Shawn Terrell (00:01.527)
Welcome to Dentists, Puns and Money. I am your host, Shawn Terrell, continuing the story of the health challenges that I experienced in 2023. The first thing that I remember when I started to come to on June 8th of that year was how bright it was, even though I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't talk either, but I could hear my wife next to me and my brother next to me, and my favorite music was playing.
I was asked to squeeze my wife's hand and my brother's hand and I could do both of those things and I was asked to lift each of my legs. Didn't know why, but I was able to do both of those things and everyone in the room who I couldn't yet see seemed very excited about that. Eventually I was able to open my eyes and see that I was in a room that I had never been in before. It was a very bright room with all the windows open and it
early afternoon, on June 8th of 2023 and I realized that I had had another stroke.
Flashback to earlier that morning, I woke up and I couldn't move my right side, my leg or my arm. My first inclination upon waking up was that I had a fairly bad headache and that I had to use the restroom. But I couldn't move well enough to get out of bed. And I wasn't alarmed initially because at the time, in that moment, I thought this was all
side effects of the first stroke that I suffered less than a week earlier as I outlined in my previous podcast. However, I would come to learn that this was not a side effect of that necessarily. It was a separate second stroke and this one would be much more severe. So after a decent amount of time trying to move and not being able to move, I start to get more more alarmed.
Shawn Terrell (02:10.261)
Mostly at first because I have to use the restroom as most people do when they wake up first thing in the morning.
But then my concern isn't so much focused on that, but the fact that can't move and how am I going to get off the bed? I was sleeping in a separate bedroom of our house because of the first stroke. I hadn't gotten much sleep and we'd had company in our house. And so I just needed at that time, really a good night's sleep. So I made the decision to sleep downstairs in our guest bedroom away from everyone else.
in the house, including my wife, who probably was the best option to help me at that time. So after laying on the bed, being unable to move for a period of time, I eventually realized that I'm going to have to yell for help. So I start yelling for help. And I know my wife is still asleep because it's fairly early in morning, probably six o'clock in the morning. And
She can't hear me, so I keep trying to get off the bed and eventually I fall off the bed and hit my head, I think, on the floor. Hard, but not, it did knock me out. And this is probably an hour passing somewhere in there. It's really hard to know how much time passed because I couldn't use my arm and I couldn't reach my phone to call for help, which is bad when you have a stroke.
Your first thought would be, I'll just call somebody, but I couldn't use my arm. And I didn't have an Apple watch at that time on my wrist or any kind of watch that I could call for help with. Not product specific. At any rate, as more time passes, I start to feel myself fading, I guess is the best way I would explain it, and losing consciousness and losing the ability to speak. And at some point I realized that I'm not going to be able to yell a lot longer. Either I'm going to...
Shawn Terrell (04:12.209)
lose the ability to speak, or I'm going to be unconscious. So I really start to yell as loud as I can. Now we have two boys. One of them was not home, thankfully. He was at his grandparents' house. Our other boy was less than a year old at the time and was still sleeping in his crib, so he was safe. which was a blessing in disguise. Eventually, my wife comes and finds me in the downstairs bedroom on the floor and...
It doesn't take her very long to figure out what's going on. She said in hindsight that she thought I stubbed my toe and fell down at first, which I think.
Shawn Terrell (04:57.352)
She asked me if I was having another stroke and I tried to gesture and explain that I was but I couldn't really affirm yes with my voice at that time. Luckily, she understood what I was trying to communicate and called 911 immediately which made a really big difference and
paramedics and fire department people were at our house probably in less than five minutes from her calling 911 and they were able to quickly ascertain that I was having a stroke and start to move me to the ambulance in our driveway. Now throughout all of this I'm losing the ability to speak and communicate and couldn't really move most my body or least the right side of my body during that time.
It's, I'm getting, starting to get more more concerned that something is really wrong. But I also have this feeling that if help arrives, if I can just get the paramedics here and get to the hospital, that everything will be fine. So, I also had a sense of relief when the paramedics came down and started talking to me in our basement when I was on the floor, that everything was going to be okay. Eventually they carry me out.
of our basement and up our stairs to the main level on what felt like a tarp. It wasn't a stretcher. And they take me to the ambulance in our driveway that's waiting with other people. At some point in here, I vomit and I'm also losing the ability to breathe. I can feel my throat start to close, I guess. And it's...
scary at this point because I can't really communicate what's happening, but I'm trying to make eye contact with the paramedics that are with me to let them know what's going on and hoping they can understand what's happening to me so they can help me. And thank goodness they do. As I'm in our driveway in the ambulance, I think we're going to leave right away and go to the hospital, but we don't. We sit there for a little while.
