Today is the anniversary of my 5th and final stroke. My 4th had happened 2 days before. #4 was different than all the rest: I had experienced the usual dizzy feeling at first, but that gave way to numbness and weakness in my left arm, flushed face and just overall fatigue that caused me to just go to bed. I woke up a couple hours later with the worst migraine of my life. I was in so much pain that I was screaming. I held my head all night while my boyfriend, David, brought me cool towels to put on my eyes and neck. The feeling stayed with me for 2 days. Once the headache subsided, David and I made some homemade pizzas and put on a movie to relax(I was exhausted by the pain I had been in). While the pizza was in the oven, I tilted my head to crack my neck. I heard a ‘pop’ and became insanely dizzy. I lied back on my bed and the room began to spin like ‘The Gravitron’ ride at the fair when I was a kid. I became extremely nauseous due to the spinning and stood up to go throw up in the bathroom. Upon standing, my body pulled my down to the left and I stumbled into David’s arms and he was able to carry me outside. I had finally had it…I lost my shit. All these things happening to me were getting worse and worse and I was tired and fed up. David finally convinced me to seek medical help beyond my regular doctor(I had an appointment with my primary the day before. Her advise was that I get help for my alcohol dependence!)
I was fed up, but I was still my stubborn self. I decided that I was going to wait to go to the hospital until the following week. So, naturally, we found a movie to watch that was extremely ironic: Twister. WTF?! We didn’t even think about the irony at the time. I can’t see a clip of the movie or smell a pizza without it taking me back to the way I had felt that night.
