From Hope to Healing


During Marc's time at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ontario, following a massive stroke and brain bleed, a friend suggested I start a blog. I'd been making notes each day and updating his progress on Facebook but after some thought, I realized that this could be something that Marc could later read to follow his journey back to health.

I thought it might also serve to help someone else. If it can help even one other person to recognize the signs of a stroke or to help a family member understand what happens during this battle, then it was worth recording.

This is Marc's story. It begins with our hope for his survival and follows his healing journey.

For those of you new to blogs, you can find previous posts in the Blog Archive on the right side of the page. Each post has the date so you can easily follow along day by day. Just click the one you want to read. This story starts on Saturday, December 8, 2012.

(To see the earlier blog posts, click on "2012" in the Blog Archive section and it will open the posts from December)

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012 - "I'm Going to Sue"

Marc clearly remembers that he is supposed to be going to another room and is getting impatient.  He also still really wants to go home.  When I arrived this morning he said, “Okay, I’ve had enough of this.  I told the nurses that I’m going to sue them if they don’t take me down to the check-out counter.” 

I couldn’t help myself.  I started to laugh.  I could see him watching me, trying to figure out what was so funny in light of his upcoming litigation announcement.  “Honey, you aren’t suing anyone. The doctors and nurses have been taking excellent care of you and you have to stay here to heal.”

“You don’t understand,” he said earnestly.  “They make me sleep on the floor.” 

I still hadn’t recovered from the news that we were embarking on a law suit and I laughed again.  I could visualize them tossing Marc onto the floor as soon as I left and putting him back in bed before I arrived in the morning.   

“And if you think I’m joking, I’m not.  They were mean to me at RVH, too,“ he said.  “They made us all go into a room and they tethered us and gassed us.”   

The confusion still seems to be in full swing at this point.  Luckily his leg and arm cooperated more today and helped to keep me hopeful. 

As I was leaving, one of the nurses told me that when he is moved into a ward, he’ll have to learn to use his call button and that it would quite an adjustment for him.  She said that the nurse in the ward will have six patients instead of the two I had originally been told. 

That night as I walked in the door, my cell phone rang.  It was the nurse telling me that they were moving Marc to a ward.  I barely slept that night, worried that Marc was now all on his own with no one to watch over him.  I wished I was there with him to help him through the transition. 

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