Eighteen days ago my wife Jolie was making lunch. Then she wasn’t. I heard, “Peter, I need you!” and found her slumped sideways in the recliner. “I’ve got a splitting headache behind my right eye.”
I ran next door to our daughter Linda’s house. We half carried Jolie to the car and headed for Pullman Regional Hospital’s emergency room. En route, we phoned Brad, Linda’s husband, who works at the hospital. Brad met us outside the ER with a wheelchair. He had arranged everything.
A CAT scan revealed Jolie had experienced a stroke. “We have what we call ‘clot-buster’ medicine,” the doctor said, “but it has side effects and it has to be administered within three hours after onset. You’ll have to decide.”
We were barely within the window. All three of us said, “Go for it!” The obvious effect of the stroke had been impairment of Jolie’s eyesight; she had blind spots. The intravenous medication seemed to relieve some symptoms, and vision improved partially as we waited. However, higher-resolution scanning equipment was required to monitor for possible brain bleeding due to that medication, so they transported Jolie by helicopter to Spokane’s Sacred Heart Hospital.
Aloft, the nurse asked whether this was Jolie’s first helicopter flight. “Yes,” she replied. “Mine too,” came a voice from the dark.
“That’s the pilot,” explained the nurse. A little levity goes a long way!
On Saturday, all our kids, Linda, Dan and Tom, joined me to visit the patient, two at a time, in the Intensive Care Unit. All was good except her eyesight — better, but still not functioning completely. Jolie would have to see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible after release and have to wait several months before driving.
She left the ICU Saturday evening and we headed home Sunday noon. From stroke onset to release it had been 48 hours. Jolie later wrote many friends, “The staffs of both hospitals were wonderful — as were the folks on the helicopter. Good care, and obvious caring … my ‘blind spots’ seem to be shrinking. … Meanwhile, all prayers are very welcome.”
That evening I emailed our ophthalmologist, Dr. Alyssa Hoehn, requesting, if possible, that she see Jolie sometime in the upcoming week. She responded early Monday: “I am so sorry to hear your wife had a stroke. Glad she is home and seems to be recovering well. I can absolutely see both of you this week. Let me know what day works the best for you and I will see to it that we get you in!” We chose Wednesday. Dr. Hoehn said she thought Jolie had a good chance of complete recovery. On Friday, one week after her stroke, Jolie walked two-thirds of a mile on the treadmill. She continues to recover, slowly, but well.
We learned some overarching takeaways from all this. First, if a stroke is suspected, time is of the essence. Anti-clot medicine is good only within about a three-hour window. A second lesson is the high-quality healthcare we encountered. Jolie’s note above mentions it, but from the perspective of a worried husband, the “care” part of “healthcare” means more caring than words can express.
The Palouse Baha’i community Jolie and I worship with is a small minority, yet as often happens when there is a need for prayers and other assistance, others join in for support. In this case the local Baha’is quickly shared news about Jolie’s stroke among our network of friends around the world. Some requests reached China, where we taught English for 11 years, as well as other countries. Heartfelt responses and promises of prayers have poured in, many from friends of other spiritual persuasions.
And neighbors. We experienced the best of caring country hospitality when nearby families from our Prune Orchard book club offered almost more eats than we could swallow. Henceforth I’m dubbing them Prune Orchard Literati, for their thoughtful understanding and caring.
I’ll end with part of a prayer our family often uses in stressful times. It seems to capture the essence of what prayer can be — acquiescence to God’s will as we understand it: “Bestow upon me my portion, O Lord, as Thou pleasest, and cause me to be satisfied with whatsoever Thou hast ordained for me.”
