A Reason To Hope

Strokes can have devastating consequences.But in this health-care workers case, her stroke gave her a new direction

- Rita Ecdao-Lubey 

ALL DAY I’D BEEN UNPACKING, putting things away in my new apartment. I opened the fridge. Nothing in there. Not surprising, since I’d just moved in, but looking at the bare shelves, I couldn’t help feeling a kind of emptiness myself. I’d recently gone through a devastating divorce. My three kids were grown and on their own. There had been no point in staying on alone in our house in Cameron Park. I wanted to be closer to my mom, who was getting older, so I’d left Cameron Park and rented this apartment in Campbell, where I’d grown up.

A good place to get a fresh start, I figured. I had extended family here and old friends. What I didn’t have was a job, a new direction. Something to fill my life the way being a wife and mother used to.

Maybe I could start with filling this fridge, so my apartment would seem homier and I’d feel more settled. I drove to the supermarket. As I stepped out of the car, a wave of dizziness hit. Must have stood up too fast, I thought. I held on to a shopping cart to steady myself and pushed it inside the store.

I felt worse. More dizziness. Leaning heavily on the shopping cart, I went back to the parking lot. I felt as if I was going to pass out. As if I might die. I looked up at the sky. Please, dear God, don’t take me until I see my kids. I saw a man standing beside the car next to mine. I handed him my phone. “Please call 911,” I said. I opened my door and sank into the front seat.

I reclined the seat and lay back.

“They’re on the way,” the man said, returning my phone.

Soon an EMT was by my open door. I pushed myself up. “I’m feeling better now,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

“We’ll check you out anyway,” he said, patting my arm.