“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 9pt;”>One of the most perplexing comments Christal Adams has heard over the last few months is, “But you don’t look like you’ve had a stroke.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>That’s a blessing and she is every so grateful.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Although she’s made great progress, Adams knows her journey continues to feel totally normal on the inside.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>At 40 years old, she didn’t have high blood pressure.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>She didn’t have diabetes.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>To most folks, she seemed to be the picture of health.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Until she had that stroke.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>In her sleep, just a month after graduating with her masters of science in nursing last summer.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>It was knee pain that woke her up in the middle of the night. It was her body’s unencumbered thud to the floor when she attempted to get out of bed that sounded from the second floor to the basement of the house.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“When I woke up, I fell to the floor and woke up the whole household,” Adams said, who hit her head on the edge of a table on the way down. Her boyfriend came to her aid.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“My mom was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And I could not answer her,” she said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Her mom, who was on another floor, called Christal’s cell number and her boyfriend gave her the phone.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“At that point I could see my arm had twisted up on my chest and besides, I was drooling and my speech was slurred, and she immediately called 911,” she said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“They were there in a matter of seconds because she told them I had a stroke.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Adams went to Christian Hospital for initial treatment.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Her stroke was an ischemic stroke (the most common type) and it occurred in the basal ganglia, an area in the base of the brain that regulates body movement and coordination.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Because she is a nurse, Adams asked to be given a drug called tPA, is an acronym for tissue plasminogen activator – a clot-busting medication that must be given to patients within a few hours of a stroke to dissolve the clot, as long as there is no bleeding in the brain.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>After an MRI, she received the medication and was quickly transferred to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis where she wad admitted for a few days.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“By then the tPA had pretty much started working, so within 12 hours I was able to move my leg,” Adams said. “[Before] I couldn’t move it at all – it was straight and stiff as a board.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>By the next day, she was able to move both her limbs on that side. Months of physical therapy allowed her to regain full use of her body – with occupational therapy they are working on her mind.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I’m a little bit weaker, my endurance is shortened and cognitively, it’s taking me a little while to get back to work,” she explained.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Although Christal did not have some of the obvious indicators that put people at increased risk for a cardiovascular event, there were a few issues that may have been busy working against this busy lady: not eating healthy, not exercising, not getting adequate rest. And although she is relatively tall, and it looked good on her – Christal concedes she weighed too much.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I don’t look overweight, but even for my height, I am overweight – I am obese,” she said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>And now thinking back at the time a couple of days before her stroke, a vision disturbance at work may have been a clue to the serious problem to come.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I remember running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and I was trying to read something and the words were so tiny on the paper that I couldn’t see it, and the words floated off the paper,” she described. “And I thought that was kind of – but I didn’t recognize it as being a sign of having a stroke, I just thought I was tired – and I put on my glasses and I was able to see.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Following the stroke, Adams is foregoing processed food and watching her calorie intake as well as is beginning to exercise as much as her energy and strength allows.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>She is also participating in research studies that monitor the recovery of this type of stroke.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>She looks forward to going back to the career she loves.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I’m preparing to take my boards so I can practice as a nurse practitioner and definitely a lifestyle change,” Adams said. “I want to make sure I stay as healthy as possible because the possibility I could have another stroke is there, and I want to do whatever I can to prevent that.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>For more information on stroke, visit www.strokeassociation.org.
