I'm O.K.

A dark- haired, nice looking young doctor entered the room shortly after my kids left and said, "Hello, Sherry. My name is Doctor Horn. Do you remember me?"

I said yes, but I really didn’t, later I found out Dr. Horn was the good smelling doctor speaking all the gibberish in my ear. As I slipped in and out of my consciousness, I kept asking everybody what was wrong with me. My family had finally asked Dr. Horn to please stop by and explain my condition.

I asked, "What kind of doctor are you?"

He replied, "A Neurosurgeon."

I thought to myself, what kind of doctor did he say he was?

He said, "Do you know why you’re here?"

I said, "Yes, I had a really bad headache."

He smiled a warm smile and said, "Yes, you sure did. As a result of your bad headache, you suffered a hemorrhagic stroke."

My first thought was, this guy is nuts, I’m way too young for a stroke. At this point, I just played along with what I thought was bullshit. It seemed like everyone but me was crazy, and I knew that somehow I had to get to the bottom of all this. Dr. Horn went on to say, "We’re still running tests and trying to find out the extent of the damage."

The whole time I’m thinking, Ok weirdo, I am here talking to you. I’m obviously fine. I didn’t know that a stroke was a brain injury, or the physical and cognitive effects that go along with one.

He said, "We do know you have full left- sided paralysis."

I asked, "What do you mean?"

He said, "You’re paralyzed on your left side." I looked at my left hand and tried to move it, but nothing happened. I immediately started crying, not really because I was sad about the paralysis, but because I just had no control over my emotions. I thought to myself that I would try really hard when he left the room, and I would move everything and show everyone I was fine. I was in major denial for a couple of days.

They moved me from the ICU to a private room on the Transitional Care Unit, which provides a less extensive level of care than ICU. Strangely, through the first three or four days, I have no memory of Shaw. I didn’t ask to see him and do not really know why. After I was settled into the private room, my doctors came in and said they were arranging for my husband and baby to stay in the room with me overnight. They were very concerned about me bonding with Gabriel.

That night, I woke up to hear the baby screaming. I looked around. Shaw was sleeping on a cot with Gabriel in a bassinette at his feet. For a minute, I almost forgot my condition and tried to get up. I couldn’t move. I felt so helpless and incomplete. I couldn’t get to my own baby.

Twice, I screamed at Shaw to get up. He didn’t move. There was a wheeled table right beside Shaw’s head with a pitcher of water on it. I took my right leg and kicked that sucker hard. The water went all over his head and the table turned over.