The following blog is in response to one of the comments posted to our blog yesterday. The author did not give her email address, so I am using the blog to reply to her.
Dear Ms. Ceesay,
I received your comment to the blog today, and immediately went to the medical ward to see your father. He was admitted yesterday about noon with a stroke, as you said. He as admitted by one of our team, Dr. Amelia Pousson. His condition is currently stable. After 30 hours here, his blood pressure is under control and his symptoms have not worsened, his stroke has not progressed. He is unable to speak, but he is able to swallow soft foods and drink. He has almost complete loss of motor function of the right leg and right arm, which is called hemiplegia, indicating that he likely had a stroke on the left side of his brain. It is most likely that he has had an ischemic stroke, which is when a blood vessel is blocked, and an area of brain tissue suffers damage from lack of blood flow and oxygen, rather than a hemorrhagic stroke, when bleeding occurs in the brain. Your father is on all the appropriate medications to manage his condition.
I spoke at length with your family at the bedside, answering their questions and explaining what I could. The definitive test to confirm a stroke is a CT scan, which we do not have here at SJGH. The only one is at RVTH in Banjul. At this point, a CT would really only provide additional information such as exactly what part of the brain in which the stroke occurred, and how much tissue is involved. This information can be important to help determine prognosis and expected length of recovery, as well as prevention of further strokes or other neurologic events. After much discussion with your family, and with the Cuban doctors who manage the medical wards, a decision was made that your father is now stable enough for transfer to RVTH in the morning for this CT scan and neurologist consultation. Discussion can be made there based on the results of the scan and his condition whether he would benefit from further rehabilitation outside of the country. My understanding is that there are no physical therapy or rehabilitation facilities in The Gambia.
I hope this information is helpful to you and easy to understand. Your father has suffered a significant injury, but he is awake and stable, and will likely continue to improve if he receives the proper attention and care. Predicting how much of the use of his right side and speech that he will recover is impossible to tell at this point in time. Your family was wonderful, and so many of them are at the bedside caring for your father and assisting the nurse with management. It is wonderful to see families come together like this for a loved one, as I am so used to American families that can be so small and spread out, and people live into their later years with no one around to help care for them. Your family says hello to you.
I hope you will keep me posted about your father’s progress, and he will be in all of our thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks. Please email our website if you have any further questions, or if we can be of further help. We leave The Gambia on Feb 3rd to return to the United States.
All the best,
Susan Thompson
Posted by delmed 
