Judy Ackel

Monday morning Judy returns home from her daily walk and starts to experience dizziness and sweating. She asked her nephew, Brian to hang out with her because she wasn't feeling great. She sat for a minute and felt that it had passed. She started to walk away and her legs buckled and when she opened her eyes her vision was blurry and she had a severe headache. She knew that what she was experiencing was scary and had Brian call 911.

She was admitted to Riverside Community Hospital where they did a CT Scan and blood work. The doctor said that all of the blood work was good but they did see a small gray spot on the CT Scan, but attributed that to an old injury. They said she could be suffering from a severe migraine and possible dehydration.

I spoke with her briefly at the hospital before she was discharged and she said she had a massive headache and what had happened had scared the crap out of her. She went home early evening with her pain medicine.

Around 10:00 p.m. Eric said she was having a hard time walking but thought it could be the medicine she was given. A short time later, Judy was experiencing numbness in the right side of her body and when they got to E.R. she was having a hard time talking and couldn't walk unaided.

Judy was admitted again and sent to a room by early Tuesday morning. The long road for Judy had begun.

Judy is in her room and experiencing a lot of pain and is waiting for her scheduled MRI. She can't sit still and is sweating profusely. Eric and her mother Tina are with her and they get the nurse to give her something for the pain. She sleeps but restlessly and when she wants to communicate she moves her left hand to motion to Eric what she wants.

The pain medicine starts to take effect and she relaxes somewhat. She understands where she is and is scared. Judy can't really use her straw to drink so they hook her up to an I.V. so she will get fluids.

She gets her MRI after 12:00 and the neurologist comes in around 7:00 p.m. to check on Judy. Dr. Bailey (Neurologist) doesn't believe he's looking for a stroke mostly due to her young age. However, after doing a visual exam he sends her directly to I.C.U. and orders a litany of testing for Wednesday. I sit with Judy and Eric and feel like someone has just pulled the rug out from under our lives. Here is my dearest friend laying there still looking so beautiful, what is happening?

Eric has barely left Judy's bedside and Judy will have a busy day today. On Tuesday they intubated her and gave her Ativan to sedate her as they wanted her body to rest. It's kind of a medically induced coma. Today they will perform an EEG and a Baer Test.

They have a pulmonary specialist come in to watch the ventilator and check on Judy's heart. Her family is all nearby and waiting for the results. Her sister Peggy will fly into town today and is still wondering what the hell happened. Nothing seems real still. By Wed. evening Eric, along with Judy's family, his dad, and a few friends, wait for Dr. Bailey to return with some good news.

At around 8:00 Dr. Bailey calls the family in with devastating news. His original diagnosis is that Judy has Fibromuscular Dyplasia. The MRI shows that her brain stem is clogged by a thrombosis and her prognosis is at worst case, death; best case, entire paralysis. He's pretty much a tell it like it is kind of guy. Doesn't believe in giving anyone false hope.

As we all stood there outside ICU crying and hugging and trying to understand what was happening, Dr. Bailey found Eric downstairs and told him he reviewed two other test results and it looked like only the left half of her brain was affected, which would cause some paralysis on the right side only. She would be given Heparin and a steroid to reduce the swelling around the brain stem.

It was basically a wait and see thing. As awful as the news sounded we left that night thinking, "Yeah! Something good to hold on to."