My surroundings have changed and so has my life since October 19, 2012. My husband, son Matt and I were looking forward to a road trip to Elkhart, Wisconsin for an endurance car race with another car dealer and his son at Road America. It was something that we had looked forward to since July.
We left Minnesota around midnight to travel the seven hours from our home to the track on Thursday, October 18, 2012 so we would arrive early in the morning in Elkhart. We got there a few hours early before could check in at the track. We gassed up the truck and starting looking forward to finding a nice place for some breakfast.
We hadn’t traveled far when I was struck with the most intense pain in my head I have ever felt. My husband pulled the car to the curbside as I opened the window and then the door and collapsed onto the grassy curb. This was the last image I remember of the day.
According to my husband and son they called for 911 and my son began CPR on me. They loaded me up in an ambulance and took me to the Sheboygan hospital and then planned to airlift me to Milwaukee but couldn’t because of the weather. They followed to the Sheboygan hospital to be met by the chaplain thinking that I didn’t make it, that I was gone… They then loaded me in another ambulance and transported me to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the Froedtert Hospital. I don’t remember any of this other than the grassy curb where I collapsed.
I woke up in Milwaukee to find out that I had a hemorrhagic stroke but they weren’t sure it was an aneurysm yet they would have to let the blood be reabsorbed before they could do an angiogram to try to find the aneurysm. They did the study last Friday and found two veins that the need to stint and an aneurysm to coil before I can be released. That is set for this Friday.
It has been a wild ride of pain, pain meds, treatments and not knowing what is next. It is hard to be seven hours from home but my children and extended family have made the trip to visit. They say that I am in one of the best hospitals for my condition and for that I am thankful for especially since I had contemplated stay home from the racing weekend which would have left me alone all weekend and likely to have received the quick and great care I received.
Just the week before we left home my husband made the comment that he was ready for one of those vacations where you go somewhere long enough to actually get bored and want to go home. While this is not a vacation I am definitely bored and ready to be home.
I don’t know that I will look at each new day differently but how else can I in recognizing the gift of life that I have been given. God is Good.
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