NaBloPoMo - Day 29 - Loss of Control

Imagine that you are trapped inside your own brain.

Imagine that you can hear and understand what is said to you,

but you can't answer because the word you want to say won't come out.

Imagine that you're given something on a written piece of paper,

but the letters seem alien, foreign, 

even though you've known them since you were a child.

Imagine that your limb won't function the way it's supposed to.

Imagine that you can't control how it moves,

and sometimes it moves even if you don't want it to.

If you're not imagining this, and it's happening to you

you've just had a stroke.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I really hate working the holidays

because there's always one case amoungst the myriad of patients

that come in that affects you more than most.

I figured the code of the young patient would be 

the sad case of the holiday,

but this stroke patient is pretty close.

Of course they had a great family.

Of course they were pretty healthy up until they weren't.

Of course they had been intelligent, hard-working, a loving parent...

And since the law of the ED dictates that bad things happen to good people

now they've had a stroke.

They came in too late to receive the clot-buster drug.

They didn't have an operable lesion.

They'll have to wait and see what function returns.

I gave their family some hope of partial recovery

with the expectation of long weeks of physical and occupational therapy.

Only time will tell...

Sigh...

I hate working the holidays...