Speaker Topic: Stroke Early Warning Signs Prevention and Treatment
By Claudia Mason
January 15 2017
My own story is somewhat of a miracle, at least to me, since I am alive and well, fully functioning as I always had been since before my injury. You see, I am a survivor, having suffered a stroke brought on by an accident in a dance class. I’m a young woman, and certainly was one a few years ago when the incident took place. I have no family predisposition to stroke, nor had I ever had one before. My message in talking about what happened to me is to give people correct information about stroke, its early warning signs, prevention and treatment. Most importantly, I want people to NOT do what I did when the symptoms of my stroke presented itself.
My symptoms were a big headache, one like I’ve never had before, with my vision coming and going. Rainbow colors across my visual field replaced my normal sight, and although this is not what normally happens when one is having a headache, I was convinced it was a migraine. I had never had a migraine before but couldn’t imagine that it could be anything else. After all I had just eaten a meal, so it wasn’t low blood sugar. But the fact that my vision was coming and going was clue enough that I should have called 911. Which is not what I did. Instead I went home and went to sleep. WRONG. I might never have awakened. But thank God I did, and I’m alive to tell my story.
I finally took myself to the ER the next day, after waking up to find most of my vision restored but a partial visual field deficit lingering to one side like a cloud over some of my vision. I knew that something was wrong since it was now 24 hours after the massive headache. When the head of the stroke center, Dr. Brockington and her team of doctors told me that I had a stroke, I was in shock. I was a healthy young woman with no genetic predisposition. Dr. Brockington told me that it was a left vertebral arterial dissection aka an ischemic stroke that was brought on by the sharp head rolls I had been doing in a jazz dance class the night before the incident. I spent 6 days in the hospital recovering, and was then able to go right on with my life, capable of doing everything I had done before. Soon after, the artery healed itself. I still have a little cloud of visual field deficit, which is slowly shrinking and will be gone one day. After all, the brain is the slowest organ to heal, but it can heal.
I was one of the lucky ones. I made a big mistake by going home (unbeknownst to me at the time) after having a stroke. You must go to the ER right away. Especially since there is a drug they can administer to people within the first three hours of having a stroke, but only during that time frame, that greatly diminishes the negative effects,. I missed that time frame by not going straight to the hospital. Today I am a great example of how people can live full, thriving lives after suffering from a stroke. In fact, there are a lot of people like me who fully recover after having a stroke. I’ve had a career in the public eye, and I continue to do so. Having a stroke hasn’t stopped me. It isn’t necessarily a death sentence, nor does it always mean one will be disabled – I’m not.
I see it as a blessing. It reminds me of how fortunate I am, and how grateful to be able to help spread the word about stroke’s early warning signs, prevention and treatment. I am in a position to discuss all of this. The fact is stroke is the 5th leading cause of death in America. It can happen to anyone, at any time and at any age, to infants, children & young adults as well as to the elderly. Up to 80% of strokes are preventable.
I look forward to sharing my experience, strength, hope and expertise with audiences.