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Terry Foster Update: Full Recovery Expected After A Minor Stroke

By Terry Foster
@TerryFoster971

My body is inside an MRI machine with these banging and binging sounds and iodine streaming through my body. I am jammed inside a tub, not freaking out because thank god enclosed areas do not bother me.

What doctors are trying to discover is how the tiny vessel in the back of my head, that caused a minor stroke, completely closed or is it still allowing a trickle of badly needed blood flow. I am cold and alone and a little bit scared.

This thirty minutes of solitude will be the difference between a good, fun life or one filled with more complications than I want to think about right now.

The next day I received the news at Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomfield that I am recovering nicely. I am not fully recovered but they expect me to be. I have been motivated and stimulated by these people. I could not be in better hands.

And the plan is rehab and to get me back on the air by Oct. 3.

Let me be blunt one more time. I suffered a minor stroke but I am going to fully recover. I can already feel a difference in how I speak and how I type. My fine motor skills are a little messed up in my right hand and I am not ready to throw a pitch from the pitcher's mound.

But I feel a little better every day.

I am lucky. I am fortunate. This is a wake up call.

And I wear beads on my wrist to remind me to take it easy. So if you know of a place that sells really cool bracelets let me know.

The message is don't look back and blame myself which I started to do. Depression often sets in but it won't happen with me. People always ask if I need something. Maybe a hug? It does me a lot of good.

The only focus is today and the next day. My heart, lungs, kidneys and brain are fine. My main arteries in my brain and heart are good to go, but a vessel in my brain, the width of a human hair became sluggish because I allowed my blood pressure to get too high.

And that won't happen again until I am old and forgotten. It is one thing to lead a life style in your 30s and 40s.

I can still enjoy life but not as much. One doctor joked that beer acts as a blood thinner.

The number one thing is, that I stopped going to the doctor. I won't allow that to happen again and neither will my wife, Adrienne, who is on me like a hawk. I got in trouble for going to the Eastern Market the other day. She said it was too far to drive although I just got my driving privileges restored.

I cannot tell you how many stories I heard in the hospital that this is what men do. We feel invincible, but we are not.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Fighting that seemed so easy. But high blood pressure is another mostly painless enemy that lurks inside many of us. I will fight this demon tooth and nail also.

I must rebound for my wife and kids. I must rebound for myself. I must rebound for those who love me and even those who hate me. I must rebound for you because I kind of like my listeners and readers.

And I must rebound for the wonderful nurses and doctors at Ford Hospital. They really took great care of me. I did not want it to be a waste of their precious time.
I don't want to go away just yet. I love my life.

(Foster can be reached at Terry.Foster@cbsradio.com)

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