Angie & Jim

We’re Backby Jim

And we’re back in the hospital today. On our drive to our temple shift this morning, I asked Angie how she was doing and she said, “I feel like I have lost some brain cells.” Just last night I noted in my personal journal that something didn’t seem right, and when Angie responded in this way, I insisted that she call someone at the hospital. Over the last few days I had observed a few very small things, but in aggregate it was enough for me to notice and be a little concerned. So when she said what she did, I knew something was wrong. We got ahold of someone from the hospital and they told us we should come in to the emergency room here at Stanford.

We got here a few hours ago and they started with a CT scan. Comparing it to a previous scan, they saw some abnormalities and believe she had a mild stroke, probably induced by the catheterization she had on Tuesday. They are planning on taking her back for an MRI shortly. Her motor function is still good and strong, and she doesn’t have any slurred speech. She has some slight decrease in dexterity in her left hand, but it is minor. The most telling symptom we noticed was that yesterday she was trying to write a postcard and was struggling with some uncharacteristic mistakes and she felt her handwriting wasn’t as clean as it usually is.

They want to do a bunch more tests and make sure to rule out any other possible cause. Unfortunately, catheterizations always carry a risk like this, so it probably was what caused it. Fortunately, they seem to be optimistic that she may be able to recover and regain some or most of her lost skill, especially since her symptoms are so mild. The biggest thing now is to make sure there isn’t something else that might cause another stroke in the future.

I will post more when we know more. Thank you for your love and concern and prayers on our behalf.