This time, it was different.
In 2009, State Rep. Gary Chism suffered a stroke.
“It split my face right down the middle: Everything on my left side was numb and everything on my right was normal,” said Chism, who is recovering in Jackson after a second stroke, which he believes occurred around April. 7. “It wasn’t like that this time.”
Familiar with the typical symptoms that accompany a stroke — weakness or numbness on one side of the body, slurred speech — Chism said the symptoms were profoundly different this time.
“I just started doing stupid stuff,” said Chism, 67, who owns an insurance company in Columbus. “I’d get up at 1, 2 in the morning and get ready to take a shower and go to work. It was crazy. Nobody buys insurance at 2 in the morning.
“I’d put my clothes on backward and not even know it,” he continued. “I walked into the office one day with a polo shirt on backward. The collar was up to my chin. I didn’t even know it until one of the girls at the office told me I had my shirt on backwards.
“Then, I was talking to one of my sons on the phone and I couldn’t finish a sentence,” Chism added. “I’d start to talk, then go back to the start of the sentence again. My wife overheard me and she texted my son, asked him if he was interrupting me and causing me to repeat myself. He answered back to say no, he hadn’t said a word.”
By then, Chism and his family knew something was wrong, but a stroke wasn’t something Chism considered, given what he knew from his previous one. Chism was checked into Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle, where he got the diagnosis.
A few days later, Chism transferred to University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson for further treatment. He is now going through treatment at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson, but expects to be released sometime this week. He plans to remain in the Jackson area — the Chisms own a home in Madison — to be near UMMC in the event there are further complications.
Chism, a Republican from Lowndes County, has served on the Legislature since 1999.
How to recognize warning signs
That Chism and his family didn’t recognize he was having a stroke shouldn’t be a surprise, said Dr. Ashley Harris, the chief medical officer at Baptist.
“Someone who has had a stroke can have typical symptoms, but sometimes they are atypical,” Harris said. “The symptom can depend on a lot of things — where it happens in the brain, for example. Also, women are more likely to have more unusual symptoms. It’s not unlike a heart attack. It can manifest itself in a number of ways.”
As was the case with Chism, sometimes friends and family are the first to recognize the symptoms, if not the cause of the symptoms, Harris said.
“They recognize that their loved on isn’t like his or her normal self,” Harris said. “Something’s just not right. The person may seem confused. There even be hostility, agitation, memory loss. It’s what we call delirium.”
When a loved one displays those sorts of behaviors, Harris said family members should seek medical attention right away.
“For the family, it’s not as important to know exactly what’s causing those behaviors than it is to get them medical attention right away,” Harris said.
Feeling better
Chism said he feels “a lot better.”
“I don’t have a problem with numbness or slurred speech,” he said “Really, I feel a lot better. I should be able to do everything I did before, the doctors say.”
On April 21, Chism returned to Columbus, intending to attend a Monday meeting of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Trustees. Ultimately, he didn’t make that meeting, though.
“It was probably a mistake to come back,” Chism said. “I couldn’t catch my breath. At first, I thought I was having another stroke, but as it turns out my blood pressure was really, really low.”
Chism said his doctors believe the low blood pressure was caused by the medication he was taking after his stroke.
“I’m doing much better now,” he said.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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