Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Praying...

My dear friend Kay Friedenstein's daughter, Joanne, suffered a stroke while jogging on her treadmill yesterday morning. She has two young daughters, Audrey (who is 12) & Emma (who is 9)

Here is the account her husband, Toben Heim, posted on her blog:

"Joanne suffered a major stroke this morning around 9 a.m. Emma found her on the floor in the basement where she was shaking violently. I was most of the way to my office in Colorado Springs when Audrey called with the news. We immediately called 911 and I headed for home. We also called Joanne's mom and she and the ambulance got there about 5 minutes after the calls.

Minutes later I met Joanne and the ambulance at Littleton Adventist. She was conscious but it was immediately apparent to me that it was a stroke. She was totally unresponsive on the left side of her body but had some use of her right side and was able to respond to commands.

She was given multiple CAT scans and they were immediately able to see the clot, it's size, and where it was located. They started drug therapy but determined that they needed to go in with a catheter through an artery and into her brain. They were able to get to the clot and dissolve some of it restoring some blood flow to the brain.

Now we have to just wait and pray. She has not woken up yet but is still responding to commands on her right side. She has not opened her eyes or been able to verbalize anything but she can move her hand and foot on the right side. The next 72 hours will be critical.

Here are the specific prayer requests:

1. There is a possibility of hemorrhaging in the brain because of the trauma it suffered. If she does hemorrhage that would be a very bad thing, although I haven't got a clear answer as to what exactly that would mean.

2. No swelling of the brain. If it swells they will have to take significant measures to give her brain the room it needs. That would be a really bad thing too.

3. Tomorrow they will run the catheter again back into her brain to check for blood flow. Please pray that she is getting the blood flow it needs."


For updates, information or just to leave a comment that you're praying too, you can visit Joanne's blog thesimplewife.typepad.com


Please join in prayer!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for posting this. I came across your blog via January Reflections and have been praying for this woman and her family since I read you post.

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