Andie Hansen Shares Her Husband Craig's Stroke Journey

My name is Andie Hansen, I am a caregiver for my husband who suffered two massive hemorrhagic strokes. Let’s go back to life before his strokes. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and moved my last couple of years of high school to be with my biological father. After arriving we found out my dad had cancer, due to his military service and my Grandmother stepped up to the plate. I would not be where I am at without my father’s family or Grandma. After I graduated I went to college in Minnesota where I would eventually meet my husband on a blind date through a mutual friend.
I had no interest in a relationship and ignored him most of the date. I was healing from deep wounds and I didn’t want to be opened. Craig was a shy introverted man, but liked me still. On the way home he asked if he could drop off our friend. I agreed. He was respectful toward me, didn’t make any passes, and when he dropped me off he invited me to go to his congregation’s Passover Seder. I agreed. Onour second date I gave him some honest truth expecting him to run for the hills, but he remained, and his attitude was not what I expected. In 2006 we got married. Craig was always healthy. In 2008 we took in my husband’s dad, shortly after he moved in we found out he had Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Craig and I rearranged our work schedules to make sure someone was home with him most hours of the day.
I have held multiple jobs, but always end up going back to care giving in homes of young adults or children. I went back to school shortly before we got married and attained my business management and continued on to my masters in clinical counseling. In 2011 before I started my MS, we decided to move to the Pacific Northwest because of my asthma in hopes that moving to a more temperate climate would help eleviate some of my issue, things went well until 2015.
First my step father had a triple A in January, and my mom stayed with us, because he was life-flighted to the hospital here in Portland and suddenly I found myself becoming his and my mom advocate. The first few weeks I spent 15 hours a day at the hospital with my mom making decisions, and Craig took care of his dad. Mom stayed until April. We finally got back into our normal routine. I worked in the morning for a few hours each day and the afternoon as a caregiver. On June 5th my entire AM shift, I had a feeling I needed to be home, I was restless and uncomfortable. I needed to run errands that day and ended up only doing two of those errands because I couldn’t shake the feeling I needed to be home.
Craig’s first stroke happened on June 5, 2015. A week later Craig’s neurosurgeon decided to put a shunt in his brain to drain his excess fluids. To add to this challenge Dad was also on hospice. Suddenly Dad needed full time care by me. Dad’s health improved and he graduated off the program in August, the same day Craig came home. I had support for this, but it was still hard. Dad’s hospice company steped up to the plate and made sure I was okay and I had friends from my faith community able to visit me.
Craig regained most of his abilities after a couple of years, let me share a little bit about Craig before his stroke. Craig is a writer and he wrote for his local newspaper before we got married, but it was far away from where I lived and he wanted to be closer to me. Eventually, Craig had a few jobs and he was never happy. So one day I told him, why don’t you go back to writing, you’ve written stories in the past. He did, it was hard but he found an online job book formatting for other authors. He has written a few books as an indie author. About 8 months later I started attending one of his local author groups with him, and was encouraged to write books, a few were interested in my stories, at a camp fire I shared an idea I had shortly before Craig’s first stroke. They encouraged me to write it. I laughed, responding I am not a writer that’s my husband! My husband encouraged me. Before I met my husband I couldn’t even walk through a bookstore or library without anxiety. I worried people would ridicule me for reading too slow. Eventually, I asked a few friends about it and they encouraged me. So now I am an aspiring author working on a sci-fi series, and a caregiving book.
The caregiving book was encouraged by some of our local hospital’s doctors when I would bring in my husband’s dad because of health issues I couldn’t deal with at home. This book will hopefully help guide people through the aftermath of major medical crisis, but also caring for family members who suddenly become ill.
On September 28, 2019 Craig had his second massive hemorrhagic stroke while visiting my mother, step father, and sister. We had a great day, this stroke came out of nowhere. We took my mom and her husband to the Pendleton OR Underground Tour. If you ever make it there, this is a tour worth going to! Craig and I walked all day, no stumbles, no nothing. I was the one who fell down.