As I read this, after Sharon’s first, much more minor stroke last month, his doctors found that he had a small atrial septal defect (ASD), a hole between the two upper chambers of his heart. This could have disturbed the blood flow enough in his heart that it caused a clot which circulated to his brain, causing that stroke by blocking some branch of his cerebral circulation. For this reason, he was slated for a procedure to repair the ASD.
Unfortunately for Sharon, he was anticoagulated (started on a “blood thinner”) to prevent recurrent clots; this is standard practice. But this new, massive stroke today was not an occlusive stroke caused by a clot but rather a hemorrhagic one, caused by a bleed into his brain tissue. One can imagine that the outcome was likely influenced by his being on an anticoagulant.
Toward the end of his life, my father had exactly the same sequence of events — an occlusive stroke from which he recovered fully; anticoagulation; and then eventually a more significant hemorrhagic stroke. In his case, he recovered fully from the latter as well, with months of intensive post-stroke rehabilitation. My father did not need neurosurgery to evacuate the hematoma (the accumulation of blood in the head) or repair the ruptured vessel that was the source of the hemorrhage. Sharon’s bleed was far more extensive than my father’s. I doubt he is going to be making executive decisions about Israel or anything else very soon, if at all…
Of course, I am not really a doctor, I just play one on my weblog (grin; some would maintain that psychiatrists are indeed not really physicians!). I have at least one neurologist friend who reads FmH and would be more suited to the role of armchair consultant and commmentator on Sharon’s course. I could never get my father’s doctors to talk about the possible role the anticoagulation had played in the brain bleed, for obvious reasons. I am sure Sharon’s doctors will be no more forthcoming on the point. How common a scenario might this be?
Update: (thanks to Dennis) neurological news analysis runs along the same lines as my interpretation above. (New York Times )
