Untethered

His stroke changed the course of our lives - March 17th.

He was hospitalized and stayed for 3&1/2 days with a stent (thrombectomy) procedure done.

Diagnosed with diabetes.

The morning felt normal like any other morning.

He dropped off Aditi to her bus stop and came back. We spoke for sometime till about 7:00 AM or later.

Anirudh wasn’t keeping well and had missed school the day before. He was still not all better for school and it was decided that he would stay home that day too. So we decided to sleep in for a little bit before he had to log-in for work.

Around 9:20 or something Anirudh woke him up. Thats when he felt disoriented and called for me.

I went up the stairs to check what the matter was and he was standing leaning onto the ledge in front of the common bathroom. I made him walk up to the bed, sat him down. He was asking us the time and wasn’t comprehending when we responded. His mouth was drooping to the left a bit.

Made him do the smile, stretch, stick tongue out steps. And unwillingly (frozen & denial response) figured out that he was showing symptoms of a stroke. I started calling his colleagues/ team mates to update them about his situation. Was trying to figure out where to take him (in a half cooked brain way - Primary Care Physician, Urgent Care etc…. 🙄). Asked my son to freshen up quickly, gave him breakfast, made him go to a neighbor, freshened up also. All in the meanwhile, he went t o take a shower to shake off the “grogginess”. When I checked in the master bedroom, when he was not on the bed, I unlocked the bathroom door & made him come out quickly. Thats when another development showed - he was not able to grip/ hold the towel with his left hand. Quickly dried him and put clothes on and made him lie down while I made a quick call to another neighbor to check if they were available to accompany us to Urgent Care.

When the neighbor knocked on the door, as I was almost done getting him ready, I invited the neighbor to come inside as he was not agreeing to go see a doctor/ visit a health care center and if the neighbor asked him to come, he would listen/ comply. What we saw then was even more concerning. He was asking for his shoes for wearing them when they were already placed on the floor in front of the shoe organizer. Multiple times. He was not recognizing what was right in front of him. That’s when we decided to take him to an ER. At the ER, after the initial evaluation & CT imaging, they concluded that he was having a stroke and that because golden window for administering the stroke stopping medicine (injection) had passed they could not it there and that the carotid artery in the right side of neck was blocked. He would need a thrombectomy. He had to be moved to another bigger facility where the procedure could be done. We were sent away to Penn Medicine in Philly. He was taken away in an ambulance with the lights and siren and we were to follow him. I was scared out of my brains. A procedure? What was the % of a good outcome. I was drawing blanks to everything. I texted Aditi that we had taken her dad to a hospital. Nothing to worry about and to just go to the neighbor where Ani was already there.

I called back home (his parents) and updated them of what had happened and asked them not to worry and promised to keep them updated. Called Raghu and asked him to come pick up our kids. Thank the heavens for putting us in the same state as Raghu & family, just so I could and was able to lean on them in such a grave situation.

At Penn, we arrived before the ambulance and I went to the front desk to ask them on which floor the OT was after giving them the patient details (the traffic did not make it any easy and each passing minute could alter our lives’ trajectories forever). I got a call from an unknown number (from the hospital) - ER & they told me that he was being evaluated AGAIN. Of course which was necessary. But minutes were turning into hours - precious time lost. I asked them where the ER was located and went there. At the reception, they were not able to tell me the room number or anything as he was not assigned a room yet? After waiting for 5 minutes that felt like an eternity, I went back to them and told them that he was disoriented and not comprehending and having especial difficulty with communicating in English, it not being our native language. That’s when they pointed me in the right direction. When we went into the room there were about 10-15 people surrounding him and he was completely overwhelmed and flustered by the looks on his face and maybe scared to his wits end. The doctor (neurologist) that was seeing/ assessing him, she was scared from her flushed cheeks and the look in her eyes. Such a young patient with such diagnosis scares the doctors. She repeated what we already knew and he was wheeled away to the OT. She stayed back to explain to us what the diagnosis looked like showing the CT images and pointing to which part of his brain was affected, telling us that they are projecting the damage to 2/3rds of the hemisphere. I had nothing else than to wait out the entire time in the unknown. Too many things running in my head but nothing seemed to make any sense. I was holding a calm front even as I was crumbling away. What should have taken like a half hour took the neuro-surgeon a good 2 hours and more for clearing the blockage and placing the stent in his artery, as he had to deal with the tortuosity of his artery too.

