Don't Polite Yourself To Death

Bobbie Bicknell Coray
Rich Civic Times


The other night I was chatting with a friend when she began to mix up words and use the wrong ones. We both stopped talking, startled.  I said to her that she was showing signs of a stroke.  "Oh, no," she said.  "I'm  just fine."  My kind friend never wants to be a bother and is so polite!

I suggested that she let me take her to the hospital, but again she said she was fine.  I left, checked with a friend who had had a stroke years before who told me to call the ambulance because there was a three hour window in the case of a stroke to get the correct medication.  (I learned later that you really need to get to the hospital in two hours, so they can do a CAT scan and other tests.)

So I called the ambulance, got gas, because I was on fumes..(Keep your gas tank half full in Rich County), and got to her house just after the ambulance arrived.  The EMT staff were wonderful and thorough.  They called the hospital and did tests.  But by this time my friend was just fine and looking good.. Again, so polite that she didn't want to put the ambulance people out, she thanked them and sent them on their way.  They agreed when their consulting doctor released her and only if I would take her home with me and watch her.  They left, asking us to call them again if anything changed. I was politely embarrassed that perhaps I'd over-reacted, and wondered if I should have called the ambulance...you see how we were "politing" ourselves to death?

Several people had gathered seeing the ambulance lights, so they helped her get her things together to go to my house and once again her speech pattern changed drastically.  This time we didn't ask politely, we just put her in the car and drove her to Logan Hospital.  We made it in time and she is just fine.  But I learned a lot.

1. At the sign of a stroke or heart attack take the ambulance to a major trauma hospital.

2. Don't worry that you are being a bother or think that you will get better in time. Err on the side of caution.

3. Don't drive someone to the hospital yourself, use the ambulance, because they can deal with an emergency on drive to the hospital, give oxygen and put in intravenous tubes.