Long Over-Due Update

The following is from the letter I sent last week to UMass Hospital in Worcester, MA. It will give all a sense of what Laura & I went thru over the past month.

Around Midnight on July 18th, I went to the ER at Memorial Hospital. I had numbness/tingling feelings in my right face, arm & hand. Blood work, chest x-ray and CAT scan were done. Around 3:00 the nurse came in, said I was going to be admitted, then at 3:30, said I was going home. "Info on your diagnosis is being printed out, call your personal physician in the morning".

The doctor never came back to see me, the diagnosis was "Meralgia Paresthetica". Upon reading the info, MP symptoms are in the thighs, my symptoms were face & arm/hand.

Around Noon the next day, the 19th, I went to the ER at UMass, told them what had happened. Several tests were done, including another CAT scan, and finally about Midnight, an MRI disclosed I had suffered a stroke.

I was lucky, a mild stroke. After 2 days at UMass and 9 days at Fairlawn Rehab, I am walking normally, but still have numbness on the right side of my body. And have no touch sensation in my right hand.

The reason for this letter is to encourage UMass to address the following issues:
1. I entered the ER with classic stroke symptoms, but was diagnosed with MP
2. The doctor never came back to see me, left it to a nurse to print out the info.
3. After returning to the hospital, still took 12 hours to do an MRI which disclosed the stroke. During that 12 hours, the numbness did start moving down into my right leg.

This is basically what happened. I did have a couple of weeks of out-patient rehab, but have been released to return to work. I can print, but cannot control my right hand to write. If you have any questions, feel free to call me, my phone works just fine!

So now what? We will be leaving Mass the 21st, going to Indiana for Granddaughter Melissa's wedding, then probably to Vegas to see our regular doctors. And then....No Work. Time to visit the SW parks & visit with the many friends we have made over the past few years. So let us know your itinerary so we can make plans to meet! Hope to see many of you soon!