47 years old who relearned walking, conversation and counting after stroke

Chris Monaghan woke up one morning and tried to get out of bed. She couldn’t.

Her husband, Dan, heard her whisper, turned on the lights, and almost instantly noticed she had. stroke..That was what he had long feared for her Family history..

“She was trying to speak, but couldn’t. Her right side was quite paralyzed. Her eyes were rolling and her mouth was hanging to her right side,” Dan said. “I knew it was an almost classic symptom of stroke.”

He told his son-in-law to call 911. At the hospital, doctors asked Dan to decide whether to administer a time-sensitive thrombus-destroying drug when Chris had a stroke. Dan thought it was when he woke up, but he wasn’t sure. Dan gave his approval because he had little time to decide.

“I just don’t want to sit here and see her die,” he thought.

That night, the neurosurgeon removed as much of the large blood clot in Chris’s brain as possible and blocked the artery. He said she should be okay, but they would certainly not know until morning.

Overnight, Chris had another stroke at the same location. She returned to surgery. The doctor removed the blood clot a little more.

Chris spent a week at a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, a week for inpatient rehabilitation, and then six months for outpatient speech, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy. Re-learning to walk, talk, count, type, and cook was a surreal experience for the 47-year-old HR executive. Simple things like solving 2 + 3 flashcards and remembering the words she once knew weren’t that simple.

“I remember being together Speech therapist “I was asked to list as many things as possible that start with an M,” she said. The mittens immediately came to my mind. After that, I couldn’t think of a word that started with M. “

Chris became “laser-focused” in trying to regain her life.

She tried to remember the months of the year, or counted up to 100, and fell asleep first forward and then backward. She downloaded the app to work on her math skills. She took out the dictionary, started with M, and started reading words one after another. To help her speech, she read the newspaper and everything else out loud.

Today, most of the world does not say that Chris had a stroke in June 2015. She doesn’t feel 100%, but she feels very lucky.

Both her grandmothers died of a stroke at a relatively young age, and she Heart disease On both sides of her family.Chris was taken care of by a doctor High blood pressure And high cholesterol. She knew she had a lot of herself since her twenties. Still, she was beaten or missed taking high blood pressure medications, did not check her number, and resisted taking cholesterol-lowering statins.

“I wasn’t a good patient,” she said. “I now follow my doctor’s instructions.”

Chris’s stroke was an awakening call to put health first.

The two mothers want to be together for their family and want the same for others. With the help of Cooperative CEOs and colleagues, Chris undertook a workplace wellness initiative that included fitness challenges with cash and vacation incentives. They hold wellness fairs, quit smoking, eat healthier, get more sleep and provide resources to manage stress. He also participates in American Heart Association events such as Go Red for Women and the annual Heart Walk.

Chris wants others to learn from her experience. Her advice is to have your numbers checked and if they aren’t good, put them under control.

“When they say high blood pressure is a silent killer, it’s not a joke,” she said. “You really feel good. I felt good before this happened.”

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