2017 Mar 5^th

“This is a fine mess” is not only a memorable line from the Laurel and Hardy movies; it is also appropriate for the new administration; speaking of this administration, to paraphrase a famous man, “Never have so few caused such embarrassment to so many.”

Trump now claims, without any evidence, that Obama had bugged his residence in Trump Tower. Trump is also said to be furious with poor Jeffery Beauregard because the Attorney General has recused himself from investigations of matters in which he had a prominent role. Some of this will soon shake out, but today I’m going to post a piece I posted here some time ago because it might be more helpful to readers  than any political stuff that will surely heighten blood pressures.

TIA

It is to be devoutly hoped that you don’t know what TIA stands for; it stands for transitory ischemic attack, a mini-stroke. If you aren’t familiar with these initials then you probably haven’t suffered from a TIA. I, myself, have had a TIA. I’m not bragging here. Almost anyone can have one; age helps, so does having lived a dissolute life. Of course if your life has been very dissolute, then you’ll probably have a full-blown stroke. Even if your life has been moderate and serene, if you are beloved by one and all, you can still have a stroke. This does not prove that there is no justice in the world; it does prove that there is only a small amount and that you shouldn’t count on getting your share.

I now provide a brief disquisition on TIAs: The transitory part is self-evident; it doesn’t last long, from a few minutes to an hour. Ischemic means it results from a blocked blood vessel in the brain. There is another kind of stroke which isn’t ischemic; it is hemorrhagic. This means that a blood vessel has ruptured and is bleeding into the brain, or the space the brain occupies. 

Stroke symptoms are enormously varied. They depend on the part of the brain where the blockage occurs. One might have visual effects, an inability to move an arm or leg, numbness, dizziness, an inability to speak or understand words. If you ever have any of these symptoms go to an ER immediately! The odds of a TIA developing into a full-blown stroke are disturbingly high. You won’t know if yours is a transitory event until the symptoms subside. A hospital can tell if your episode is ischemic or hemorrhagic and treat it accordingly. If your problem is ischemic, you will be given clot-busting drugs; if your problem is hemorrhagic, clot forming drugs may be given to stop the bleeding. As you can see, the wrong initial treatment will probably be terminal!

I had been taking a baby aspirin every morning to help prevent a clot. This is a preventative action recommended for many men my age. Baby aspirin are 81 milligrams and are recommended because they are less likely to irritate the stomach than the 325 milligram regular aspirin. I should say that I am in good physical condition, no heart problems and no shortness of breath, normal weight and near normal blood pressure. My only risk factors were that I was eighty at the time, and I was male.

It was about four-thirty in the afternoon. I was watching a television news program containing nothing of any consequence. My wife was in the kitchen getting dinner ready and the pre-dinner cocktail ritual was fast approaching. As I was watching this program I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the announcer was talking about. The names were vaguely familiar but none of the commentary made any sense.

 All right, I know that most news programs don’t make any sense. Even allowing for that, this experience was unique. I decided to tell my wife about it and went into the dinning-room/kitchen area and sat on a counter stool. I started to describe this curious thing to her and an even more curious thing happened: I couldn’t speak a sentence. I would start to say something and nothing intelligible came out. I knew I couldn’t produce a sentence; it just seemed very odd at the time—not frightening, just odd. It quickly occurred to me that I might be having a stroke. They run in my family. I took a couple of aspirin and waited. I should have called 911 and gone to the hospital for professional treatment. Hospitals have much better clot busting drugs than aspirin. Also, this could have been a hemorrhagic stroke, in which case the aspirin would have been a very bad idea. I don’t always do what I should and this time I got lucky. Within twenty minutes everything was normal.

I went on the internet to find out more about TIAs. I discovered that people who have had a TIA are more likely to have a full blown stroke over the next six months or so. After about a year, if the TIA hasn’t recurred, the risk of stroke drops back to its pre TIA level.

About a year later, when time came for my usual physical, I told my physician about my bout of aphasia and the TIA I assumed had produced it. He said that the baby aspirin regimen hadn’t worked very well so I should move up to a regular aspirin every morning. He also suggested that next time I had these symptoms I should call 911. Fine, I’ll do that. I am also taking naps every afternoon and I am ignoring politics and the stock market. I am, therefore, much less likely to have a stroke but I am also having much less fun. Everything has its price, even a long life.