Prayers are needed and appreciated!

Last Saturday morning the alarm went off, and I nudged my hubby, John, so that he would turn it off. No response. Nudged him again. Next thing I know he is on the floor! I leaned over his side of the bed and nudged him again...he wouldn't wake up! Then I am on the floor shaking him, yelling "wake up John". No response. I ran upstairs for DD Amy "I can't wake up your dad" She runs down, no luck. She calls 9-1-1. The medics, bless their ever living souls, could not rouse him either, even with stimulants, etc. His vitals are all normal. We check all the pills in the house, to make them happy, I knew it wasn't pills, and nothing is missing. As he is loaded into the ambulance, he opens his eyes and looks at me, but he is really "not there".

Emergency rooms at 4:30 in the morning are amazingly quiet. They immediately do a CT scan of his head, a chest x-ray, and enough blood work to boggle the mind. Absolutely nothing shows up. They decide they need to keep him for 24 hours and send us up to the neurology floor, where the hospital neurologist gives him a complete exam. Nothing. Except for sleepiness, confusion, memory loss, and some inability to finish his thoughts. So he says, maybe a seizure, maybe not. Maybe his heart, lets monitor his heart over night. So they send us up to the cardiac floor, where he is hooked up to the monitor. By late afternoon, he perks up a bit, and stays awake for all the visitors he gets. I settle him down for the night by 9:30 and head home for some sleep myself.

The next morning, Sunday, when I come in, he is eating a good breakfast. His memory is better but not good. His heart monitoring shows nothing. Neurologist comes back and says go home. We'll do an EEG later in the week. (apparently eeg techs don't work weekends or mondays).
Go home, go back to work, resume life.

Right.

Trouble is, nobody at the hospital could tell (or would even listen) that this WASN'T my husband I was taking home.

He slept most of the day Sunday. The memory problems become even more glaring when we realize he can't remember our names. He doesn't know what he does for a living (carpenter). He cannot remember things we told him and other oddities. Like leaving his full cup of coffee on the counter in the kitchen, and when daughter takes it to him, he thinks the coffee isn't made yet.

I called our primary care doctor early Monday, begging for an appointment. He knows John well, and can tell what he should be like. We were able to get in mid-afternoon.

Within about 3 minutes of conversation, our doctor says, I think he had a mid-brain stroke, so tiny that it didn't affect his motor skills and didn't show up on the normal CT scan. Thank you Lord for this doctor!!

So we have another CT scan this morning. I am fairly certain they will find what they are looking for.

The incredibly good news is that doctor believes John will be just fine, and with baby aspirin every day probably will never have another one.

The uncertain news is that no one can predict how long it will take for him to recover.

For me, the scariest part is how to pay the mortgage, since John normally brings home most of our income.

Please, please keep us in your prayers. This hard time may be a LONG hard time.