A Stroke has a new indicator

I had a TIA at the age of 34 with the onset of my migraines. Pretty friggin' scary. I had just gotten home from work, my wife wasn't home yet, but I was talking to her on her cell phone. My speech was slurred, I was fumbling for words. There was an aura around my vision. Lost peripheral and it seemed like I was looking at everything through a set of binoculars backwards.

My wife hung up and called my sister. We lived around the corner from sis at the time and my sister was there in just a minute. She called 911.

I remember not being able to do what they told me to do. They wanted me to get off the gurney and into the wheelchair so they could wheel me down the hall for a CT. I couldn't remember how to make my feet work. My feet and the floor seemed a mile away. How could I make 'em work if they were that far away?

The thing is: I don't remember any pain. My head was killing me just an hour before, but all the time this was going on I felt nothing. Still an indicator for me. Up until just recently I lived with a dull throb that was always above my right eye. The throb was something I could live with. It would flair into a full on migraine. But when the pain went away - completely - was when I would get concerned.

My dad lived through a series of about four or five TIA's about two years back. My wife was home (my parents were living with us at the time) and immediately identified the symptoms. He refused to go to the hospital, right up until the time the ambulance my wife called for was sitting out in front of the house.

My grandad died from a series of small strokes my aunt - his custodial caretaker - refused to have looked at.

Now, with our history in the family, we have a tendency to look for the small things in each other, having lived through the events ourselves.

It's no laughing matter, guys. Even if it cost you out of pocket for the ambulance ride, take one if you need it. Don't worry about the costs, at least you'll still be alive to pay 'em off.