Chris Lawton - Update - 28-July-17

Dear Friends & Family,

Front: Lindsey, Emily, Kelsie
Back: Cindy, Chris

I wish to thank you for the continued support of my family through this trying medical season in my life.  I am here by the Grace of God (1 Corinthians 16:23).

Background

As you may know, I got the joy of experiencing open heart surgery resulting in a triple-bypass in March of this year.  I truly had a peace about this surgery due to the encouragement of my family, friends, and my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  For those who don’t know me well, I’ve been attending North Point Community Church for 17 years, been part of some amazing small  groups (couples and men’s), volunteered in Audio as a Monitor Engineer (mixing for the band), and other various roles.   I share this to provide  insight on being a witness to others life’s change.  We all sin, and continue, but having a personal relationship with My SAVIOR is pretty cool and I pray you find a similar relationship as He is always ready to meet you where you are.

During the week leading up to the by-pass, I was still not aware of any major issues with the exception of “being physically out of shape.”  At least 5 days a week, I study my devotionals early in the morning.  On Monday, March 6, I opened the YouVersion Bible app like I normally do and for whatever reason, Psalm 109:22 NIV appeared.  It was not part of any of the devotionals I was studying, and if you looked on your own, verse 22 would appear pretty far down in the passage. That morning,  the verse was in the middle of the page and my eyes went there immediately.  The verse states, “For I am poor and needy, my heart is wounded within me.”   The next day was the first time I felt the pain around my neck while walking the neighborhood to four days later being told by the cardiologist attempting to place stents in my heart that I was no longer a candidate and would require by-pass surgery.  

The surgery and recovery were much harder than expected for the first 6-8 weeks, and as most things in life, the short term pains begin to fade as hope for new begins to focus.  I was doing very well in Cardio Rehab (3x per week) and walking (1-2x per week) averaging 3-5 days of walking.  I had two personal goals,  one to maintain a new healthy lifestyle and the most important short-term goal was to play golf in Scotland in August for the 4th time.

Summer Cold

A summer cold is very unusual for me and while it started light, I began to feel it coming on stronger by Sunday evening, July 9.  At the same time, our youngest daughter Emily was on her missions trip to Costa Rica with it too.  During the week I would begin to cough and couldn’t catch my breath.  On top of that, I thought my sternum had healed much further from the bypass and Cardio workouts but every-time I coughed hard, it hurt, and it hurt bad.   On Wednesday, I started a coughing spell and tried to do something different to reduce the pain in my chest and I turned my head as I coughed really hard.  At that time, I felt I pulled a neck muscle or ligament on the top of my neck behind my left ear.  

For the next 4 days, my neck was really hurting but just felt like a pulled muscle.  I continued to work, do normal activities, just kept my neck in mind when I rested.  Again, nothing but a pulled muscle that ice packs won’t help. 

Sunday, July 16 & early Monday, July 17

The family went to bed normal on Sunday evening, yet I could not get comfortable laying down and decided to go downstairs to do some work and see if I could finish whatever my mind thought I needed to complete for the day.  While this may seem unusual, it wasn’t for me, except tonight I kept my phone upstairs.  You see, after the by-pass surgery,  I began using one of the apps providing sounds such as “Brown Noise” to help me relax.  Since I had already started the sound and Cindy was falling asleep, I headed downstairs to do some work and just left the phone to not change the sound in our room.

Between 2:45 and 3:00 am Monday morning, I realized I could not focus or control my computer and I didn’t know why.  So I put the computer on the table and figured I needed to go to bed.   This is when began to fight off a stroke.  At some point I fell over and knocked my reading glasses and our end table so hard that it knocked vases over and even broke one.   I was laying on the floor next to the chair and sofa not understanding why I could not get up.  It took me a long time to figure out why I could not lift myself up because I had no control of my right side.  I would use my left arm to pull me up on our coffee table but would just fall over.  I  kept thinking “Just pull yourself up on the sofa”.  I know I made it to the sofa one time and immediately fell off because I could not hold myself up or grab anything on my right side to prop me up.  I could see my hand and wrist be completely closed.  More time passed and I was able to get on the sofa and realized I needed to lay flat to prevent me from falling off.  I started working hard to lift my right leg as my left was still functional.    After some time doing this, I tried to get up to let Cindy know, and fell over again.  I worked on lifting my right leg again, and again, and  then tried to stand again.  I still didn’t have any control of my right arm or wrist  but was able to make it to a mirror in our family room about 5 feet away.   That’s when I saw my face, my arm, and the overall droopiness in my right eye and mouth.  I tried to yell out to Cindy and that’s when I first heard my self speaking “Gibberish”.  I knew what I wanted to say, but also heard what I said and knew it wasn’t even close to the words I was attempting to speak.  Truly the scariest and saddest moment in my life when reality hit of what just happened.  

