Christmas Eve '09

Hello everybody,
I hope you are all prepared for tomorrow and can relax a little today. I think I'm finished as far as gifts are concerned, however I am missing one very important part of my holiday - Tom!

Yes, it's Christmastime and Tom is in the hospital (why Christmas every year, right?). He may have had a seizure Wednesday afternoon. It all started out with him not being able to see his left hand when he had both hands placed on a chair in front of him. His extremeties became numb, to the point of me having to put him over my shoulder and drag him to the couch. Katie helped to maneuver his feet around the corners of different objects. He really couldn't walk. Next, he felt dizzy and thought he might be having a petit mal seizure. His pheripheral vision became more limited on the left side. Next, he started complaining of a headache - in the right frontal lobe area of his brain. So with all of those symptoms and the fact that one side of one's brain affects the opposite side of the body, it seemed to be more symptomatic of a mild stroke.

Tom was conscious and able to talk and eat. Dinner was ready at about the same time all of this began taking place. So once he got settled on the couch he asked for a bowl of chicken pot pie. Five minutes later he asked for more. When I went to get his bowl from him I noticed that there was still a significant amount of food remaining, which I pointed out to him. He said, "Oh, I didn't see that". He was really having trouble with his vision. He couldn't see me if I was standing to his left.

He finally agreed that we should go to the hospital asap which we did thanks to my neighbor Jim for helping me get Tom in my car. He was checked into the ER, talked to a doctor, had a CT scan, and was eventually admitted to the Neurology wing.

He spent two nights there. It is Christmas Eve morning as I type this and I still don't know if he will be discharged. I talked to his nurse who gave me the following, most up-to-date status:

*No seizure actitivy
*Most recent MRI shows improvement over the last one which was performed yesterday
*He has a slight headache
*Once the doctor makes his morning rounds he will determine whether Tom can be discharged today

That's all I know right now.