My Story & Gallery

My Story

Stroke!

May 3, 2016

I was fortunately at home when I had my stroke. I had been driving, running errands and on a couple of work calls earlier. I started to feel weird, so I went to call my husband at work and immediately knew something was wrong. I couldn’t use my right-hand to dial my phone, and I’m right-hand dominant. I told him something was wrong, I started to cry which was abnormal and said I think I need to call 911. He told me to stay on the phone with him, and he’d call. I did. The 911 dispatcher called me and asked for my garage code, I couldn’t remember it and told her she would need to ask my husband. Fire and Rescue came to house thru the garage door, and all I could get out was “don’t hurt my dog” (we have an English Mastiff). Fire and Rescue took me by ambulance to the ER. During the time I had to wait for a room to empty, and I was sick, throwing up.

When I was placed in an ER room, the hospital thought I was drunk because I was young! I had a computerized tomography (CT) scan done, and they thought it was a migraine since nothing showed up. I told them I thought it was something more. I then had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) completed, which showed a large right cerebellum stroke. I opted NOT to have the Alteplase IV r-tPA (tPA) drug since my clot cleared itself. Here I was in a hospital bed in the ER just had a stroke, and I’m doing statics... I was taken to a room for observation later that day.

May 6, 2016

All I remember was excruciating pain in my head and someone coming to check it out. Turns out the intense pain was due to my brain expanding. I told them “of course my brain is expanding, it’s because I’m so smart” (sarcasm didn’t work as I hoped because of the severity situation). The one side of my face was very red. I don’t remember anything else but was told I was transferred to ICU then emergency brain surgery was my next step. Heading in for brain surgery I asked the doctor, not that I remembered if he had children my age and to treat me like them. I guess I was thinking he’d pay more detailed attention to my brain. When I woke up, I was in ICU surrounded by my family and in-laws.

May 13, 2016

An implantable loop recorder (ILR) was implanted into my chest to track my heart. The battery is good for 3 years… so 3 years it stays. I was transported to Brooks Rehabilitation hospital a couple hours after this was done.

June 4, 2016

After a 3 week stint at the Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital, I finally went home –in a wheelchair but still.

December 2016

Went to the Brooks Neuro Recovery Center (NRC) for an evaluation.

January 2017

Started rehabilitation and the Independent Program at the NRC.

Pregnancy!

June 2017

One year after my stroke, I found out I was pregnant! We did not think pregnancy could happen to us, especially after the stroke... we were wrong! All I could think about after having my stroke at 30 was rehab, rehab, rehab. Sure having a baby crossed my mind, and I had lots of questions especially if I'd be able to have one in the future… I never thought I would be pregnant so soon or really even at all. One of my doctors in ICU said something like "you're young, you can always become pregnant later just make sure to wait a year." Well, a year later and surprise to us : )

I took 5 pregnancy tests, all positive, but I thought they were false-positives... I waited for my doctor to confirm my pregnancy. I still couldn't believe it true! Well, it turned out the hospital associated with the office I utilized was a level I (I had to look up what that meant -no NICU should my baby need it), so I had to research and call around for a new office. Talk about stressful! I was denied by doctors due to liability, ugh. I finally found one, and it worked out great because the new doctor delivered at the same place that diagnosed my stroke. Plus, the new doctor had delivered babies for two of my other doctors!

I had to stop all meds for the stroke and started on baby aspirin, tums, prenatal vitamins, Lovenox & folic acid. I was considered very high risk due to my recent stroke, but I had a great team that coordinated! I know, super rare! I do have to mention this, at 34 weeks I was told by a doctor I probably shouldn't have gotten pregnant anyway! Needless to say, I was upset, but my other doctors reassured me.

January 2018

We had a scary end of the month that ended with me in the hospital! I knew something wasn't right because I couldn't keep anything in my body. During my stay of four days, I was given seven(!) IV bags. I even missed my baby shower! Turns out I had a virus that you can "only" contract out of the country. I never left the FL... the doctors were surprised it was in my system.

February 2018

After 30 hours of labor, I had an emergency C-section. My little boy was 8lbs and healthy, he just wasn't ready to join us yet! My stroke complicated the journey, but we made it.

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