Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I can’t say those extremely simple words enough these days.

For those of you that are not aware, I suffered a stroke right before Christmas, spent five days in the hospital, and am currently doing my rehabilitation at UnityPoint in Fort Dodge while staying with Jill and Marc Matthes (my sister and brother-in-law). I’ve told them several times that they’re giving me five-star treatment.

It was quite the scare and wakeup call, and a stroke was the last thing that this soon to be 55-year old was thinking was going to happen to him. It’s safe to say that I didn’t have “Suffer a stroke” on my 2023 Bingo card.

But it happened and I’m here to tell you that it can happen to anyone.

I’m recovering well, trying to be patient and positive about the entire ordeal. Sometimes patience is not my greatest attribute as I want to be back to 100 percent yesterday.

But as someone, not sure who as I’ve had a lot of information thrown at me recently, told me, I didn’t break an arm or a leg. I broke part of my brain and my brain needs time to heal.

I am so blessed to have an extremely loving and supportive family and the best friends that anyone can ask for in my life.

I can’t thank my partner, Susan Price Saylor, enough for getting to me to the hospital in Des Moines on Christmas Eve morning as I was planning on driving from her house in Ankeny to spend the day with my mom in Fort Dodge.

I can’t thank my two children, Aaron and Emily Hardcastle, enough for going to my house daily to feed my cat Henry and taking care of snow removal.

My sister Debbie’s visits to the hospital and her questions to the doctor at the hospital were extremely beneficial. Her daily texts to me are always motivating.

It’s not the best of circumstances, but I’ve enjoyed being able to see my mom on a daily basis while doing rehabilitation in Fort Dodge.

The prayers, love and support from everyone has been off the charts. I am extremely grateful for all of the Facebook comments, inbox messages, text messages, flowers, cards sent through the mail, phone calls and hospital and home visits.

They all mean the world to me and have helped a ton during this difficult and challenging time.

Aaron set up a Go Fund Me account, and the response to that absolutely blew me away. We can’t thank everyone enough who contributed to that.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The question I have received the most during these last three weeks has been: What happened?

So here is what happened as I’ve gotten pretty good at telling this story in short, medium and long form.

The first (kind of) ignored signs started on the Thursday morning before Christmas (Dec. 21).

That day was supposed to be LeBron James’ day for Aaron and myself, but it didn’t turn out that way at all.

My Christmas present for Aaron was tickets to the Lakers/Timberwolves game at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Aaron is the biggest LeBron fan that I know and he had never watched his all-time favorite athlete play live.

And it turns out that he still hasn’t watched LBJ play live.

I woke up that morning with what I thought was a pain on the left side of my neck. I thought it was a case of sleeping wrong and a trip to the chiropractor would fix that.

I was able to get to my chiropractor that morning for an adjustment and I felt much better when I left the office.

The pain in the neck later turned into a headache in the back, lower left side of my head — exactly where the stroke would eventually be confirmed.

During the game, the headache in the back, left side of my head moved to the front of the head as well.

We leave the game and this is where things got weird for a few seconds.

When Aaron and I step out of Target Center, it felt, in my brain, that I was walking on a side of a hill and I was leaning far toward my left side. But in reality, the sidewalk was perfectly flat and I was walking straight up.

But once we turned the corner and were headed to the ramp where we parked, everything felt normal again.

I drove all the way back to Mason City and never once did I think I should tell Aaron that he needed to drive. In fact, Aaron was asleep before we were out of the Twin Cities and didn’t wake up until we were back in Mason City.

I worked with a headache all day Friday without any issues.

On Saturday (Dec. 23), I finished my Christmas shopping before heading to Susan’s in Ankeny.

Susan and I went out to eat in Ames and everything seemed normal.

We go back to her house, exchange Christmas gifts and shortly after that more signs appeared.

I woke up around midnight and told Susan “I can’t swallow…Susan, I can’t swallow…”

I wake up Christmas Eve morning still unable to swallow but still not thinking stroke. And as I was gauging the temperature for a bath with my right hand, the water feels luke warm and is not getting hot at all. I’m about to go tell Susan that she’s not getting any hot water.

But before I do that, I put my left hand under the water and it’s extremely hot.

Naive me, I still get in the tub thinking all is going to be OK.

I sit in the tub and my left leg can feel the hot water but my right leg is feeling nothing.

Susan must have sensed something was wrong. She comes in the bathroom and asks me what is going on.

I think I said something like “Uh…I have something really weird happening…I can’t feel anything on the right side of my body.”

Susan then says “we need to get to a hospital…”

I talk her out of calling an ambulance and she quickly drives us to the emergency room at UnityPoint Health — Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines.

As she is speeding south on I-35, I look at the clock in the car and it read something like 10:11 a.m. I’m still thinking about how we are going to get in and out of the hospital in time to watch the Vikings play at noon.

Those thoughts quickly changed once we arrived in the emergency room. Susan started telling the front desk lady my symptoms and about a sentence and a half in, the front desk lady says “we’re just going to send him back…”

I quickly get wheeled back to, in my mind, an extremely small hospital room. Not too long into a conversation with a doctor, I hear the word “stroke” mentioned several times.

Results of an MRI performed at 3:15 p.m. on Christmas Eve read “1.2 cm area of restricted diffusion involving the medial/posterior aspect of the left cerebellar hemisphere. This demonstrates T2/FLAIR hyperintensity.”

Translation: Stroke.

My five days in the hospital are kind of a blur.

The following things in no particular order stick out to me: The nurses, doctors and staff at the hospital were all wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for better care.

Having a feeding tube is no fun at all. I guess the only way to place a feeding tube in someone is to enter through the nose.

My family is the best. The entire family made it to the hospital on Christmas Eve and changed all of their plans to come back on Christmas Day. We all celebrated with food (I didn’t get to eat any of the food, however), presents and trivia. It was a truly wonderful day and one I will never forget.

So here we are a month later, I’m slowly recovering and doing my best to get things back to normal.

My eating has returned to a completely normal diet, my right side still feels different than my left side (the right side feels cold most of the time), my right side is still a bit weaker than my left, but I am now walking without the use of a walker.

I did have a one-night stay in the Fort Dodge hospital a few weeks ago. I woke up one morning with my right arm feeling so cold from my elbow to my fingers that it felt like it was stuck in a snow drift.

Several tests were done and nothing was found. No new stroke. No blood clots.

Thank goodness.

We were told the body/brain/nerves are trying to figure out new pathways and I may have some strange sensations from time to time.

Like I said at the beginning, thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. I feel each and every one of them.

I love you all.

Kirk Hardcastle is a 1987 Fort Dodge Senior High graduate and a former sports writer at The Messenger.