Stroke Patient Says: “I’ve Been Blessed”
Faith and perseverance help widow survive
By John Suddath
Raleigh, North Carolina
A stroke patient tells her story of how she felt when it happened and her time of reccovery
In many ways, Mildred Herndon, 85, fits the profile of a stroke patient, and in other ways she does not. At 4’11”, she is trim and youthful looking and calm in demeanor. She isn’t hypertensive or aggressive and calmly “accepts things as they are and tries to make the best of it.” A widow who lives alone, she is still active in the Trinity Baptist Church Senior Choir and drives herself to most of her activities, except at night. Her sweet smile belies a steel determination and fierce independence that mark her as a survivor. She isn’t a complainer and doesn’t “nose into other people’s business,” and she is grateful for what God has given her and the grace to accept life’s situations that she can’t change.
As she tells her story, she recalls that one afternoon in November, 2002 she was visiting her husband Dan in the Litchford Falls Healthcare Center in Raleigh when she began to feel very tired. He was in the nursing home following a stroke and was unable to feed himself so she came at lunch and dinner to feed him since the facility was short staffed and depended on family members to help out. She told one of the aides that she wasn’t feeling well and that she was going home early.
She got home and sat down in her favorite chair and tried to relax a little. “I wasn’t aware that there was anything really wrong with me, except that I just felt so extremely tired. But I knew that something wasn’t right by the way I parked the car. I took my coat off and thought to myself as I sat down that I would be fine after I had been seated for awhile. As it went on for about an hour, you know, I decided I would call someone. I picked up the phone by the chair, and I could talk, but I couldn’t figure out how to dial the phone. Well, I was ‘just here’, but when I couldn’t use the phone I knew there was something really wrong. I was just sitting there watching the clock, when the lady from the bank called to talk to me about something. When I picked up the phone and answered, I told her there was something wrong with me. She told me to hang on just a minute, and then she came back and said that she had called 911 and that they would be there shortly. In less than 10 minutes they were here.”
Even after the ambulance arrived, and she got up and let the drivers in the door she didn’t realize that she was having a stroke. She just felt extremely tired and dizzy and was unable to put words together but no pain as they administered oxygen on the way to Rex hospital. “I just felt like I had to get somewhere and rest for awhile.” The drivers, however, determined that she had had a stroke and notified the hospital so that she was admitted through the emergency room. She did not go into ICU but received tests and treatments and started physical and speech therapy during her 4-day stay in the hospital. “I wasn’t afraid and felt OK and wasn’t worried even though I knew I had a speech problem,” she said.
After she got home, she continued to receive therapy to help her regain her balance and her speech. For a couple of months she had visits twice a week from a nurse aide, physical therapy aide, and speech therapist. She didn’t use a walker or have any impairment in movement; the impact of her stroke appeared to have been limited to her speech and her sense of balance. Within a short time even though she wasn’t able to drive, she was back visiting at the nursing home and caring for her husband as friends and family offered transportation. Within a few months she was back driving again but just in the neighborhood. The nursing home, grocery store, gas station, etc. were just a few blocks from her house along a residential street. She didn’t feel strong enough to drive to her church, which was on a busy thoroughfare, for several months.
She has a daughter in a nearby suburb who was her primary caregiver and another daughter out-of-state who came to visit, and of course, they helped out during this time of recovery. Her husband came from a large family from a farming community south of Fayetteville, and some of them lived in the area and also came by regularly. She has wonderful neighbors and many friends from her church and the nursing home, and she says that God has richly blessed her for how helpful they all have been. But the stroke set off a pattern of failing health that has plagued her ever since that day.
The following year in September after Dan had passed away she had a heart attack. Her daughter Phyllis was with her at the time, and she told her daughter that she had a pain in her chest as though someone was squeezing her tightly. She recalls, “it wasn’t a severe pain, but I knew there was someone wrong.” Her daughter drove her to the emergency room at Rex Hospital. It took longer to be admitted to the hospital that time, and she received more prescriptions such as cumadin and nitroglycerin to bring home even though she didn’t receive any therapy after she came home. Again it took several months before she was able to drive.
In May, 2004 she was admitted for gall bladder surgery, but had a swift recovery. In May 2005, her right knee “gave out”, and she was housebound and on a walker for four months while the specialists ran tests and completed the paperwork to schedule orthoscopic surgery. Within a month she was back walking again, took physical therapy for two months but it took several months to be able to drive the 1991 Ford Crown Victoria that sits in the driveway just outside her kitchen door. Although it wasn’t a medical emergency, it was quite a shock when during a spring storm in May, 2006 a big tree in the back yard crashed through the roof of her bedroom while she was sitting in the den watching TV. It left a gaping hole in the roof and collapsed part of one wall. The insurance company adjuster was there in a matter of hours and arranged for someone to put a tarp over the roof and within days had called in a contractor. She showed the article in the Raleigh News & Observer reporting on the incident with a picture of the damage. She moved out of the house and lived with her daughter in Knightdale for four months while the house was being repaired. They moved all of furniture out of the house and put it in storage. They not only replaced the roof and gutters they repainted the interior of the house and installed new carpet. She commented, “ I was amazed that they even washed and folded my linens after the furniture came out of storage before they brought it back for the move into the house.
She was just getting settled back into her home when she got sick the third week of December, 2006 and had to be hospitalized for a blockage of the bile duct. Fortunately, that could be treated without surgery and she was able to be released from the hospital on Christmas Day. “It was the best Christmas present I ever had,” she recalls.
So how does someone with such an indomitable spirit claim credit for her endurance in the face of all these challenges? Even though she is a devout Christian, she doesn’t boast about her faith. She just gives a sweet, saintly smile and says, “I’ve been blessed.”
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