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  • Writer's pictureCheryl

July 2 medical decisions

As a stroke survivor, I try to do everything I can to avoid having another one. I take my prescriptions. I watch my diet more closely. I am much better at staying hydrated. I exercise more. My stroke was listed as cryogenic, meaning without a cause. The doctors are not sure but I am. Something about the surgery, either the sedation, or the nerve block or the medication they gave me was the cause. I can’t prove anything so I don’t focus on that. What I do have a choice about is what I do from here.

But I do wish the doctors would have been more curious. They did all the requisite tests and when nothing obvious appeared, they stopped testing. nobody at that time was curious about the surgery and how that Could have contributed or been the cause. (I won’t go through all the research I did on my own here now, but probably some time I will.) The next step for them was how could I help them. There is research going on about aFib and how that can contrunite to ischemic strokes. As it just so happened, the neurologist I saw 2 months after the stroke, was a vascular neurologist who headed a research project studying the efficacy of eliquis for the prevention of stroke. Of course I was a perfect candidate.

long story short…I did not participate mostly because none of the doctors could tell me how much risk I would be taking. (In the control group I would only be given 1 baby aspirin per day. And in the hospital, I was instructed to take a full 325 grams aspirin daily.)

As I write about this now, I think, how outrageous was it to ask a person newly diagnosed with aphasia (language disorder) to make such an important decision about their health and potential risk of having another stroke and not give them adequate counsel.

But that’s the way I sometimes feel about Covid lately. We are left on our own. Sometimes without adequate information. I’m not suggesting that the government tell us what to do. I think we had enough of that at the beginning of Covid. I think we into trouble when everything was a one size fits all approach. (this is where my aphasia kicks in and makes it more difficult. I know what I want to say, it’s all there, and it just doesn’t come out… so many wonderful thoughts and words, and only a few come through….) I do so wish my individual doctors and my medical professupions wouid look at me as an individual, look at my history and my health at this time and help me make informed decisions for me about things like the Covid vaccine. Specifically now with the second booster. More on that next time….


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