Suddenly, a Stroke

I was folding laundry.

I don’t think you can get any more mundane. Dusting, maybe, or melting butter in a pan. I’m sure you can think of a hundred things, but the point is the same: I wasn’t doing anything special.

Suddenly, I couldn’t see. A zipper zipped up in my left field of vision, complete with sound effects. Ziiippp. Like on a pair of jeans. I knew I was in big, big trouble.

I felt something warm release at the back of my head and cascade down my spine. I’m having a stroke, I thought. That must be blood.

Even now, I’m amazed at my presence of mind. I could have just fallen apart. I could have just died. But I sprang into action instead.

You know those silly things people send you on the Internet? What to do in case of heart attack, stroke, or stomach pains. Well, I actually read them. And remember, it seems.

You always wonder how you’re going to react when The Moment comes. Don’t think you’ll just fold up shop and go away. You won’t. I was having a stroke. And, because of one of those emails I got, and skimmed, I knew I had to get help right away.

But first, I had to make some decisions. Big ones. Should I live or should I die? It’s a powerful thing, having death in your hands. I felt anything but powerful at the time. Powerless is how I felt.

And determined. Should I live or should I die? I was old enough to die, in my estimation. Yet I had decades left, and I felt unfinished. My story hadn’t been completed yet. All of this in a fraction of a second, mind you. That’s another thing—you think fast.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re dying. Mine didn’t flash before me, but I did contemplate death. And I decided not to die (obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing this). Eventually I would die, of course, but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t done having adventures, that was for sure. That was right, because I’m having quite an adventure recovering.

All this went through my head in about two seconds. I was still sitting on the bench at the end of my bed. The laundry was half-folded; the basket at my feet. I knew I had to get to a phone, or I’d be toast. This involved crossing the bed. Piece of cake, you think. It wasn’t.

It was miles across that bed to the phone on my night table. I was dizzy. So dizzy I didn’t want to move. So dizzy that the slightest motion brought on waves of nausea. Yet I had to get to that phone.

They say, in a life-and-death situation, you can do amazing things, like lift a car, because of the adrenaline pumping through your body. I must have been filled with adrenaline, because somehow I crossed those miles of white sheets. I might as well have been crossing an ocean in a rowboat. Every inch was something I had to fight for, but fight I did.

From the time you can understand what a telephone is, it’s drilled into your head to dial 911 in an emergency. But you have to have the presence of mind to do it, and you have to remember the number as the life is leaving your body. This is easier said than done.

I remembered one phone number, and it wasn’t 911. It was the cell phone number of a friend who lived up the street. I only had it in me to dial that one number. This is the most worrisome thing about having something like a stroke happen when you’re alone and can’t depend on someone else to have a clear head and a good memory. There’s just nothing to be done about it.

Miraculously, my neighbor answered. She never answered! She started asking me questions, so in spite of my dizziness, my nausea, my feeling that a trip across the bed was like a trip across an ocean, I said simply, “I’m dying here.” I heard her boyfriend shouting in the background. “Get over there!” Later, I knew he would have come running, but, being in a wheelchair, he couldn’t.

I was dying, and I knew it. Somehow, I’d gone from a healthy, vibrant, well-exercised woman to this creature who couldn’t walk across a room to pick up a phone. I started to throw up. The nausea had finally culminated in the inevitable.

Next thing I knew, I heard my friend and neighbor’s key in the door. Simultaneously, I heard the whine of a siren. For once, it was for me. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I felt. Those people, the paramedics, are trained and they know what to do. Do they realize how important they are? I hope so.

I heard people clomping up the stairs. It turned out to be two young guys, moving very, very fast. Their faces told me everything I needed to know. One of them crouched down (I was on the floor at this point and could not move), and shone a light into my eyes. I knew he was looking at my pupils. I knew they weren’t the same.

I looked at his face. Holy moly, it seemed to say. This is the real deal. No kidding around. I went in and out of consciousness. I remember the paramedics (who were those guys? I want to thank them) carrying me down my long, curving staircase in a sling. Sun on my face. I remember being put in an ambulance. I remember the paramedic saying to me, over and over, Stay with me. Just stay with me.

I don’t recall anything else until a couple of days later.