vicariously chris

I know from the emails that I have received that many of you have gone through the agonizing trial of watching a relative or friend recover from a stroke...many accounts have been very encouraging.

Others have been searching the internet and sending me information, but most of you just want some answers and reassurance..so do I.

I'm not a professional reporter like Chris so I hope that you can appreciate that I am trying to relay information from visiting and observing Chris and from talking to his siblings who are at his bedside throughout various times of the day.

I'm writing this for Chris to read when he gets out and to let his friends, co-workers, and relatives get an idea of what happened, and what is going on.

That being said I know that I cannot be completely objective because we have been BfFF....three decades...

and this recovery period may extend into weeks and months.

As to why his rehab is delayed...

Chris still has very high blood pressure, his systolic numbers are frequently in the 190 range. Now I've heard that being hypertensive may be his body's natural way of maintaining circulation after enduring a vascular emergency...

but it is also stalling his recovery by impeding his physical rehabilitation.

His hypertension also makes it risky to sedate him enough to do another MRI.

*Any readers who have medical backgrounds and experience with stroke patients or others who have had to cope with a relative having a stroke, please feel free to clarify and expand. The more information the better and it helps to talk/write.

From what I understand there are plenty of drugs that can lower his blood pressure but it is dangerous to lower it too quickly.

I know that everyone is anxious to see him out of bed. Today one of his sisters said that Chris was assessed by the physiotherapist but there was concern about his blood pressure and that the loss of muscular control on his right side was prohibiting him from being moved into a Geri-Chair?

This was echoed by another sister who told me that once he is up, he is going to need an upright wheel chair (tilt & spin) to do his physio and apparently there is a waiting list for them!?

I wish that I knew when/why/how the Neurologist decides OK today let's try to carefully lower his BP...and how long can a bedridden person cope with hypertension? I don't know.

I try to remind myself that we're dealing with the human brain, the pinnacle of evolutionary engineering and in many ways as mysterious as the universe itself. This miraculous 3 pound gelatin super-computer lodged between our ears has some 100 trillion synaptic connections!

Apparently the brain cannot repair itself on a cellular level like a lot of our other organs in our body..it has to work with what it has...

but with so many avenues and connectors, it can and very often will, find a way to re-route signals.

So Chris, it's time to

Synap out of it!

Chris had clotting in his brain stem. That part of the brain is involved in the control of his cardiovascular & respiratory system, pain sensitivity, alertness, and consciousness!

Managing the alterations while maintaining the basics is a lot for him to handle..he can't just turn it off and reboot the program like a regular computer..

although ideally that's what we all desperately want to witness!

This waiting is compounded by our collective feeling of being of restricted by the complexity of the human mind and spirit...

but when I look at the tenacity and will power that Chris has always had,

I just know, of all the people that I have EVER met during my entire life,

Chris IS that guy.