Stress - Thief of Sanity May 07, 2003 - 9:08 a.m.

One Sunday, in the middle of April, my mom and I visited an elderly couple, briefly mentioned here. A day or two after our visit, the wife of the couple had a stroke. Thankfully it was nothing too awful. Some tingling and a little speech impairment, that was already showing signs of improvement before her hospital departure a few days after the stroke. Mostly her pride was hurt because she couldn't talk as clearly as before and that the doctor told her to take it easy so she couldn't really do anything for herself.

She was home for maybe four days, and she had another stroke. A big one this time. Nearly full paralysis on her right side and undecipherable speech. All this and delirium, too.

When we visited her in the hospital, they were talking about doing all this blood work and MRI's and being able to put her on some medication that they could get for free. And there was even talk that they could get free in-home healthcare, if they needed to. Otherwise, the doctor made it sound like everything was going to be okay. Maybe long term speech issues and physical therapy was needed for the paralysis, but otherwise she would cope.

Then again... they thought she was fine enough to send home before she had that second stroke.

My mom got a call the other day. I could have sworn that I overheard the mention of yet another stroke, while she was in the hospital, but I could be mistaken. But she did tell me that this woman was now sitting in a nursing home.

It seems so odd. Having visited with them and seen her acting so normal. Sitting in her chair, complaining about minor pains as old people tend to do, and eating a fried chicken dinner from KFC. And now, a mere few weeks later, she's nearly deranged and helpless in a nursing home.

I realize death can be sudden... but it really seems strange when the person is alive and their abilty to function, as well as sanity, have dramatically disappeared.

And to think, that drastic change was all brought on by stress. It sure puts your control over your own stress into perspective.

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