As I said a week or so ago, on the evening of December 2, 2017, Lynette was having great difficulty articulating what she was thinking. I could tell she KNEW what she was trying to say, but she just couldn’t form the words. I called her Home Health nurse to report this. The nurse told us to take her to the Emergency Room. All of us suspected this might be a stroke or TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack).

I took her to the Baptist ED. Sarah followed in her car. As had happened before, Lynette was taken back to a treatment room right away and scheduled for a quick CT of her head. I was aware that if they stroke was an “ischemic” one, they could give a clot busting drug to break up the clot and minimize brain damage, but it if was a “hemmorhagic” stroke, then the clot busting drug would make the bleeding worse. A CT is necessary to make that determination.

A “hiccup” came to the fore very quickly. Baptist did not have a neurologist on call that Saturday night. This was, apparently, news to the ED nursing staff. Their frustration was quite evident. I’m pretty sure the ED doctor was able to make a determination on whether Lynette was having an ischemic or hemmorhagic stroke, but further assessment of the reason(s) behind her speech difficulties would require time and training the ED doc did not have.

The most obvious solution was to transfer Lynette to UMMC, where her oncology doctors were based and where a neurologist MUST be on site at all times (Since UMMC is a Level 1 Trauma center). Unfortunately, UMMC was “at capacity” and unable to take even an emergent patient at that time. Therefore, Lynette was transferred to St. Dominic’s, which was neither “at capacity” nor without a neurologist on call.

We had left Luke at home. I went back to Harrisville to sleep and be with Luke and deputized Sarah to get her Mama settled at St. Dominic’s.