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I would like to share my story on my stroke that I had on November 17, 1997. I am 42 years old and thought I kept myself in pretty good shape, I never could imagine myself having a stroke. For about a week before my stroke I felt like I had the flu, I felt weak but not really sick. On the morning of November 17,1997 it was a normal morning of getting up and having my morning coffee, kissed my wife goodbye and left the house at around 6:30 am to go to work. I use to work for a landscape company as a working landscape construction supervisor. I really enjoyed the work I was doing. At around 8:30 my equilibrium was quite bad, I felt really dizzy. It felt like when my ear plugs up, sometimes it makes me dizzy, so I sat down where I was and knew something was wrong, cause it was not going away. My whole right side went limp, my right vision was blurred, and I was having trouble swallowing. I am usually by myself doing repairs, but thank god that I was working with two other people that day. He asked if I needed to go to the hospital, I replied "I think so". It’s all the words I could get out. It took both coworkers to carry me to my truck, cause I could not walk. Another thing that probably saved me was the quick thinking of my coworker; he tried to call for an ambulance but was having trouble with the address we were at. He drove me himself in my truck to the hospital. His quick thinking and my good muscle tone is what the doctors say may have prevented me from complete damage from my stroke. The doctors did several tests on me, but did not find anything till the next day. After a MRI scan they found two blood clots at the base of my brain stem. The doctors decided to send me to Stanford University Medical center, after a 4 hour ambulance ride I arrived there at about 11:30 PM on November 19, 1997. The next morning a feeding tube was placed down my throat cause I could not swallow and that was the only way they could feed me, I could not even swallow my own saliva and needed a vacuum tube to empty my mouth out. An angiogram was performed on me but thank god again the doctors there decided to just try coumadin instead of placing a spring or balloon in the artery. From there I was transferred to the Rehabilitation Unit at another part of the hospital. I spend the next 14 days there. After the third day I told the nurses to get the wheel chair out of my room cause I was too young and ambitious to be in a wheel chair. After about a week and a half I could finally swallow again. With the nurses and therapist help they kept my spirits up and we did a lot of hard therapy and I was able to walk again. After six month of taking coumadin my clots are gone, but I lost feeling of hot or cold from my chest down on the right side, a spot in my right eye vision, and my whole right side burns like my blood is on fire. I have learned to kind of tolerate it, cause they have tried three different drugs but none seem to help. I could not return to the work I loved but I am under a vocational retraining for computer programming and I really love it. I have always hit any challenge head on and to me my stroke is one that needed a whole knew thought process. I have a long way to go but I will accept and go on.

Thank you for your time to listen to my story,

Sincerely,
Richard W Francis