Richard and I flew to Seattle last week for some follow up tests, the VA was nice enough to fly us and pay for our hotel room leaving us to only pay for food and some of the cab rides. This was pretty nice of them since they are still saying they have not processed him so technically he does not have VA benefits right now. That is a mess and really makes me angry since they are the ones who held up his retirement and everyone kept saying it would be worth it because he would have his VA rating when he retired....LIES, but that is another story.
He had another angiogram and we saw two of the doctors from his neurological team. The best they can determine right now is the stroke was caused by previous high blood pressure that damaged some arteries and made them weak. The bleed was in a very strange place, his young age and the fact that his blood pressure has been well controlled for the past year puzzled them, but six teams of doctors could find no other explination so that is where we are at. He will have a second CT scan in a couple months after all the blood has been absorbed to make sure there is no tumor, they are pretty sure there is not but want to be safe, I appriciate that.
He returned to work this week, the company was nice enough to allow him to work out of the Wasilla store for the next six months rather than have him drive to Anchorage everyday, his driving is restricted while they make sure he will not have anymore siezures. He is on antiseizure meds and has restarted his blood pressure medications. He is going to have an evaluation with a speech therapist just to make sure he does not need any therapy.
If you see him you would never believe he just had a stroke, but there are some things we notice. He has lost some memory, funny things like he cannot remember some shows we have seen several times, I guess that is nice for him when he wants to watch TV. A bit more frustrating, he said it took him several minutes to remember how to do a certain report at work that he did everyday several times a day, he also could not remember how to write a check today, in fairness he rarely writes checks and he did figure it out. He was having some trouble coming up with some words right after it happened but that seems to have stopped, he passed every test at the doctor with no problems at all.
I am so grateful, this could have been far worse than it ended up.
