medication because it has to be taken in a certain time frame of stroke occurrence, and because he woke up that way, there was no way to know when it occurred.  We went to bed late, probably 12:30am after watching the Washington Nats win their game to move on to the NLCS.   We were looking at Stubhub talking about possibly going watch them play the Cards in St. Louis on the 11th.   It was an ordinary Wednesday night.  So between 1am and 5:30am the stroke began.  He wasn't sick, wasn't showing any signs of distress.


When he got to KU Med, CT scan showed there was narrowing of the carotid artery so the neurologist was having difficulty maneuvering his clot retrieval tool through the narrowing and the clock is still ticking, the stroke is still happening.  He came to tell me that issue and that they were putting him under anesthesia to attempt again.  They put in a stint to hold the artery open with success and blood once again began to flow, however many hours had elapsed where the left side of the brain was oxygen deprived and basically dead.  Causing right side paralysis, loss of speech and some cognition.


He was getting amped up for retirement at the end of the year.  And we had started looking at homes to retire in Virginia. 

Newest Update

Pictures

Journal entry by Sandy Davis —

You can only post 5 pictures to an entry on caringbridge so here’s a few more. 

We went to the Nationals home opener on April 1st, which was also my birthday. It's a 3hr drive which took much longer that day, and Rachel meet us at the metro and rode in with us.  

At the park we had two seats up top in the ADA section for wheelchairs and the other four seats were down in the front row IN THE SUN AND BLOCKED BY WIND! Needless to say I spent a small fortune, looking for blankets a winter hat and sweatshirt for Ralph. I brought in one rain poncho because it was supposed to rain and I thought I’d at least use that to cover Ralph and the wheelchair, but we never got rain so I wore it as a wind block. 

Last year at a game, Ralph’s wheel came off his chair and we got to do absolutely nothing but sit at our seats and wait for maintenance to bring us a screwdriver, so my brother and I could try and pry the tread back on the wheel. That was the first time we’d been at the stadium so we couldn’t explore or anything. This time coming out of the metro at the stadium, somehow Lexi fell and face planted onto the street, in the crowd, and hurt her knee and ankle. We would’ve helped her except we all kept walking right along to the front gate to get in and had no idea she had fallen behind us. Lol. 😂 Some random stranger stopped to help her until she could get up and then her sister realized she wasn’t with us anymore, and turned around and saw that something had happened and somebody was helping her up. So a trip to the first aid station was at the top of the list for Band-Aids.

I feel like some Royals mojo is telling me we’re not meant to watch the Nationals live!!

Enjoy the laugh!
Read More of the journal titled "Pictures"
  • My youngest brother, one of his daughters and then my two girls went to the game with us.
    My youngest brother, one of his daughters and then my two girls ...
  • You can see how his foot isn’t flat. 
    You can see how his foot isn’t flat.
  • This is his daily leg brace. 
    This is his daily leg brace.
  • We were sort of play posing for this photo, but it was so cold that day. And I think it just looks hilarious of us two grumpy old people.
    We were sort of play posing for this photo, but it was so cold ...
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