My Stroke Recovery Story & Lessons Learned

My Stroke Recovery story and lessons learned is the subject of this Big B File.

In case you have not heard by now (or been under a rock all this time)…I wound up suffering from a trans ischemic stroke a.k.a. TIA Stroke one year ago this week.     Let me refresh your memory by  sharing the part of the story on what happened as it was written in the Big B Files commentary from August 28, 2021...…

On July 7^th, 2021, I woke up with a really strong pain in the upper left part of my back at about 5 a.m. and not really feeling like I want to get going. I went back to bed and woke up again about 7 a.m. took some Aleve liquid gels and then went to work.

I went to work at Target in Town And Country, MO at 8:00 am.  The pain seemed to go away then came back along with feeling weak in the bottom half of my body and a bit of lightheadedness after about an hour and a half of working there. One of the managers named Maddie walked with me to the Team Member Service Center or TMSC (Target’s term of the offices and break room area of the store) had a little discussion about it and then we mutually decided that I would go home. It was “fun” driving home, but I did make it home just fine. BTW…….Team Member is Target’s term for their employees.

After I got home, I did a little bit of work on a pro-life project for good friend and fellow IWKnight Steve Dickhut on my computer and then went and laid down for a little bit before getting a call for my diabetes doctor. It was about midday on that day that I felt like I could not drive myself and wound up having to call my twin sister Melissa Hewing and have drive me to the appointment that afternoon and as I was going to and from the appointment, I was walking as if I was waddling like a duck or as if I had way too much to drink Alcohol-Wise (even though I had not) and would be guaranteed to fail a field sobriety test within the first 30 seconds.

I was having trouble going to sleep and wind up being up half the night. After finally falling asleep at about 3:00am, I woke up at 7 and was not feeling well at all.  At Melissa's suggestion, I called off work that day and called the office of my primary care doctor, Dr. David Brown.  Based on what I told them and how I was talking to nurse for my doctor on the phone, my doctor's office suggested that I should go to the ER and get checked out.

I had Melissa drive me to the ER at Mercy Hospital and ended up in the neurological part of Mercy Hospital due to neurological issues I experienced beginning Wednesday Morning July 7th.

It was not until the morning of July 9th that I was diagnosed with having had an Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weenie sized TIA Stroke. It was not discovered or diagnosed until an MRI was done of the brain that morning... Otherwise, it would never have been discovered at all and it was in an area (from what I was told) on the right side of the brain where a number of areas of the brain meet which controls a number of the functions of the left side of the body.

Fortunately, the stroke is reversible after some physical therapy to which I have been doing as an inpatient at the Mercy Rehabilitation Hospital on North Outer 40 Drive in Chesterfield, MO from July 10^th to July 22nd and as an outpatient at the SSM Health Day Institute Physical Therapy in Chesterfield, MO since July 27th...but should be pretty much back to normal soon and I have been be able to handle the website and Graphic Design stuff, etc. essentially just as before.

One heck of a way to start my tenure as Deputy Grand Knight for the IW Knights of Columbus Council......HOLY COW!

I can hold my tablet (the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7) and my laptop pretty much like normal now, but for the first several weeks I could only hold the tablet for a short while the laptop is another story as my hands were not up to that at that point…especially the left hand. I guess you can say is his progress considering that just the Saturday night / Sunday morning (July 10-11, 2021) before, I was only able to hold anything in my hand for literally just few seconds before I would start to drop it .... I guess you can say is a good sign of progress.

I started using a walker for going around while I was at Mercy Rehabilitation Hospital and eventually for the first few weeks while I was at SSM Health Day Institute in Chesterfield, MO before I was told that I was no longer needing it.  I still do have it in my apartment  in Ellisville just in case (although I did end up using it once this past February 2022 when I wound up making a return visit to the ER due to the Effects of COVID-19 that made me a little on the weak side ).

I was not able to drive myself anywhere until September 24, 2021 when the therapists at the SSM Health Day Institute in Chesterfield, MO said I was cleared to be able to drive myself again. During that time, I needed to find transportation to go to things like Mass (Sunday Mass and Daily Mass), meetings especially the IW Knights of Columbus council meetings (where I am Deputy Grand Knight), weekly gatherings at BreadCo or wherever the Rectangle of Wisdom is meeting, etc. This is especially the case during the daytime when my twin sister Melissa normally worked in Clayton and is unable to be my transportation (she still currently works at the same job in Clayton she had at that time).

