Stroke Survivor’s Journey Leads to Life-Saving Diagnosis of Heart Condition

woman in hospital bed

November 22, 2016, started like any other day. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and my 12-year-old son was home for the holiday break. I was working half-days from home, juggling emails and calls while helping him clean his room. After lunch, I joined my husband at the gym for a workout, feeling energized and ready for the holiday ahead.

On our way home, we stopped at a wine shop to pick up a few bottles for Thanksgiving dinner, which we were hosting that year. Other than being a little hot and sweaty from the gym, I felt fine. But as we walked to the counter, I started to feel strange—a sensation similar to the onset of a migraine, though somehow different. I brushed it off, assuming it was just the workout catching up with me.

The feeling didn’t go away. On the short drive home, I told my husband I thought I was getting a migraine and planned to take some Advil and rest. But as we entered the house, the symptoms worsened. The right side of my face felt tingly and numb, and I started to suspect something far more serious. “I think I’m having a stroke,” I said. My husband dismissed it as dramatic and told me to rest. But as the minutes ticked by, I knew something was terribly wrong.

I Wasn’t Being Dramatic

image stroke mri
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When I tried to write my name to test my motor skills, I couldn’t grasp the pen in my right hand, let alone write. My husband called my sister, a former Neuro ICU nurse, who immediately told him to take me to the ER. By the time we arrived, I was weak, disoriented, and experiencing surreal sensations, as if I were outside my body, watching it all happen.

At the hospital, doctors performed a CT scan, followed by an MRI, which confirmed my suspicion: I’d suffered a stroke—a Cerebrovascular Accident, or CVA. At 38, in good health and active, I couldn’t fathom how this had happened. Tests ruled out obvious causes like clots or arterial issues, leaving me and my doctors with no clear answers. I was discharged three days later with instructions for physical and occupational therapy to recover strength and function on my right side.

In the months that followed, I focused on regaining my health. The therapy was intense, but I remained grateful that my stroke wasn’t more severe. Still, I couldn’t let go of the question: Why? Over the next four years, I saw doctor after doctor, searching for answers that never came—until a routine checkup in January 2020 finally revealed the truth.

The Answers Finally Revealed

pfo closure device
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During that visit, my general practitioner detected irregular heart palpitations, something I’d experienced sporadically for years but never thought much of. She ordered an echocardiogram, which revealed a shocking discovery: I had a congenital heart defect called Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO). It was a hole in my heart, likely present since birth, that had gone undiagnosed my entire life.

The PFO acted as a pathway for clots to bypass my lungs and travel to my brain, causing the stroke. A specialized test confirmed the hole was large enough to require closure. In a minimally invasive procedure, surgeons used a catheter to insert a closure device into my heart. The surgery was a success, and by the following day, I was home recovering.

Now, nearly eight years later, I’m fully recovered and thriving. While I’ll remain on blood thinners for the rest of my life, I feel immense gratitude for the answers I fought so hard to find—and for the chance to share my story. Not everyone gets to come out of an experience like this unscathed. If anything, I wear my “bionic heart” as a badge of honor.

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