Settling in at JFK

It has been quite a day!  This afternoon Mordy walked (with help) to the wheelchair so we could bring him down to our car.  When he went outside and saw daylight for the first time since Friday, he remarked about how bright it was!  His depth perception is a bit off, so he began closing one eye, and then the other, to try to see better...at that moment he realized that one eye was slightly blurry...maybe that's also from the stroke.  We're not sure.

I drove him and Ann, my mother-in-law, to JFK and had the nurse come bring him to his room.  Mordy is sharing a room with another man.  For some reason, this fellow watches TV on mute, which was awesome, because it meant Mordy could sleep in some peace and quiet for the first time in a while.  The hospital where he had been had all sorts of equipment beeping--from the ICU to the Neurology floor--so he never slept well there.  Plus, once he fell asleep, inevitably someone would come in and take his blood pressure or draw blood or wake him up some other way.  I am hopeful that he'll get more sleep now that he's at JFK. He needs the rest to heal.

Mordy still gets tired out very easily.  Whenever visitors come now (which we've had to severely limit for now), he gets super tired after the visit is over.  So I still ask that if you'd like to visit, please let me know--don't just show up!  Thanks.

He is also still dizzy and nauseous for a lot of the day.  When he sleeps, it sometimes gets better.  But not always.  This also appears to be a result of the stroke.

Folks have been asking how the stroke happened.  It appears that at some point in the last few weeks, Mordy turned his neck sharply.  He and I both remember that his neck has been sore for a few weeks now, though we don't know what caused the injury.  At the moment he turned his neck, he probably had a small tear, what they call "dissection", in the vertebral artery.  No big deal--a blood clot formed there.  But then, when he had a violent sneeze on Friday, the clot broke loose and traveled to the brain...so he had the stroke.

It is clear that this tear was NOT caused by exercise.  We also know that he experienced neck and shoulder pain for the last few weeks because of whatever Mordy originally did to his neck.  He had been taking tylenol, icing the area, taking warm showers, stretching, and nothing seemed to work.  So if there is one piece of advice that I have for you it is this: if you are in pain, don't try to self-medicate or resolve the problem on your own.  Get professional help.

I don't know that seeing a doctor would have prevented this, but in theory if he had an MRI, they could have seen the dissection and given him blood thinners before the stroke occurred.

On a separate note, I have heard from some folks that they have tried multiple times to post messages on the blog and that they haven't been able to.  If that happens to you--just email your message to me at GetWellMordy@gmail.com  I'm reading those messages, too, and I'm reading most of them to Mordy, depending on how tired he is each day.  I understand that some folks are blog-challenged...this is new for a lot of us! :-)

Tomorrow I hope to bring the kids to visit their father for the second time this week, the second time since the stroke happened last Friday.  Overall, they're doing really well, but I know they miss their father very much.

Many people have been offering to help with the kids, which I appreciate very much.  For now, I'm trying to be present for them, too.  I think that from their perspective, when their Abba (Dad) got sick, Mommy disappeared, since I was at the hospital all day each day for 3 days in a row.  So I'm trying to be home with them a bit more afterschool, if I can.

As for all the messages of all kinds, I am getting them and reading them, even though I'm not responding to the all.  Thank you again for all your kind words.  We hope Mordy continues to improve each day.
Esther