Parents and Strokes

[Callie]

Looking for advice for those who have had to deal with their parents having strokes.

I'm mid 20's, and when I was 22, my dad had a serious stroke. It's 4 years later and he's finally able to open his hand and begin writing. We have a complicated relationship, but it's still heart-breaking. His was likely due to high blood pressure and not taking the best care of himself. Due to his financial status, getting good care also has been hard.

I was thankfully able to handle that one pretty well.

The biggest is my mom had a stroke this past fall. I still am trying to cope with it, and it's affected me emotionally more than I realized. My mom eats pretty darn well, exercises 3 times a week, goes on walks etc. The worst part is the doctor saying she's had previous ones per her MRI or images.

Thankfully she is as full recovered as can be. She has a bit of deep brain thinking troubles, but no one would know if you weren't aware.

One thing it's done in the last month is made me look at my own health. I've started making a serious effort to make myself healthy. I'm just worried so badly about my mom.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What, exactly, are you worried about, Callie? Be forthright.

 

[starry_solo]

More information would be helpful.

My mom had a stroke in June 2016. I'm sure right now you are going through a lot.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Ok, while I'm waiting for your response, I'm imagining several possiblities.

You're worried about losing them, especially your Mom, and where that would leave you.

You're worried it may happen to you.

You're worried your Mom will have additional strokes and/or lose more mental capacity. Maybe you'll have to care for her, etc.

Maybe all of these or something similar, right?

Did you ever find out why your Mom had strokes like you did your Dad?

It will be really important for them to follow up with medical appointments and continue to take any medications that were prescribed. This is super important, actually. They'll want to try to eliminate as many risk factors that they can that are modifiable. It may be worth having a sit down with their doctor(s) to talk about it as you may feel more reassured if there are things they can do that will help.

Risk factors for stroke that they can modify include keeping blood pressure within normal range, not smoking, exercising regularly, losing weight if overweight, limiting excessive alcohol, correcting medical conditions that put them at high risk for stroke such as diabetes and high cholesterol, and others, see here:

http://www.strokeassociation.org/id...cm/@hcm/documents/downloadable/ucm_309713.pdf

Are you privy, or have your parents made you aware of any advance planning they have in place? Knowing that things are taken care of should something happen to either one of them might be helpful and ease your worry, but I know it's still an overwhelming thing to think about losing a parent. Hopefully that won't happen for a good, long time and their issues with stroke will be behind them.

Do you have an aunt or good family friend that you can talk to about your fears? Maybe they could reassure you that they would still be there for you should anything happen. I am not sure of your living status if you live with just your parents or if you have siblings or are married, etc., but that would be helpful to know. Another person you can talk to is a counselor if you have one available to you.

Meanwhile, I can assure you that these types of worries about parents when they have issues are shared by many people. We can even have a type of grief reaction, which occurs when there is a perceived loss of health in ourselves or someone close to us. (Note the person doesn't have to actually die for us to have a grief reaction; our minds play a kind of trick on us where we respond to the perceived loss as we would to an acutal loss, even though the person is still here.) Maybe if you recognize some of these emotions in yourself it might be helpful. (Another way of putting it is when we and our parents are relatively young, many of us expect that things will just continue on as they always have, and it can hit us hard when something bad happens.) Anyway, these feelings are normal, and we all experience them from time to time. (Just keep in mind most articles about grief often talk about death but we are talking about a perceived loss here.)

https://psychcentral.com/lib/on-grief-loss-and-coping/

Hope this helps somewhat.

Edit for grammar.

 

[ADLFAN]

Do you keep a journal? I suppose it's a pretty antiquated concept these days, but I find that expressing all those nasty feelings in writing can help me process and deal with the emotions and my brain will naturally start churning to define what I feel and help clear out some negitivity and make room to negotiate solutions. Even if the best and only solution is realizing my limited control and forgiving myself if that feels inadequate.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Looking for advice for those who have had to deal with their parents having strokes.

I'm mid 20's, and when I was 22, my dad had a serious stroke. It's 4 years later and he's finally able to open his hand and begin writing. We have a complicated relationship, but it's still heart-breaking. His was likely due to high blood pressure and not taking the best care of himself. Due to his financial status, getting good care also has been hard.

I was thankfully able to handle that one pretty well.

The biggest is my mom had a stroke this past fall. I still am trying to cope with it, and it's affected me emotionally more than I realized. My mom eats pretty darn well, exercises 3 times a week, goes on walks etc. The worst part is the doctor saying she's had previous ones per her MRI or images.

Thankfully she is as full recovered as can be. She has a bit of deep brain thinking troubles, but no one would know if you weren't aware.

One thing it's done in the last month is made me look at my own health. I've started making a serious effort to make myself healthy. I'm just worried so badly about my mom.

It is hard. (HUGS)

My kids had to deal with my breast cancer & fallout from my radiation treatments (I have chronic issues now from it), dad's heart attack and triple bypass, and now he is at Mayo in Rochester Minn. He was in a car accident and suffered a bad concussion and whiplash.

