November 22, 2016, started like any other typical day for me — until it wasn’t. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and my 12-year-old son was out of school all week because of the holiday. I was working half days from home. That morning, I helped him clean his room while answering work calls and emails. After lunch, I joined my husband at the gym for a good workout.
On the way home from the gym, we stopped by the store to purchase a couple of bottles of wine since we were hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the family that year. Despite being hot and sweaty, I felt relatively okay. Nothing out of the norm was occurring physically.
However, as we approached the counter to purchase the wine, I suddenly felt very odd. I’m prone to migraines, and it felt similar to when one was coming on but somehow different at the same time. Initially, I brushed it off and thought it was just related to the workout.
Was It A Stroke?
On the five-minute drive home, I told my husband I thought I was getting a migraine and wanted to take some Advil, shower, and lie down when we arrived. As we were walking into the house, the pain became increasingly worse, and the right side of my face started to feel very strange. A tingly, yet numb, feeling at once.
“I think I’m having a stroke,” I said to him as he was putting our purchase away.
“You are not. It’s just a migraine. Go lie down, and I’ll bring you some medicine and water,” he responded.
“No, I really think I’m having a stroke. Does it sound weird to you when I talk? It sounds weird to me. Like the adults in the Peanuts cartoon. In my head, it sounds weird.”
“No, you sound normal. You’re okay. You’re not having a stroke. Quit being so dramatic.”
Famous last words…
I laid down on the couch, and he brought me two Advil and some water. When I sat up to take them from him, the room started spinning. I felt nauseous, and my eyes weren’t focusing correctly. If this was a migraine, it wasn’t like any I had ever had before.
I took the medicine, laid back again, and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong. My husband came back to the living room to check on me, and I asked him to call my sister, who had been a Neuro ICU nurse for years, to get her opinion.
While he was on the phone with her, explaining what was happening, I had the idea to try to write my name. There was a pen and paper on the coffee table, so I set up and attempted to grasp the pen and write.
I could barely hold the pen in my right hand, and I definitely couldn’t write my name or anything for that matter. As this was happening, my husband relayed it all to my sister. She told him to take me to the E.R. immediately and that she would get my son right away.
The situation got really scary, real fast. Not only could I not grasp a pen and write, and my voice sounded like it didn’t belong to me, but when I stood up to walk, I felt weak on my right side. It was like my brain wasn’t communicating with my muscles and was unable to communicate how to function.
My husband had to carry me to the car, essentially. I experienced the oddest sensations while driving to the hospital. My brain was disconnecting from my body. I would try to look at my husband, but while I did, I had the impression I was floating outside my body and watching myself go through the movements.
I Wasn’t Being Dramatic, I Had a Stroke
Upon arrival at the hospital, they immediately took me to have a C.T. scan performed. They do this initially to see if there is a clot and where it’s located in the brain. However, no clot was showing on the scan. As they examined me further, they were confident I was in the midst of a “neurological event,” but they weren’t sure of what magnitude and severity.
An I.V. was inserted, and I was admitted for further testing, which included an MRI. Ultimately, the MRI determined that I had actually experienced a Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA), commonly known as a stroke.
I was 38 years old.
The CVA occurred in the lower left hemisphere near my brain stem. My dominant right side was affected. I had facial drooping, loss of strength in my arm and leg, and language recall difficulties.
But why would a healthy 38-year-old woman suffer a stroke?
While in the hospital, doctors ran every kind of test they could – from echocardiograms and angiographies to a carotid ultrasound. They were stumped, and after three days, I was released with instructions on how to recover via physical and occupational therapy.
In the initial follow-up with my newly appointed neurologist, I asked him why someone my age, who was in relatively good shape, would have a stroke. His reply was, “The cause of 20% of strokes is undetermined. We just don’t know the cause of every single one that occurs. Because we couldn’t identify an actual clot in any of the imaging, but the results indicate that a stroke did occur, we should plan going forward on how to prevent another one.”
I left that appointment feeling deflated and hopeless. I’m someone who craves answers and resolution. I needed to know why this happened to me. But first, I needed to work on recovery.
Thus began my eight weeks of outpatient physical therapy (P.T.) and four weeks of occupational therapy (O.T.). I had to focus on regaining the strength that I had lost. I endured grueling two—and three-hour P.T. appointments and facial exercises to alleviate the drooping and help with my speech.
Throughout it all, I remained optimistic. The CVA was minor compared to so many others who have had them. And for that, I was grateful.
Not knowing why it happened was driving me crazy. I needed answers. For the next four years, I saw many doctors, both Western and Eastern, to get the answers I desperately needed. I always left empty-handed and disappointed.
Discovery of a Hole in My Heart
Fast-forward to January 2020. The pandemic hadn’t even begun. Life was normal. I was healthy, thriving, and completely recovered. I went to my GP for a routine well-woman check-up and to ask about some moles that had formed recently—nothing urgent at all.
While there, she checked my heart and recognized that I was having palpitations. Now, random palpitations happening were not uncommon for me. I had them my whole life. As a kid, I thought they were normal and never brought them up to my parents to have them checked out. As an adult, I attributed it to the amount of coffee I drank, which occasionally caused an erratic heartbeat.
My doctor didn’t think this was normal and, considering my medical history, immediately ran an EKG. It showed irregularities that were concerning enough that she had me go to a different Cardiologist who was in the same practice as her.
So, I made an appointment with yet another doctor. He scheduled a much more thorough echocardiogram than I had while in the hospital four years prior. When the results came back, he was shocked.
There was a hole in my heart. One the doctor suspected I was born with that was never discovered. He scheduled me for a “bubble study,” a non-invasive imaging test that uses ultrasound and microbubbles to examine the heart. The test can help doctors assess the heart’s structure and function and may help diagnose heart conditions.
Once again, the results were surprising. Not only did I have a hole in my heart, it was quite large, and what the cardiologist and his colleagues believed to be the reason for my stroke. I had a hole so large it acted as an open toll road for clots to go straight to my brain.
Finally, I Was Getting Answers
The official diagnosis was a Patent Foramen Ovale, or PFO for short. All babies are born with a PFO, which is a normal part of fetal circulation. The hole allows oxygenated blood to flow from the right atrium to the left atrium, bypassing the lungs. In most cases, the PFO closes shortly after birth as tissue grows together. However, in about 25% of people, the hole remains open, resulting in a PFO.
Because I had a CVA at such a young age, they scheduled surgery to have the hole closed. The procedure involves using a long, flexible tube, otherwise known as a catheter, to insert a closure device in the hole. The titanium and mesh device closes the PFO and prevents blood flow between the left and right atria. My heart surgeon went through my femoral vein with the tiniest of incisions. I stayed only one night in the hospital and was home by the following afternoon.
Although I will have to remain on blood thinners for the rest of my life, I am eternally grateful that I finally found the answers as to why this happened to me at 38. I have no residual side effects from it, and the closing of the hole in my heart was successful. The upside to it all is that I get to tell people I have a bionic heart now.
