new beginnings II - Dying twice

....  by now, I was faced with the toughest fight in my life.  The stroke had taken away the use of the left side of my body.  Just imagine half of your body not working and how that would affect you.  I suffered from extreme  "Left side neglect" as well which means my brain couldn't recognize  ANYTHING on my left side including people or objects to my left.   This caused everyone to approach me from my right or be ignored.  One of the more terrifying moments was when my nurse held my left hand up in front of me to challenge my brain to recognize it.  I started sobbing hysterically   (which is a normal reaction I'm told) as if it were a monster as a child.   This "shock" paid off though as I started to slowly recognize my left side body parts, although the neglect for objects remained and  still does to a lesser degree.
One of the most humiliating parts of recovery is the necessity to wear adult diapers because the nerve endings killed by the stroke included those that tell you when you need to go to the bathroom.  I hated it but it was necessary.  There's not much more humbling to a 42 year old man than  to be rolled around as a nurse's aide changed your diaper like a baby.  You have to remember my mind was not affected at all.  My cognitive ability, logical reasoning, overall intelligence remained the same  and yet here my body was being treated  like an infant.
 The scariest moments post surgery were the two times I "coded" (heart stopped beating) and I became a "code blue"!   I stopped breathing as well until they put a "trache" in my windpipe,  I still carry that scar.  Fortunately they reacted fast and revived me.
Another scary time was when my feeding tube site became extremely infected(oozing green) and I had a temp off of the charts and they rushed me into an ice bath!....I ended up at one time or another with a life threatening infection like MERSA 5 times during my two month stay in Shock Trauma.  I was finally transfered to a full inpatient rehab facility called Kernan......   See my next blog for the start of my physical recovery/rehab......