So, you are normal. It is hard for the kids to see us vulnerable. My children have serious medical issues of their own, which complicates things. I used to be "the rock" with my health and now I am not. The kids know it and worry about me.

Have you had a blood panel workup recently? What are your cholesterol and triglycerides?

 

[soccerdad72]

Unfortunately, our only experience with strokes is death. My FIL suffered a stroke back in 2002 and it ended up being fatal. The CT scan revealed that he only really had one artery to his brain stem (the other one was extremely undersized) so when he got a blood clot in that artery, there was nothing the doctors could do.

 

[yoopermom]

We can even have a type of grief reaction, which occurs when there is a perceived loss of health in ourselves or someone close to us. (Note the person doesn't have to actually die for us to have a grief reaction; our minds play a kind of trick on us where we respond to the perceived loss as we would to an acutal loss, even though the person is still here.) Maybe if you recognize some of these emotions in yourself it might be helpful.

THANK YOU Pea-n-Me, I have never heard this worded quite this way, and it really hit close to home. I broke my left ankle severely a year ago, and then my stepfather broke his right ankle severely six months later. I truly *grieved*, and my DH was worried that I was "losing it". It took a therapist to make me understand that I had lost my original, functioning ankle, and that grief was ok and even to be expected.

Now, back to OP, my FIL had a stroke in his early 60s. Before that he had been a blue collar, hard working, hard drinking, unhealthy eating, never exercising, keep emotions bottled up, kind of guy. (Let's just say none of us were completely surprised at his stroke.) He made the choice to basically completely change his life around, and is now healthier in his mid 70s than he's ever been in his life. Yes, he has residual effects from the stroke, but it was truly a "come to Jesus" moment for him. It can be done.

Terri

 

[Hikergirl]

Is your mother currently receiving care?
My dh had a stroke a year and a half ago. It took many doctors (cardiologists, neurologists, PCPs over a year to give a definitive answer that he had had a stroke, he just "found out" in December. During the course of that year he changed some habits, and started taking a daily dose of aspirin every day. After the diagnosis he was told he could up that dose or go on blood thinners.
It is something we have all had to accept that it can happen at any time to anyone. My dh is a pretty healthy guy, he isn't over weight, he exercises regularly and didn't fit in to any high risk categories. He has had every single test and scan I think one could have. It wasn't until this past fall he found a neurologist who ordered a different kind of MRI and found something nobody else had, or at least took the time to look into what he found. But that is a whole other story.

I am always worried for him and will always be from here on out. He is too.
I'm sure my kids are but we don't really talk about it with them because they are young and don't want to cause them anxiety over it.
We have just accepted that this how it is going to be and to not take any day for granted. It is hard not to worry, but we don't let it consume us.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Is your mother currently receiving care?
My dh had a stroke a year and a half ago. It took many doctors (cardiologists, neurologists, PCPs over a year to give a definitive answer that he had had a stroke, he just "found out" in December. During the course of that year he changed some habits, and started taking a daily dose of aspirin every day. After the diagnosis he was told he could up that dose or go on blood thinners.
It is something we have all had to accept that it can happen at any time to anyone. My dh is a pretty healthy guy, he isn't over weight, he exercises regularly and didn't fit in to any high risk categories. He has had every single test and scan I think one could have. It wasn't until this past fall he found a neurologist who ordered a different kind of MRI and found something nobody else had, or at least took the time to look into what he found. But that is a whole other story.

I am always worried for him and will always be from here on out. He is too.
I'm sure my kids are but we don't really talk about it with them because they are young and don't want to cause them anxiety over it.
We have just accepted that this how it is going to be and to not take any day for granted. It is hard not to worry, but we don't let it consume us.

Don't rule out going to Rochester Minn. if you want better neurologists. That is where my dh is now. Here in STL MO, our selection of neurologists is extremely poor.

 

[Hikergirl]

Don't rule out going to Rochester Minn. if you want better neurologists. That is where my dh is now. Here in STL MO, our selection of neurologists is extremely poor.

Thank you for that info. It has been a difficult road finding a doctor that is truly interested in finding out what happened with dh, and what is still going on. Apparently he just isn't showing typical things in a stroke patient so there have been alot of guessing based on other things like his migraines, or lyme, or "just a virus" He thought he was lucky when he started seeing one at Columbia Presbyterian since they are rated so highly, but that wasn't the case with the particular one he was seeing.
His current neurologist has been fantastic and dh is very happy to finally find someone willing to really find out what happened so he can have some answers.
I hope your dh has found someone like that too.

 

[Callie]

They aren't 100% sure what caused my mom's. She has a history of high cholesterol, which I've inherited. They've made her dose of medication larger.
I just had a full work up done a month ago. My blood pressure is back to normal, but my cholesterol is high and I need to drop some weight.

My biggest fear is losing my mom. I've been going to therapy for it which has helped incredibly. She received occupational therapy and they released her from that. She also found a new doctor because she went to her previous doctor when she started having strange symptoms, and instead of calling 911, they let her sit there and wait for a ride.

I just found out she has to have two surgeries this year now on her ankles. I have to figure out how to get time off work to help her recover.