Stroke of More than Luck

Two weeks ago today, after becoming temporarily blind in one eye the night before,

Stop: Okay, if you become blind in one eye, you don't assume it's a migraine. Okay, keep reading.
  
Man O woke up with what he thought was a slept-on arm. Numb and all. That was before he realized he couldn't talk right and leaned when he walked. I realized his face was drooping. The theme song from the old show EMERGENCY started playing in my head. I loved Randolph Mantooth and Robert Fuller. I have a thing for dark haired dudes. Ahem.

Stop: Do not allow your husband to climb back up the stairs to get dressed before driving to the ER. Keep him in his pjs. Call 9-1-1. We were fortunate to be near the hospital but still..back to our story.  

A few months ago, I was in the hospital for stroke-like symptoms. Ultimately found out it was a bad drug reaction. BUT... We had to sit through stroke education FOUR times. Why, do we have to do this over and over, we asked ourselves? It was so boring. Guess what happened and guess what we remembered.

Find information about strokes here.

Strokes don't just happen to old people or overweight people. The type of stroke ManO had is the rare type that affects less than 5% of the population. Usually caused by trauma, it involves an artery splitting.  No, I didn't try to strangle him. No, it wasn't whiplash. It just happened spontaneously. A first warning sign was that blindness in one eye, caused by loss of blood flow to the optic nerve. And then the facial drooping, arm weakness and speech difficulty.

Well, ManO was in the hospital so long that I fixed his meals to look like this at home.

Didn't want him to go into shock by having all his food on one plate. But do you notice anything? No, absolutely no leafy green veggies. None! Why you ask?

Stroke survivors are put on blood thinners to prevent clots from forming and causing another stroke. Warfarin (brand name Coumadin) is actually descended from rat poison invented in 1948. Yup, same thing, lower dose. There are newer ones out there but the type of stroke ManO had made the doctor go old school on the meds.

But the way it works is by disrupting the body's ability to absorb Vitamin K, thereby thinning the blood. SO, a person on it can't eat foods with heavy levels of the vitamin like dark green leafy veggies, cranberry juice and mayo. Note: if you eat exactly the same amount of Vitamin K every single day, you can keep on it but most folks know what a hard task that is when added to getting well so they go with the ban instead.

Now ManO didn't cry a river over a ban on brussel sprouts and asparagus (my favorite veggies). But he balked at a dry sandwich. Turns out soybean oil is in everything like corn is! And soybean oil is highly concentrated Vitamin K, as is canola and sunflower.

I didn't want to make my own mayo using raw eggs so I searched and searched until I found this:

      
It has all sorts of other ingredients I can't eat but it made ManO happy.

Then I realized ManO doesn't eat organic peanut butter. He eats Jif. Guess what regular Jif has in it? Fortunately there is another Jif with palm oil instead.

Hopefully ManO will only have to watch his vitamin K levels for a few months. His symptoms are improving. But I am looking for all the carrot and green bean recipes I can so he doesn't get bored.

But it doesn't really matter what I feed him. What he needs most is love and, believe me, he gets it!

The best medicine is a "gentle hug" from a three year old.

So, what about you? Have you lived through medical emergencies that turned your life upside down? Have you had to give up certain foods due to allergies or medical conditions? Can you even imagine giving up leafy green veggies?