Real Talk
With Rebecca
Discussing
Strokes
My friend Amanda has been going
through it lately with her health. From
a knee surgery or a sinus vein clot (not an aneurism) to a rare blood disorder,
to what they thought was vertigo that ended up being a Stroke. I decided to ask her more information about
her conditions and hopefully this information can help another person be
mindful and pay attention to their body.
Her experience with a Stroke is completely different from mine, and you
will find with strokes that is commonly the case. They differ from person to person, the
symptoms, treatment; etc varies from person to person male to female.
She had a
Cerebellar Stroke. At first they thought
it was vertigo. She had knee surgery
about 3 weeks before her first really bad Vertigo symptoms. They had her stop taking her blood thinners
for her knee surgery and honestly I feel that is what started the domino effect
for her current and ongoing health issues.
They diagnosed her with a Chronic Right Side Cerebellar Stroke. They also feel that her blood thinner she is
on for her rare clotting disorder is not working for her. Her rare clotting disorder is called Prothrombin
Genetic Mutation or Factor II Deficiency.
Links to this will be in the description box if you want to read up on
it. The
clotting disorder she has is Prothrombin Genetic Mutation which affects the
Prothrombin part of your blood & was found in 1996. She also has a paternal
aunt who also suffers with it so her father was a carrier.
Symptoms:
She suffered with a little bit of
right sided numbness, but very briefly.
She was having various emotional mood swings that were pretty severe,
nausea, and vomiting, light headedness, headaches that started at the back of
her head and got worse. Not like a
normal migraine. She also had vision
issues where it would come and go as well as hearing that went in and out.
The first “diagnosis” was vertigo
and it was incorrect. The first stroke
probably happened in July. They also
said that dehydration and other things can trigger this type of stroke. It is an uncommon form of stroke. After the vertigo diagnosis her husband came
home one evening (which I have mentioned in other videos) found her passed out
on the floor and rushed her to the hospital.
They found a blood clot in her right sinus vein. Had the clot been in an artery it would have
been considered an aneurism. Thankfully
they gave her heparin and shrunk it enough so her body could reabsorb it.
Since her symptoms first began she
has had severe anxiety because one minute you think your fine the next you
can’t do anything for yourself. This can
be very draining both mentally and physically and having to rely on others can
be a huge hit to the self esteem. It has
affected her right side and she has to walk with a crutch and cannot go very
far. She is very active in the Cosplay
arena and loves going to events so this can also be very tolling on the
emotions. She goes from happy one minute
to frustrated and angry the next (I will explain this in detail when I talk
about my story). She gets tired easily
and she sleepy a lot but it seems she can’t get enough sleep. She feels it’s her body’s way of trying to
heal her brain, which she thinks is really cool since she is a Sleep Tech.
My own personal story with a stroke.
When it comes to my own history of
health issues and strokes it is not a pretty story. I went in to the doctor one day for what I
thought was a pulled muscle and went in for testing for that and found out I
had a disorder called Lympandenopathy.
Basically it’s a “pre” cursor to lymphoma as some doctors believe. But it can also cause low iron. At the time my iron was like 24. They sent me to a hematologist/oncologist for
further testing. They put me on 325 mg
of Iron 3 times a day to treat the low iron (anemia) I was suffering with while
waiting on results to come back. They
tested me for MS, Lupus, and a whole slew of other conditions that they can do
by looking at your blood, which is kind of cool. While undergoing treatments for these things
I had just been newly married to my second husband (big mistake) and I had a
pretty nice life insurance policy. Long
story short he tried to kill me for it.
First issue was my ex was giving me
Belladonna aka Deadly Nightshade. It
grows wild her e in Florida and has these pretty dark berries on them that have
virtually zero taste. For those that
don’t know Vitamin C is usually used in conjunction with Iron to help your body
break it downs and process it, and there are 2 main types of Iron that you can
take. So every morning I would take my
Iron supplement with a Glass of Orange Juice.
Usually my ex made the juice for me and brought it to me while I got my
youngest daughter ready for daycare/school.
I would take my Iron and drink my OJ while I got ready and after a few
weeks I was super tired and could barely stand on my own and just felt UGH all
the time. Long story short he was trying
to kill me. With him giving me night
shade it weakened my heart and I had a Myocardial infarction in 2007.
So this is where all the problems
started. I had a heart attack. I lived about 7 minutes max drive distance
from the hospital. I was rushed there
with shortness of breath, severe pain in my chest, arm, and side. Tingling and numbness in my hand (all left
side) and more. Once I got there they
did everything they could to stop my heart from doing its thing. I had an aspirin put under my tongue, which
caused an allergic reaction (allergic to aspirin), which caused other
medications to be taken off the table for use.
Didn’t know I was allergic.
Benadryl and some panic later I could breathe kind of. By this point I don’t remember much but lots
of beeping and people talking and rushing and poking and all sorts of fun
chaos. They did an IV push of a
medication I had a reaction to and it completely stopped my heart. Had my aunt not been there, I’d probably not
be here today. At the time my aunt was a
nurse at the hospital and was the head of the cardiac wing and seeing as though
I had a chart at that hospital she was listed as a relative. My heart stopped. It took them a little over 3 minutes to get
it started again. This is not a good
thing. I am prone to blood clots, had a
PE when I was 15, and so they worried about that as well. When I was “alive” again they did their thing
and then put me in ICU. While in ICU I
had a stroke, caused by a blood clot.
