Yesterday afternoon Don got a bad headache. He NEVER gets headaches. Once in a while he'll get something that lasts about 5 mins. He went to lay down, about 15 minutes later he came out to call his doctor to see if he could take aspirin for the headache. (His doc wants him to call before taking anything). As I watched him try to do that, I could see there was something definitely wrong. I was concerned that he might have had a stroke, so I took the phone and told the nurse his symptoms. She preferred having us go to Moffitt but didn't want to have us take 45 minutes to get to medical attention so she had us go to the emergency room in Lakeland, 10 mins. away. They admitted him, gave him an ultrasound, didn't see any hemoraging or tumors but could see the weakness on the left side. The headache was behind the right eye. This morning they took him for an MRI but he was combative when they tried to put the helmet on him, definitely not like Don. I went with him for the second try, he made it half way. The machine is very noisy and he still had this bad headache, when they took him out he was in a panic. When he has these done at Moffitt he's wearing headphones and doesn't have a headache. All he had here were ear plugs. They got enough to confirm it was a stroke.
Tomorrow they will do a CT scan with contrast which should determine whether it was a regular stroke or one caused by the melanoma. Will let you know what happens.
His son Derek is flying down tomorrow, I'm sure he'll be happy to see him.
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