August 9, 2013 - Admitted to the Hospital and A Kind Act that Made All the Difference

      Tenika and I sat in the waiting room at the hospital while doctors evaluated Mike. It was a small room with a bathroom. I don't know how long we waited but eventually the nurse came and said I could go see Mike. The doctor came in as well and told me that Mike had suffered a stroke that had affecters 25% of his brain. He was fully paralyzed on the right side of his body and could no longer speak. They were admitting him to an acute care unit in the hospital. From the waiting room at the hospital I phoned our friend, Kofi Bentil, who lived outside of London. He helped me to reach the local LDS missionaries who came and gave Mike a blessing. The elders also went to a nearby store and, using cash I had given them, they purchased a local phone for me to use. 

     Once Mike was stabilized on the acute unit at the hospital, Tenika and I found a bus to take us back to the hotel in Slough. She packed up our suitcases while I stayed in the lobby trying to find a hotel for us near the hospital. The staff at the Marriott Hotel was compassionate and amazing. I could not get the skype phone to work on my computer and was so overwhelmed, that I couldn't remember how to access out bank accounts. I had very little cash on hand and had no idea how much a taxi would cost to get us back to the hospital. One of the Marriott managers, Hayley Dymock, allowed me to go into her office and to use her computer. I found a hotel near the hospital called the Premier Inn. They had a vacancy for one night only but we took it. I wasn't sure I and enough cash to hire a taxi back to the hotel so Tenika and I were trying to figure out how we would lift all of our luggage back onto he bus. At that point, Hayley said that she had hired a cab for us and it was waiting out front. She said that the hotel had already paid the fare. It was the first of many kindnesses that were shown to us. 

     The taxi took us to the Premier Inn where the front desk receptionist gave us free internet in our room.  I left Tenika at the hotel and told her I would call her from the hospital. I must have gotten lost three or four times between the hotel and the hospital but, eventually I made it back. Mike lay in a room with four beds separated only by curtains. Mike had previously stood on stages and spoke to hundreds of people. He was a gifted orator but the stroke left him with only one word, "Wow." He could understand me but could not express himself. In the next few weeks I would learn a lot about brain injury.