I applied for and was approved for a medical Leave Of Absence or LOA from Target. It will fortunately be a paid leave and I was paid 75% of what I would normally earn per hour ($15.30 hourly) and for the average length of hours which is little over 21 hours a week during the leave.  After a few months, that pay rate dropped to 60% of what I would normally earn per hour and I wound up (based on Medical advice and from a fellow team member) extending my LOA through December 5, 2021.

After the medical LOA was terminated on December 5, 2021, it was converted to Long-term Disability period or LTD. Because I was receiving Social Security Disability (which was recently ended by the Social Security Administration [SSA]),  I was only given a maximum of $89 a month before that ended in mid January 2022.

I pretty much have just driven around West (St. Louis) County and have only driven to downtown St Louis City one time since I started driving again…..which is something I definitely need to work on.

Even though my leaves (LOA & LTD respectively) ended on January 16, 2022, I was not able to return to work at Target until mid April 2022 due to what I would call a case of “The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing” type situation.

I started out working two four hour shifts a week, but I am now. Working a basically regular work schedule (whatever that is for retail [Target]) with some medical restrictions from my doctor.

You know the ole saying that Hindsight is 20/20? Well, I can definitely attest to the fact that that ole saying is true. Pretty much everybody that I know missed the warning signs of a stroke…...including myself. I cannot speak for anybody else…...but as for myself, I would have to say that my age created sort of a blind spot in my mind. What I mean by that is that I had literally just turned 46 just a little over a couple of weeks prior to when the stroke occurred and most people don't expect someone who is in their 40s to end up suffering from a stroke. Most people usually…. myself included…. when they hear the word stroke most people usually associate a person having had a stroke with someone who's in their 60s, 70s, or older…. which is why it was a total shock to me that I suffered from a stroke and I still cannot believe it even happened to me.

There are times were I am saying something to someone then am forced to pause to either give my mind a chance to catch up or collect my thoughts and then be able to resume the conversation like before. There are also times like this past Friday where I was telling something to some friends of mine and then to having to really wrack my brain just to recall a name that would have been much easier for me before the stroke occurred. It’s kind of like having these “memory blocks” if you will.

Earlier in this commentary I mentioned good friend and fellow IWKnight Steve Dickhut. During a discussion we had in my apartment, we both realized that there's a possibility that may been signs that were occurring I was having the stroke the day before while I was working on a project that I mentioned earlier that I was making mistakes that I wouldn't normally make... Which makes me wonder if the stroke didn't start occurring that the day before on July 6th. But, as I said before….hindsight is definitely 20/20…..lessons learned.

Steve Dickhut and I were in the same McDonald’s near Melissa and I’s apartment a few months ago working on a project for the IWKnights Annual Lenten Fish Fry when he noticed a woman and her autistic son.  Steve then mentioned that the same mother and child were in the same restaurant at the same woman the day before the whole stroke episode officially began. I don’t know whether there is any special meaning to it or not or if this is just a coincidence or there is nothing to it, but it is something that I thought of mentioning.

I do want to once again say thanks to all those who have helped me during the recovery process from my TIA Stroke all these past few months…..from the Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals at Mercy Hospital in Creve Coeur (St. Louis), MO and Mercy Rehabilitation Hospital in Chesterfield, MO,  SSM Health Day Institute, Barnes West Medical Consultants (including Dr. David Brown – my Primary Care Physician), others in the BJC Healthcare system, members of the IWKnights of⁷⁷ Columbus Council #9981 in Chesterfield, MO, my dear twin sister Melissa Hewing,  Zip Rzeppa, and others that I failed to mention……thanks.

If anyone wants me to come to speak to a group and/or organization about this subject and share my story, feel free to contact me by clicking here. That is where things stand as of now......Happy Clams!

……And that’s the Big B Files.  Click on the comments link below and tell me what you think……I’m Bryan V. Hewing.