This is the fourth in a series of articles about the writer’s recent open-heart surgery and the recovery process afterward.

By Ty Cobb

Let’s take up that previous tick . . . tick . . . tick. I basically just kept on doing what I had been doing until I had to have a “reverse total shoulder replacement” for my right shoulder. I had fallen on rain slickened steps when I went to attend a soccer game at my grandson’s home near Boston. I did a one point landing on my shoulder and damaged my rotator cuff so badly the reverse replacement was the solution.

That stopped my lifeguarding days for a while, as I could not lift the arm very well. After that surgery in October 2014 I began the rehabilitation of my “new” shoulder. I needed that in order to take my lifeguard certification which was due. I passed the recertification in May 2015, but I felt that things were not working as smoothly as previously.

I had been taking echocardiograms every six months, but the one in August 2015 did not look too good. My cardiologist reviewed results of my August echocardiogram. He felt that it should be looked at by a heart surgeon at Novant Health’s Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. So we scheduled a September 2015 appointment with my heart surgeon. He felt that surgery should be done in the next six months, so we agreed upon a date, Oct. 16.

As I had a touch of kidney disease, I had to go into the hospital on Oct. 14 to have fluids intravenously dripped into me to reduce the risk of problems between the heart surgery and how my kidneys would take the stress. So things were all set to conduct the heart surgery.

Not so fast, cowboy! There is something ugly on your horizon.

While playing golf with my wife, I was hit with a stroke on Oct. 7. My wife was wise to what to do, while I was passive but “out of it.” She rushed me to the golf course building, and she had already phoned ahead for an ambulance. I was rushed from there to Salisbury’s Novant Health Rowan Medical Center where personnel conducted a “picture” of my brain, special MRI or a CAT-scan. They diagnosed and confirmed that I had a stroke likely caused by a blood clot that ruptured a blood vessel in my brain. Rowan Medical Center personnel administered a clot-busting drug during the first two hours of my stroke. Since Novant has a special stroke center in Winston-Salem, I was rushed by ambulance to that facility.

I was aware of what was going on around me, but I was “lost” to do. I experienced difficulty speaking in a coherent manner and seemed to search for even the most common words and sentences were nowhere to be had. My wife and later my daughter came to the Winston-Salem stroke center and joined me there. I recognized the two of them but I could only remember my wife’s name. Later that evening my pastor arrived and strangely I knew him and remembered his name. We prayed for my help.

Several more tests were conducted on me. The early administering of the clot-busting drug probably saved me from greater damage and later helped my new beginning to remember people and things. I still have “blind spots” in my memory but it is coming back slowly. (Indeed, one reason I am doing this series of articles is to help me rebuild my motor skills and vocabulary.)

With the help of my wife, daughter and son (who flew down here) while I spent four days in the stroke center. Things came back pretty quickly but I realized that I had a long way to go to “be the same.” (At this point, I still have a way to go to be the same. I am about 95 percent back.)

I was released after four days, but for a month I could not drive and was denied the freedom to do things that required me to have to make decisions, such as lifeguarding. That would be necessary to be re-evaluated by a stroke center physician.

Obviously, my scheduled open-heart surgery planned for Oct. 16 was postponed. Time to start over.

Ty Cobb lives in Rowan County.