Shawn Terrell (07:17.424)
And I had enough experience in medicine with my mom being a nurse practitioner and being on the ambulance team in our small town in Iowa when I was a kid that I knew if the ambulance doesn't leave right away for the hospital that the patient, in this case it was me, was not stable enough to transport. And so I'm like, that's not good. We're still sitting here. That must mean I'm not in good shape. And at that point, they intubate me in our driveway, in the ambulance.
and I lose consciousness. then fast forward to what I said off the beginning of the podcast, which was me waking up in the intensive care unit at a hospital in downtown Des Moines and several hours had passed. So I had had another stroke. This one was much worse because I lost the ability to move, speak and breathe. And I woke up in the hospital in the ICU.
Eventually I was able to speak when they removed the... whatever was in my mouth, was intubated, I know that, I don't know the right word. But it's a little weird when you're trying to talk and something is in your throat and you can't.
Anyways, come to find out later that...
Shawn Terrell (08:40.535)
I'm not sure exactly how to say this, but eventually they stabilized me and transported me to the hospital. My wife rode with them in the front seat and she told me when they got to the hospital, she did not know whether I was alive or dead. They pulled into the emergency room at the hospital and they told her when she asked that I was still alive. They worked on me in the ER for a period of time and eventually they did something called the thrombectomy where they
go in through an artery in my leg, your leg, and basically suck out the blood clot that was blocking the blood flow to my brain. I had said in a previous podcast I had an arterial dissection. That is, This is my explanation: Like if you think of a wire, if the wire gets frayed, that's what an arterial dissection is. I was told that they happen commonly to people.
and that they usually resolve themselves without people knowing anything has happened to them, but they can cause blood clots as they heal and resolve themselves on their own inside someone's body. In this case, the arterial dissection on the left side of my neck, the artery getting frayed, caused a couple of blood clots. One wasn't that bad that caused the first stroke, but the second stroke was caused by, I'm assuming, a bigger blood clot.
And this one had to be sucked out or blasted out by a doctor going in through the vein of my leg and snaking all the way up to the, or excuse me, the artery in my leg and snaking all the way up to the artery near my brain and blasting the blood clot away to restore blood flow to my brain. So woke up. Everyone thought I was going to be, I won't say everyone thought I was going to be, but
There was... Until Until I woke up and started talking and moving again, no one quite knew what to expect. First of all, my wife, and I should probably explain that, I am relaying a lot of information here today as it was told to me because I was unconscious for a lot of it. So, this part of the story was experienced by other people and not me directly, but my wife...
Shawn Terrell (11:06.335)
told me they took her and my brothers and sisters and dad. My mom was out of town. Unfortunately, when all this happened during a it happened during a pre-planned trip for her, but they took my whole family into a room outside the surgery center in the emergency room in the hospital. It was called the "Quiet Room" and there was nobody in there except the doctors and there were some chairs and a lot of Kleenexes for people that were crying.
And I now think that's probably where they take family members to tell them that their family member has passed away. But, or if they think they might pass away. But luckily, I survived getting to the hospital. The intubation sure helped. I had a thrombectomy where they got the blood clot out of my brain relatively quickly. And I woke up in the ICU several hours later, upset that I hadn't had my morning coffee yet.
which was one of the first thoughts that popped into my mind. At any rate, I spent five more days in the hospital, several of them in the ICU, many more tests, many doctors and a plethora of medication that came out of it because at first they didn't know that the stroke was caused by a blood clot off the dissection in the neck artery or one of my neck arteries. And so,
Eventually I was able to leave the hospital. I could walk, could talk, could swallow, which is uncommon. I have now learned for people that suffer strokes. Could have obviously passed away. Could have woken up and then a vegetable, quote unquote. I don't know if that's a PC saying, but I think everyone knows what I mean by that for the rest of my life. And thank goodness for my wife who was able to call
paramedics right away and the paramedics for knowing what to do and the healthcare workers at the hospital that saved my life. So that's a little bit more of the story. I don't know exactly how to end it except I lived. The recovery process, even though I was able to walk and talk has still been long and still have some effects from everything that happened. But yeah, all things.
Shawn Terrell (13:26.842)
All things being equal, I'm probably lucky to be here and lucky to be in the shape that I am here. So, felt like I wanted to talk about what happened and this is my best chance to do so. So, I'm not sure where the podcast goes from here next. Would be interested in any feedback that anyone listening could provide, like what would be helpful to talk about next? Should I shut up about all this and start talking about financial stuff again?
I know everyone here isn't necessarily signed up to hear about my health stuff. So email me at Shawn S-H-A-W-N, @ dentistexit.com. Again, Shawn at dentistexit.com if you have thoughts about what you'd like to hear next or hear about next on subsequent podcast episodes from this because I have some ideas as I record this one I'll talk about next but I'm not exactly sure.
At any rate, thanks for listening. Thanks for watching and we will talk to you again very soon.