How they missed it I don’t know.
Mine was an Ischemic one. I
didn’t really have Plaque buildup, or stress (besides what my body had already been
through), or other factors like normal but a pesky 5mm blood clot. It was enough to cause a stroke but blocking
blood flow long enough to certain areas of my brain. This affected the entire left side of my
body.
What it felt like:
I could feel cold, sharp, and
pressure on the side affected but I could move nothing. I could not open or close my hand could not
wiggle my toes, my knee jerk reaction was dead.
I had zero sensation in the entire left side of my body. My speech was slurred, and thinking was
foggy. I’m a linear thinker so that
means I use that side of my brain more than the right. I’m logical and analytical in my actions and
thought so this made me feel “dumb”. The
smallest actions like turning my head was near impossible, it felt like I’d had
a lidocaine shot from the dentist put into my head and that entire side of my
body and I was just waiting to drool on everything. Because my left side was essentially “gone”
my thinking was slow, speech was nonexistent, cognition was hazy at best even
my vision was impaired.
I spent 2 weeks in the hospital
after my health issues and by the time I could stand on my right leg but I had
no movement at all in the left side of my body.
It was completely dead. It was a
weight just hanging there. I could not
wash properly, I could not get dressed without help, eating was tough, I
finally got some mental capacity back, but I was still pretty messed up. I ended up getting a wheel chair to become
mobile because without it I was stationary.
My daughter was a huge help even though she was little at the time. I started to have seizures each day and I
would have up to 20 or so seizures a day.
I was on so many medications I’m surprised I still have a liver. Good thing I never drank.
It took me months to gain any
feeling back into that side of my body.
It took me probably a month to get my eye to focus on things. I pushed hard every day trying to massage
things to get the muscles to react. I
was probably 100 pounds at this point. I
was able to move my arm at about 4 months and my legs started working again
about 8 months in. But that does not
mean I could use either of them. It took
me a full year after my stroke to grab anything with my left hand and almost a
full year and a half to be able to stand on my leg and take a step without
help.
I felt helpless and alone and angry
all the time. The doctors ran a bunch of
tests and could not figure out what caused the heart attack. My husband told me multiple times I wish you
would just die already. My daughter
would help me shower and dress and by this time I was living in the middle of
nowhere in northern Marion County secluded from anybody and everybody I knew so
I could not ask for help. No phone, no
internet, just me and my daughter out there alone with a husband who wanted me
dead. He did this all for the money and
secluded me from anybody who cared about me to burn every bridge he could. Little did he know the insurance policy
didn’t get paid so they no money he no money!
When he found this out months after I could walk again he got violent,
but that is another story for another day.
Everybody is different when it comes
to a stroke. Just like with a heart
attack. If you are a male they say that
you experience symptoms mainly on the left side of your body and if you are female
then you will be affected on the right side.
But this is not always the case.
Because there are several types of strokes, and a bunch of mitigating
factors that go into it as well, you really have to pay attention to key
things.
I have found that talking with other
stroke survivors lethargy is one thing they notice, confused thinking, slow
movement, changes in attitude and disposition.
Then you have the common stroke symptoms which are dropped or drooping
arms can’t pick up your arm or hold it up, slurred speech, and cognitive
difficulties.
References:
Prothrombin G20210A (Factor II Mutation) Resources. https://www.stoptheclot.org/learn_more/prothrombin-g20210a-factor-ii-mutation/
Types of Strokes. https://www.webmd.com/stroke/guide/types-stroke#1
Types of Strokes. https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/types_of_stroke.htm
Types of Strokes. https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/types-of-stroke
What are the Different Types of
Strokes. https://www.healthline.com/health/stroke-types
Stroke
Symptoms. https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms
Lymphadenopathy: Differential Diagnosis and Evaluation. https://www.aafp.org/afp/1998/1015/p1313.html
Lymphadenopathy. https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/cardiovascular-disorders/lymphatic-disorders/lymphadenopathy
Understanding Heart Attack: The Basics. https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/understanding-heart-attack-basics#1
Brain Map. http://www.headinjury.com/brainmap.htm
What Is The Cerebellum? Get
To Know Your Little Brain. https://blog.mindvalley.com/cerebellum/
Reading a Metric Ruler. https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/scientific-investigation-and-reasoning-measurement
Iron and Pregnancy. https://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/pregnancy-33/pregnancy-news-543/iron-and-pregnancy-647366.html
Belladonna. https://www.britannica.com/plant/belladonna.
American Black Nightshade. https://sharonsflorida.com/plants-page/native-wildflowers/american-black-nightshade/
Black nightshade poisoning. https://ufhealth.org/black-nightshade-poisoning
What is a Nightshade
Sensitivity and What to Do if You Have One. https://www.amymyersmd.com/2018/08/nightshade-sensitivity/
Killer plants: A handy guide
to the hidden dangers in your garden. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/killer-plants-a-handy-guide-to-the-hidden-dangers-in-your-garden-10349269.html
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