I’m 33 years old and I just had a stroke. Again.
When I walked out of the hospital on Christmas day three years ago, I assumed I would never return.
If you recall, I had a stroke. I was 30, healthy, active, and the symptoms came on abruptly. While bending over to rub coconut oil on my legs, my right arm suddenly was lifeless. My attempts to speak, while in my head were eloquent, were audibly gibberish, slurred. The paralysis crept from my arm down to my legs, eventually engulfing my entire right side.
Three days later — after some tPA, a CT, a CTA, an EEG, a EKG, a DVT scan, numerous blood tests, a MRI, a MRA, a TEE, a conventional angiogram, and a little PT — I was discharged back out to the California sun, at which time I carried on with life pretty much good as new. Some may argue, better.
All of those acronym procedures were to identify the cause of the stroke, which we deduced was a tiny tear in the carotid artery in my neck. Tears can happen anytime — sleeping funny, putting your head back at the salon (they call this “beauty parlor stroke”), massage or chiropractic manipulation, certain yoga poses. The cause of mine? I never knew for sure. A tear in the carotid can cause the blood to clot, clots can travel to the brain, get stuck, and cause that part of the brain to die.
Here was my dead brain (the white part):
So I continued on, as I said, better than ever — yes, taking aspirin to thin out my blood, but still surfing and marathoning and ice creaming as usual. Until this Spring, when I had another stroke.
It was the same old hat, you guys. Dead arm. Aphasiac speech. Get thee to the ER! The symptoms were short lived this time, lasting only 10 minutes. tPA (the rat poison like blood thinner) was not necessary, but a lovely stay in the ICU was. MRI confirmed a new, smaller stroke, near the location of the first.
Two days after the new stroke (and repeat acronym tests), I was discharged. But this time, it was with no answers. We have no culprit. And now, even the original convict is in question. That carotid artery dissection three years ago… was it really a dissection?
I’ve been lucky so far; I am now the luckiest person in the world times two. But this cannot happen again. The loop must be closed. Luck only lasts so long.
So here begins my investigation. I have likened myself to a detective in a murder mystery set in a small town. Everyone’s a suspect. I eliminate them — test by test, day by day. With a team of doctors I’ve brought onto the case. My physician father as my right hand. And each day is a new episode with new developments to figure out who done it.
I’ve started a newsletter (seems that is the thing to do these days) to share my sleuthing — and my experience navigating the current health system — in my race to catch the killer before he strikes again.
