DIABETES, IMPOTENCE, AND STROKE
After reading a post by a man who had a massive left brain stroke, I decided that there is some things I want to say.
First of all I say this with all respect and sincerity.
My husband was in Nam three times. He was a work horse. He loved his job and worked more than he slept. He had worked 21 days straight and finally took a day off. That Saturday that he took off, I decided to take my 2 young boys to kid connection, ( a yearly function in our town.)
Rich had type II diabetes and high blood pressure for a few years. That morning he was in bed, I hollered up the steps to tell him good-bye. He just mumbled back to me and I took it as him being tired and we left. I came home to find my daughter there. She had come to visit. We sit and talked for a while and I ask where her dad was. He was going to work in the garden and I thought maybe that's where he was at. She said he is lying on the floor in front of the sofa in his underwear. Well that sent up a red flag to me because he was not in the habit of being dressed that way in front of his daughter.
I walked in to find him facing the sofa. I pulled him back a bit and ask him if he was okay. He looked at me with a blank stare. I soon realized that he had urinated on himself and that he couldn't speak, only mumble. I estimate that he had laid there for 8 hours. I believe he slid down the stairs because he was covered with brush burns.
I could not call an ambulance because I promised him that if anything ever happened that I wouldn't. I called my oldest son and when he came he called the ambulance.
Rich was 44 years old when he had a massive left brain stroke. It left him paralyzed on his right side. He could not walk or even stand on his own. He could say "I want," and then it was a guessing game...one that I got very good at. We tried rehab but he refused to try to do anything. He was not incontinent but it was me that had to lift him and pivot him onto a bedside commode and wipe him. He could feed himself, sit on the edge of the bed, work the remote, and smoke cigarettes. He was content with that little circle that he sat in. That was the extent of his world. He did not remember me as his wife, only the person that cared for him day after day for six years. He did not know his own kids names. Our struggles were not important to him because he was content to exist in that little circle. He was a prisoner in his own mind. I believe that to him... he was okay. He thought there was something wrong with us. His doctor told me that in their mind... everything is okay and complete. They are a prisoner in their own mind. The problem is between where those thoughts are complete and expressing them. That connection is no longer there.
Death meant nothing to him; he had seen enough of it that he was hardened to it; the kids and I weren't. I did many things in the name of survival during those years, many things I'm not proud of, but I did survive. I kept him at home and cared for him the best I could and stood by him and watched him draw his last breath. As I said, death meant nothing to him. For me and the kids we are still trying to walk out of that dark valley of the years of anguish of watching him exist. My oldest son who went against his dad's wishes and called the ambulance... only to watch his dad exist... is now a full fledged alcoholic.
Why am I telling you this? Maybe what I have to say will help one of you men to seek medical help before this ever happens to you. Maybe death doesn't mean anything to you. It does to the people who love you. Maybe you think you will just die... SO WHAT? I'll tell you "so what." Maybe you won't die, maybe you will live. AND you know who will have to care for you; the one's who love you. Do you know that they will have to stop themselves from feeling because feeling makes you weak and people who are weak don't survive? Do you know it will take years for them to learn to live and love and laugh again because they have to learn to allow themselves to feel again?
I have said a lot to get to the point I really want to make. I know it is very personal but I say this hoping that it may help someone.
Rich had a problem with impotence. He would not tell his doctor about it. (Men seem to have a problem telling someone about a problem such as this.) To Rich having diabetes was a death sentence anyhow and he didn't care, death meant being absent from the nightmares. If you ever have a problem with impotence, don't consider it merely a sign of aging. It is not always that. I believe if Rich would have told the doctor about this, it would have been a warning sign. Impotence is caused by a decrease of blood flow to that part of the body and blockage that causes a stroke can be the same blockage that causes the impotence. I believe if Rich had told the doctor this, they may have did sonograms then to find out about the blockage and would have discovered the extreme amount of blockage that he had before this massive stroke happened. Don't let a doctor tell you it's just part of the aging process. Sonograms are painless and can show blocked arteries.
Chronic high levels of blood sugar associated with diabetes mellitus often damage small blood vessels and nerves throughout the body, which can impair nerve impulses and blood flow necessary for erection. About 60% of men with diabetes experience impotence. It can also cause blockage to build up in the carotid arteries that lead to a stroke.
Type II diabetes and high blood pressure are fore-runners to a stroke.
Death may not mean anything to you but how much does that person that loves you mean to you. Hopefully enough that you don't want them to have to care for you and stop feeling love or hate, happiness or sadness, joy or sorrow... or any emotion at all, just so they can take care of you and still survive.
The only good thing I hang onto is that my Rich had a window of clarity before he died and affirmed his faith and belief in a loving and forgiving God and he is home with his brothers and free from it all. In the end... he looked at me and said my name, something I had not heard in six years, drew his last two breaths and the angels took him home. In the end, he knew it was me that was always there.
PLEASE.... if not for yourselves... then for the one(s) that loves you.
Much love,
Mary