As many you know Joe was rushed to the ER January 3rd, due to being extremely sick. His vision was mostly gone, he had a high temperature, he was confused and he had what they kept referring to as “tossed salad” speech. His words don’t sound like words. After 5 1/2 hours of tests and waiting there weren't any answers. Joe had to stay overnight and during the night he lost movement in his right arm. The doctor called the next morning and notified Shannon that the MRI showed that he had several strokes on the left side of his brain. They did several procedures on January 4th to see how badly it effected him and to make sure it has not effected his heart.

Joe had to have a spinal tap and an ultrasound on his heart. When Shannon first arrived at the hospital his speech was worse and he was very incoherent. By 6:00 pm on January 4th Joe had his vision and speech back and he was back to making fart jokes. He sounds much better and we have a few answers. They are fairly positive the strokes came from a staph infection that had reached his heart. They think it started with the flu, led to shingles, which led to staph, and ended with his strokes. On an unrelated note, we found out through the testing that he does have a heart defect that will need to be monitored yearly. Although overwhelming to hear, We are thankful for this, because had this crap never happened we would not have found this out. Now we can monitor him and make sure he is healthy! We can also notify our kids’ pediatricians to check, since it is genetic. Today he is able to pass quite a few of the tests they do following a stroke. It sounds like it is definitely going to be a process, but they have confidence he will be able to recover. Unfortunately Joe will not be able to come home for a couple of weeks. He will most likely need to go to a rehabilitation center to work on some motor skills, especially in his right arm, which has very limited movement. He will also need to be on an antibiotic Treatment for the next 6 weeks to fight the infection.

 

 

Joe and Shannons world has been turned upside down and they have a long road ahead of them while Joe recovers. Anything you can do to help offset this financial strain and help their growing family will be beyond appreciated. Its so hard to ask for help in a time of need or to even know where to start. This will hopefully relieve the tiniest bit of stress off of their shoulders.

 

Thank You!