Finally the procedure was done but I did not hear back anything and I could not take any more of the unknown. I was fighting back invasive thoughts and tears as I tried to put on a brave face. I received a call on my phone and that was from the Neuro-surgeon that performed the procedure and he assured me that it went well and that he was hoping that Kishore would make a full recovery. I was relieved a bit. He was being moved into an ICU room and we went in there just as he was arriving. He was very weak and in a state like delirium due to the effects of anesthesia. I went and held his hand and assured him that he was okay and I was right beside him. Raghu came after dropping his kids and wife at our place. The neuro-surgeon called on my phone again to let me know what happened that caused the procedure to take that long and that they were able to successfully clear the blockage and place a stent and that he was hopeful of Kishore making a full recovery. My worries were put to rest a bit more. But then I started to question and think of all possible reasons that caused the event. I was going completely crazy in my head. Why this? Why us? Why now? I called Aditi to update her and asked her to pack their go-bags for them to go & stay at Raghu’s place and to pack a change of clothes for me too for our hospital stay.

As the doctors and nurses came to check upon his status, he was being awoken from his sleep like state and he was doing not so much better at comprehension and responding. I had to jump in to be the bridge between them & him. I was shaken completely at how the man now became so fragile and child-like. My mind was finding it hard to come to terms to the fact that it was a long road to rehabilitation and recovery. Some moments were real hopeful and others not so much. As unfortunate as the event itself, it was also a good thing in the sense that it all happened at a young age where it was caught and remediated. And being young had its own advantages - his own body being able to fight, manage and survive what could have been a totally unfavorable outcome.

The next day we were shot with another diagnosis - his underlying, undiagnosed till then, unmanaged diabetes with his Hb A1C through the roof and high cholesterol. All sorts of testing was happening. When the ECG team came, I started to worry to no ends. It felt like - every minute we were being presented with one new thing to worry about. The catheter caused an infection and he was not able to pee and developed a fever. The hope was being eaten away from the inside out - it felt like. Towards the end of day 2, the hope returned as the fever reduced and he was able to pee by himself without the catheter with a little help from me. The droopiness in his face/ mouth reduced. He was able to remember things from recent past. One good thing in all of this was that his language center was the part that was affected and so his gross motor skills were all there and the physicality was good. The rehabilitation part had to be focused on his speech recovery - addressing aphasia, apraxia, agraphia, alexia.

It is now almost over 6 months from the day of the occurrence and we are ever so grateful for everyday and for the outcome itself. It has not been easy to be the only person responsible for three of the most important people in my life. Having to be able to shoulder everything and make it seem effortlessly smooth and functioning - all the while falling apart numerous times to count, finishing up on my MS courses for graduation, teaching Aditi driving, taking her on college visits, the numerous appointments, tests, therapy sessions etc. Life has been nothing short of a roller coaster. But still I’m grateful for it being easy as compared to innumerable cases where the post-stroke recovery journey isn’t as easy. The four days when I recount, are truly traumatic. If only I was a better judge and had called 911 on the day of. My dad’s event a year prior was replaying in my head which made me freeze in place. The inability of visiting my dad, of being stuck 1000s of miles away and the pricking thought of not being able to visit a loved one even if it was to bid goodbye crippled me mentally and made me incapacitated to act. Very fortunately for us both the loved ones are with us today - thank the heavens for that.

Untethered

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