Mark Liebrecht’s stroke recovery

First, for those of you that don’t know my dad Mark very well I want to introduce him to you. He has loved my mom since they were teenagers and celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in 2020. He loves his huge family, his 8 siblings, his children, his grandchildren, all of the nieces and nephews. He lives for time with his grandchildren- they truly are the light of his life and in his own words, “the greatest thing to happen in my life”. He has always been very active and spent all of his available time this last year+ up north building their lake house. He worked so hard and was looking forward to enjoying the fruits of his labor by retiring in a few short years and spending time traveling with my mom and being surrounded by his grandkids up at the lake. He is funny, makes friends easily, goes out of his way to help others, and is the most stubborn man to walk this earth.

In March 2021 he had an MRI to try to find the cause of chronic headaches. Instead they found a large aneurysm. On March 29th he had a preventative procedure at Mayo to treat/repair the aneurysm. He was cleared to return to work in 3 days and resume regular activities with a lifting restriction. On April 1st he drove to work and parked in the lot. We estimate it was roughly an hour later when a coworker pulled in and found him unresponsive in his truck. There are not enough words to thank her for noticing him, taking action, and calling my brother so we could get to the hospital. She is our angel. He was rushed to North Memorial via ambulance.

When he arrived at the hospital he was awake but “the lights were on but no one was home.” Scan showed he had had a stroke due to a clot at the site of his procedure 3 days prior. He had an area of his brain that had already died and a larger portion that was damaged due to limited blood flow. They took him to surgery to try to remove the clot in hopes of increasing blood flow to the larger damaged area, but they were unsuccessful. Any aggressive attempts to remove or break it up risked causing a brain bleed which would have caused more damage than he had already endured.

Here we are, 36 hours after his stroke. He as aphasia. He can speak in short responses, and can use “yea” and “no” freely, but really struggles to get out what he wants to say. He has limited muscle control on his left side and no muscle control on his right side. We do know that he is not paralyzed. He reacts to pokes and tickles. His brain just hasn’t figured out how to make them move yet. He has a long and hard road to recovery, but anyone who knows him can attest to the fact that he is too stubborn to let this rob him of playing with his grand kids and enjoying retirement with my mom.

Due to Covid my mom is the only one allowed to see him in the hospital until he is discharged. This creates a huge burden on her. She is the only one there to carry the emotional weight of seeing him and supporting him. She also has to find a way to balance working and being with him so he can have at least one familiar face during the day. The emotional toll is going to be a great burden for them. It will not be a short recovery. We are mentally preparing for the possibility that he will have to stay in a rehab facility for some amount of time after his initial discharge and then will likely require a lot of support when he is first able to come home. We have no timeline or specifics for any of this yet.

I will do my best to update as often as we have any news or changes. I know I speak for myself, my brother, and my mom when I say that any support is greatly appreciated. We need all the love and positivity that you can send us, and if you choose to provide monetary support, all funds will go towards his medical bills, rehab/recovery costs, and supporting my mom in being physically present while he is in the hospital as well as supporting her during his transition home.