“Your Son David Has Had A Stroke, and has lost half of the
vision in one eye” - those were the words the specialist
told us this last week. His words couldn’t have come as more
of a shock to us. Our youngest son, David, is only 16. He
is, by anyone’s standards a remarkably healthy, vibrant
youth who is the picture of health. We were blown away!
Sunday morning, two weeks ago, David woke up to find that
much of the sight in his left eye was simply gone - no
trauma, no pain, no visible damage to his eye. Somewhere in
the night he had suffered what we have come to realize was
an "Ischemic Stroke". They have told us it is a permanent
loss and that that part of his eye is now dead. We were
absolutely grief stricken to realize that half of his
eyesight in one eye is gone. It is a very helpless feeling
to realize that there is nothing you can do to help.
And then came the second blow, even yet harder to deal with.
An "Ischemic Stroke" is the result of something far more
serious that we need to be concerned with - a serious
problem looming somewhere in the cardiovascular system.
Research shows that a large percentage of those who have an
"Ischemic Stroke" go on within two months to have a cerebral
or cardiovascular stroke. NOT GOOD!
David is now on blood thinners to help reduce his potential
for a repeat until we can decide what is causing it and what
to do about it. He is on steroids to help reduce the
swelling in the bad eye and reduce the real concern Drs.
have of him losing the rest of the eye.
He has been to one heart specialist after another. He has
even had a camera inside of him to see the heart more
clearly. The results of the tests were that David has a
beautiful heart in very healthy condition. However, there is
an anomaly there. David seems (we have seen it on video) to
have something that looks like a hair just below the aortic
valve that seems to be connected at both ends - just blowing
in the breeze. If David had never had this stroke they would
say, "Wow - that's interesting!". However, since he HAS had
a stroke they are regarding it with high concern, as the
potential culprit in this matter. They believe that it could
be gathering particles (that are normally taken care of in
the bloodstream) and when it has gathered to many to hold,
and they have built up to a size greater than the
bloodstream can handle - it simply shook them off and David
had a stroke. As they have told us, we were fortunate that
this one landed in his eye.
Drs. have told us that one of the real options we must
seriously look at, at this point, is open heart surgery. If
we do not hurry, there is the potential for yet another,
more damaging stroke.
David is truly one remarkable young man. His faith is
strong, he knows everything that he is facing and, even
though he has times where it all wells up and hits him, he
is doing admirably. Please pray for him and us that God
would give us wisdom and strength to make the right
decisions. Pray for David that God would continue to protect
his health from anything further happening. Pray for the
doctors that God would help them discover what is going on.
Dalton, Paulette & David
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