Rob Spends the Night in the Hospital

The second Sunday night of January, we had an event and were at the COB from about 3 until 9 pm.  On the way home, Rob pulled over and asked me to drive, telling me that he couldn't see anything in the bottom third of his vision.  This was similar, but much larger, to a visual loss that he had two years before, but which went away.

The next day, he visited the mission clinic, and they made an appointment for him with a neurologist in two days.  Anyone who has had to get in to a neurologist knows that usually it takes months to get in, but they had a cancellation.  Tuesday afternoon, we had Elder Bridge and Bushman, who we serve with, to give him a blessing.  Elder Bushman did not bless him that he would recover, but that he would receive the proper treatment (I didn't really like that - I wanted him to be healed...)

Dr. Evan Black saw him on Wednesday morning and scheduled him to have a CT scan on his carotid arteries and a MRI on Friday at LDS Hospital.  When Rob had those tests, they told him that he would get the results in about a week.  We left the hospital, heading down to Provo to help Bryan with his home remodeling.

Then the phone rang, and Dr. Black was on the phone.  He said that he wanted him to go to the St. Marks Hospital and get checked in for further tests.  Rob asked him, "When?", since we were heading down to Bryan's.  Imagine our surprise when the doctor responded, "Immediately."

So we drove to the hospital, and I dropped him off.  By the time, I was parked and had come in, he was up in a room.  Over the next hours, they performed a number of tests.

Here he is in bed.

He was just lying there comfortably while I full of concern and turmoil!

Rob had dinner and then Ron and Carolyn came by to see him.  I had been unable to sleep the night before for some reason and had been up since about 3 am, so I returned to Bert's to spend the night - Rob was okay, and I slept much better than I would have in a chair in his room.

Over the course of less than a day, he had, besides the CT scan and MRI at LDS Hospital, seen a physical therapist, occupational therapist, and speech therapist, and had an EKG, besides bloodwork. We were fortunate to be at St. Marks which has a been diagnosed as a stroke center of excellence.

We learned the MRI showed that Rob had had a number of little strokes, and the doctor wanted to address those immediately.  We also learned, by the way, that we should have immediately gone to the ER when he had his initial vision loss.  The doctor put him on a stronger blood thinner and after about a week, his vision returned.

Because Rob wasn't immediately healed, we had followed through on the problem, and he found a great doctor.  We felt so grateful that we had gotten him in to the doctor, and that they were able to correct or alleviate this happening in the future.