Tamme

Our family had a terrible shock a week ago, Tamme suffered multiple strokes while at the hardware store with a friend. He had spent the morning wiring the second floor when he and a friend took a break to pick up some needed lighting. He was looking at the selection when he suddenly felt very dizzy and went down to his knees. He lost his vision, ability to talk, and his motor skills. He was conscious the whole time and tried to tell his friend what was happening but his words were just sounds. After about ten minutes his speech came back, but he had a severe case of vertigo and nausea. His friend brought him home immediately, where I called his parents to watch the children as I took Tamme to the emergency room.

The next couple of hours were a nightmare as I fought to get the doctors to understand that this was more than a migraine and that there was something seriously wrong with my very healthy husband. When they tried to give him migraine pain medication I flipped and made the doctor look again. Tamme's one eye would not follow when I would pass him. The doctor now saw and called a neurologist at Jefferson Hospital, who immediately sent for Tamme to be flown by helicopter to Philadelphia.

To make a very long story shorter, the doctors found that Tamme had suffered multiple strokes in his cerebellum caused by a hole in his heart. This hole is called a foramen ovale and is

"located in the atrial septum that is used during fetal circulation to speed up the travel of blood through the heart. When in the womb,a baby does not use it's own lungs for oxygen-rich blood, it relies on the mother to provide oxygen rich blood from the placenta through the umbilical cord to the fetus. Therefore, blood can travel from the veins to the right side of the baby's heart and cross to the left side of the heart through the foramen ovale and skip the trip to the baby's lungs."

"Normally the foramen ovale closes at birth when increased blood pressure on the left side of the heart forces the opening to close.

If the atrial septum does not close properly, it is called a patent foramen ovale. This type of defect generally works like a flap valve, only opening during certain conditions when there is more pressure inside the chest. This increased pressure occurs when people strain while having a bowel movement, cough, or sneeze.

If the pressure is great enough, blood may travel from the right atrium to the left atrium. If there is a clot or particles in the blood traveling in the right side of the heart, it can cross the PFO, enter the left atrium, and travel out of the heart and to the brain (causing a stroke) or into a coronary artery (causing a heart attack)."

After lots of different, very uncomfortable tests this is what was found to have caused Tamme's strokes.

So, in 6-8 weeks Tamme will go through a procedure to close the hole in his heart. They will insert a catheter into a vein in his thigh and then advance it up to his heart. This catheter has a balloon and a camera attached to it. They will use this to measure the size of the hole and use the camera to see if there are more holes. If there are more holes or the hole is too big, Tamme will need to have open heart surgery, but if it's just that patent foramen ovale then the surgeons can close it right then and there with a closure device that looks like a double headed umbrella. Incredible!

So needless to say we are praying that the latter will be the outcome for Tamme's situation. At this point we are already extremely grateful that Tamme regained all of his speech, vision, and motor skills. Most stroke survivors are not as fortunate. We are taking one day at a time now. I brought Tamme home after four days in the hospital and for those of you who know Tamme this was probably the most challenging for him. Imagine Tamme laying in a bed all day!

He has to take an aspirin a day and our family doctor also has him taking some anthroposophical, homeopathic remedies as well. He now only deals with a kind of constant, mild dizziness that he says he's already gotten used to. Hopefully that will heal with time. He is very glad to be back at work today and returning to our normal rhythm as a family.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I can not leave before I mention one of the most awe inspiring things about this event in our lives and that is the amazing amount of love we were enveloped in. Our brave family, our dear close friends, our dear distant friends and our ever supporting community. The many, many phone calls, the nourishing meals made, the loving words of support, the care packages, the flowers, the knowing that our young children were in the best possible hands while I stayed with Tamme, the chocolate, ah yes, the chocolate, the feeling of knowing that no matter what happens we are not alone.

Much love, Susan, Tamme, Loic, Sienna and Isaac