There Are Not Massive Strokes and Massive Strokes

Well, we've got this one straightened out.

It would appear that the press got it wrong on this one.

Remember the reports of Bret Michaels and his "massive stroke"?

Years ago, I had a friend who had an anyeurism at age twenty-six and it took him two years to start to walk and talk and still to this day, maybe forty-five years later, he has little short-term memory.  Tough stuff, that.  Brutal. Essentially, a "massive stroke."

Then there was my Dad who had a "massive stroke" and never was able to walk, talk or function with any degree of productive movement.

Then I start hearing that Bret Michals is walking, talking, blogging, doing the Funky Chicken and I'm thinking "Have they made enormous strides in stroke treatment or is Bret Michaels really the Golden Child?" I'm glad he's doing well, don't misinterpret me, here.  But this is too amazing.

So I called my close pal, and neighbor, Dr. Paul Hansen and undoubtedly former Primary class participant who gave me the following information:

He actually knows the doctor who was on duty when Mr. Bret Michaels came into the hospital and talked to him the other night!  Yes.  Yes.  You know the right people.  (I mean me, you fools.)

Mr. Bret Michaels actually drove his Bentley, parked it himself and walked into the hospital under his own steam, not complaining of the "worst headache of his life" but of what was like a pulled muscle in his neck.  The doctor just decided to do a CT scan "just in case".  He was having no balance or speech problems or other classic symptoms of a stroke.

But it was discovered he did have some bleeding from the brain stem but probably not much.

Paul got no diagnosis from his friend, but he said it certainly didn't sound like a "massive stroke" with lots of bleeding going on inside, and certainly not with much, if  any damage.

I asked him about repairs, which never take place until after things are stabilized and he said that they probably had taken place by now and the drop in sodium which can cause seizures was probably put together by the press on the internet without much hospital input.

You know what?  I don't think the hospital had to tell the press much at all.  I think that what they had been told was too boring so they ran with all the drama that popped into their own little heads.

Is there improvement in stroke treatment over the last forty, twenty years?  Guess not really much.

Paul and I also wondered whether Bret Michaels is just really lucky or . . . if God might like to hear a just little more Poison.  Hmmmm. Who's to say?