It started out as a routine day. I was working in Houston at a chemical plant. It was a cold and windy day. \u00a0I was working with a team of three and I was forty feet up a smokestack, which I had climbed via a ladder mounted on the side of the \u00a0stack. \u00a0 I was alone but I had a radio. \u00a0When suddenly, I felt a wave pass over me. \u00a0I knew something was wrong, but what? I felt like I was on the deck of a ship, gently rocking. The world felt like it had gotten fuzzier, and weird. \u00a0I decided to wait it out and hoped it would pass. \u00a0But it didn’t. \u00a0And\u00a0 I was getting weaker. \u00a0I decided to get off the stack while I could. \u00a0As I looked\u00a0down the ladder, I thought “This could get ugly”. \u00a0I got weaker as I descended. \u00a0I concentrated to keep my grip on each rung of the ladder. Slowly I descended, until I reached the ground, exhausted. I sat down to rest. \u00a0Instead of the rest re-energizing\u00a0 me, I felt exhausted. \u00a0I tried to get up and walk to the lab trailer, but I collapsed. My muscles were paralyzed yet I could feel sensation in my extrematies.\u00a0 \u00a0I was fully aware of what was going on but bewildered as to\u00a0 what it was. As I lay on the ground, I heard the radio chatter. \u00a0“Where is Randy?”…..silence…..”He has fallen at the base of the stack. ” The plant’s first responders were summoned and they arrived within minutes. They rolled me on my back and asked me questions, but I could barely talk. \u00a0One of them said, “I think he has had a stroke”.\u00a0 My thoughts raced.\u00a0 “Oh crap, this can’t be happening, I’m only 58.”. An ambulance arrived and I was taken to a local hospital.<\/p>\n
In the hospital, I started to recover.Though weak and shaken, I could talk and ask questions , and my hands and arms had recovered to the degree that I could sign forms. My prospects were looking hopeful.\u00a0 A priest showed up to give me Last Rites, which I found confusing. It turns out my mother had been notified and demanded I be given Last Rites. I was started on an IV of tPA, which is a clot buster and flown by helicopter to a near-by hospital that specialized in strokes. We were met by a nurse and I was\u00a0 taken to the ICU to be checked in. It was decided to take me to get a MRI.\u00a0On the way , I started having trouble breathing. Real difficulty. There was a problem transferring me to the MRI table.\u00a0 The technicians were mostly petite women and I was a big guy(6’2″, 280#). My breathing worsened. Fade to black..I don’t remember anything from this point.<\/p>\n
It was one of those days.<\/p>\n
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It started out as a routine day. I was working in Houston at a chemical plant. It was a cold and windy day. \u00a0I was working with a team of three and I was forty feet up a smokestack, which I had climbed via a ladder mounted on the side of the \u00a0stack. \u00a0 I … Continue reading February 23, 2013- One of those days<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/strokepilgrim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}