Stroke day

“Well, today’s the day,” I said to my wife.
“What?” she said.
“October 26 (Wednesday, October 26, 2011), stroke-day.” I said.
18 long years ago I got up around 1:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom.
All-of-a-sudden, WHAM!
It felt like my whole being dipped and recovered.
A clot passed through the atrial septal defect in my heart, which I wasn’t aware of, and blocked a blood-vessel toward my brain.
A stroke (a thrombosis, a clot-caused stroke).
I was working a particularly difficult bus-run, eight straight hours on Main St. through Rochester, incredibly busy, stop at every stop, only one break in mid-morning.
It had the logistical advantage of being relieved at the Barns, which meant that I could just walk to my parked car. —I wasn’t downtown, waiting for a ride back to the Barns.
Only a few straight-eights existed, all driven by high-seniority guys.
I was fairly high seniority too, I think 33. But on the first page of three or four.
I had just returned from West Virginia, after chasing a railroad steam-locomotive with my brother, Nickel Plate 765, although masquerading as Chesapeake & Ohio 2765 — the train was on the old C&O main though New River Gorge in WV.


NKP 765 masquerading as C&O 2765. (Photo by Robert Lyndall©.)

Chesapeake & Ohio had 2-8-4 locomotives very similar to the Nickel Plate Berkshires (2-8-4). They were the 2700 series. —In fact, C&O even had a 2765.
(“Nickel Plate” is the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, called the “Nickel Plate” long ago by a New York Central executive because it was so competitive. The railroad eventually renamed itself the “Nickel Plate.” Norfolk & Western Railroad bought the Nickel Plate years ago, and N&W has since merged with Southern Railway, to become Norfolk Southern. Nickel Plate never actually attained New York city; it stopped at Buffalo.)
Chasing 2765 had been an incredible experience, but involved a long eight-hour drive back from WV.
Enough time for clots to form in my legs.
Not knowing anything, I went back to bed.
(We shoulda called 9-1-1.)
I hoped I’d recover by roll-out time, about 3 a.m.
But I didn’t.
So I called in sick to the bus-company.
Thus ended my 16&1/2 career of driving transit bus.
Worst of all, I had double-vision; what stroke-victims get from eyes pointing in different directions.
Finally around 10 a.m. my wife drove me to a hospital in Rochester.
I was able to give her directions (it’s about a 45 minute drive from the boonies).
My doctor said it sounded like a stroke.
But eight hours after a stroke is too late to do anything helpful; like clot-busting drugs.
We got in line in the Emergency-Room, a wait that ended up being all day.
It was decided I’d had a stroke.
In fact, it wasn’t until much later that I was assigned a hospital-room. I think I spent the night in the Emergency-Room.
As brain-tissue died from lack of blood I deteriorated.
My left side was paralyzed, particularly my arm.
Doctors wondered why I’d had a stroke, since I was running, a stunning example of good health.
But various tests determined I had the atrial septal defect, a hole between the upper chambers of my heart.
The hole exists during fetal development, a foreman-ovale (“four-AYA-min oh-VAL-eee”), but is supposed to close over. Mine hadn’t fully. (Quite a few don’t.)
A patent foreman-ovale (“PAY-tint”) ready to pass a clot.
It’s the same heart-defect New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“brew-skee”) had later, which also caused him a stroke.
Recovery was long and arduous, training what remained of my brain to do what the killed parts did.
Doctors told me there was no hope, but I wasn’t taking that!
I didn’t think I was that bad.
I was told I’d be a vegetable, that driving was impossible, and riding motorcycle was laughable.
I do both.
People tell me I’m a miracle!
I am pretty much recovered; I can pass for normal.
But I’m not fully. My balance is bad, and my speech is a tiny bit compromised.
I can’t work off a footstool. I need a ladder I can grab with my hands.
My speech can be halting and indeterminate. It isn’t using the brain-matter designed for speech (which no longer exists). —I’m afraid to say anything to anyone, and I avoid phonecalls. I’m perceived as antisocial.
I also have to be careful what I say or think, for fear of crying. Poor emotional control is a stroke-effect.
I can drive, but it apparently takes incredible concentration. I can only do it for five-six hours — less if it’s challenging, e.g. city expressway traffic.
My siblings all loudly insist I’m fully recovered, all due to their fervent praying — they’re tub-thumping born-again Christians.
I get this other places too — people don’t understand traumatic brain injury (TBI), how you can pass for normal, yet not be entirely normal.
I have to explain my slight speech disability to people, lest they get angry with me (it’s happened).
Apparently it was very warm that day, almost surreal.
And it snowed shortly thereafter.
But that was all long ago.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs.
• “The Barns” are at 1372 East Main St. in Rochester, large sheds for storing buses inside. An operations administration building was attached. We bus-drivers always said we were working out of “the Barns.”