Helping our dad on the road to recovery from a stroke

Hello,

What our dad thought was a bad case of vertigo Friday morning after Thanksgiving, turned into be way worse. He felt very off and felt this was not just vertigo. He immediately went in to Aurora St. Lukes South Shore in Cudahy. When he got there, he described his symptoms to the ER staff and they treated it as a stroke and was immediately taken back for a head CT. Well, staff was right and the scans came back as he suffered a minor stroke and got him up to a room. Within an hour and having another image done, what was a minor stroke turned into severe and he was rushed to Aurora St. Lukes Medical Center in Milwaukee and was taken to the Neuro ICU floor. Over night, the swelling became critical and within 12 hours he went in for emergency surgery to remove part of his skull as the swelling was causing severe damage and pressure to his brain. The doctor said they would expect to see the swelling over a 3-5 day period and not in a 12-24 time span like our dad did. He spent many days in the neuro icu and had to go for many CT scans to monitor the swelling closely. Over a week of being in the ICU he was finally transferred to inpatient rehab where he spent 4-6 hours doing OT, PT and speech over many days. He is now back home but will face a long road of recovery as the doctors never found out the reason for the stroke and idenitified this as a PICA stroke. While we are blessed our dad is here and alive this comes the cost of medical bills and continued therapy support. We can not thank each and every one for the support, the constant reaching out and the continued support as we appreciate it more than you know!