I slowly walked back to the sofa and fell back down on my back and started working my leg again at the same time choosing small words like “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, “Apple”, etc. that I could attempt to say and see if I heard them back.  I thought I did so yelled out once again to Cindy and all I heard was the “Gibberish”.   

I finally got the strength and ability to get up stairs at 5:00 AM and woke Cindy up.  Yes, this is 2 hours later.  It’s dark in the room and she wakes up asking what are you doing, you ok? I stand on my side of the bed.  I speak to her, she says what, what did you say..(I was saying we need to go to the hospital), but it was in “Gibberish” .  She says what, I respond again in “Gibberish” this time say “I think I’ve had a stroke” and she says “I can’t understand you”.  I walk to our bathroom and turn on the light and she comes in and then sees my arm, face, cheek, eyes, etc. and immediately says “Lets go.”

You may ask why didn’t I call 911.  The reasoning for me was I could not speak and I truly felt I need to let Cindy know what was happening before paramedics showed up.  Perhaps that was wrong, but after laying on the couch hearing me speak “Gibberish” for the last hour, I really didn’t think it was going to make a difference at that point.  I truly thought my speech was gone.   

Northside Forsyth

We get to Northside Forsyth in about 15-20 minutes and walk in.  They jumped into action,  stabilized me, and then began calling Grady.  What is amazing, over the next 20 minutes, my speech began to return, although very slow.   During this time, Northside and Grady were determining whether I get the special Helicopter ride or general ambulance.   Because of the time of the morning and possibly because some of my speech was returning, we got in the ambulance and headed to Grady.  

Grady

As Cindy and I arrived, they took me directly to get a CT-SCAN.  My Dad and Lynn were there when I returned to the room and we began speaking with the doctors immediately about my options.  During the 45-50 minute ride to Grady, my speech, feeling in my cheeks, muscle control were beginning to return.  The doctors were shocked and shared they were prepared to take me into surgery immediately as they don’t get to speak with patients directly under my condition.  

We also decided the best option was to continue with the surgery, remove the clot, and repair anything.   

The Grady team removed a 1.5cm long clot and placed two stents.  One on my upper left and one down at the left carotid artery. I was back in my ICU room Monday afternoon.   I thought, ok wow, that was quick.   I feel ok , wow medicine is quite amazing these days. 

Next 48 hours

The next 48 hours appeared all was successful and I was on a strong road to recovery.  The doctors continued to come in to test any issues with my right side, I saw a speech therapist multiple times and was feeling much better (based on pain level) than the by-pass.  I appreciated the support of Cindy, Dad, and Lynn, my brother Todd, and all the texts and phone calls that I could not respond to passing along prayers and thoughts to the family.  

On Wednesday evening, they came into to do “Neck Doppler?” and that’s when I heard a difference on the two sides of my neck.  Being in audio, wish I could say it was my keen sense of hearing, but, this was very obvious.   The difference between my right side and left side was very clear.  The doctors came in about 30 minutes later and shared I was not out of the woods yet, as they needed and still needed my stent near the carotid artery to clog.  You see, my carotid artery was so weak on the left that it broke, basically broke in half.   The good news discovered through all of this my right side carotid artery is strong enough to feed blood to both sides of my brain.  As I understand it, this was one of the reason I was able to first survive the stroke and second to be able regain control of my speech, arms, face, and other motor skills.  The positive news is everyday my risk goes down.   

Current Status

I am home and very blessed.  What is amazing is if you were to look at me, speak to me, shake my hand, or anything else, you would never know what I went through. It has taken several days to complete this letter and I’m grateful for Gods Grace and Mercy on my recovery.  My life has changed again.   I wish I could understand “Why me?” and that would be nice, although it won’t change anything.  That’s not who I am, time to move forward and learn.  That said, it not easy by any means.  My head hurts all day as my body gets used to the stents and realizing they are part of us now.  My doctors are working hard to control my blood pressure due to the cardiologist needing it to go low, all while the neurologists need it to be high to ensure enough blood flow as my body adjusts.   I’ve gotten out of the house a few times to focus on other things and I truly look forward to speaking and visiting with you soon.  Trust you understand the purpose of this letter to keep you updated.

There will be more to come, in the meantime, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and I thank...

• All the love and support Cindy, Emily, Lindsey, and Kelsie have provided over the past week and months.  
• The rock my brother and Dad have given me and especially Cindy during the last several months.  All the hours Lynn has spent at the hospital and supporting my Dad.
• Fleta (Cindy’s mother) to get to Atlanta to spend time with Emily by Monday afternoon and staying until Friday so Cindy could stay in ICU with me.
• The doctors, nurses, and the professionals at Grady Neurology.  
• Everyone reaching out via text, phone calls, etc.  Truly wish I could speak to everyone at this time and I will over time.

In His Name,

-Chris