A stroke at 13

Three months before I turned thirteen, I faced the biggest challenge of my life. A severe headache changed my life permanently.

I had returned from shopping with my mother, and was trying on a new outfit. I had a sudden sharp pain in the right side of my head. It felt as though a knife had pierced my skull and sliced through my brain.

My mother was on the telephone when I stumbled into the kitchen asking for help. She held up her hand and said to be quiet. I started to scream because the pain in my head was so intense and unrelenting.

Realizing there was a problem; my mother called a neighbor who was a physician. He came over and said that I was acting out for attention. They called my father and asked him to come look at me, as he was also a physician.

My father believed I had suffered from an aneurysm and told them to take me to the emergency room.

The neighbor drove me to a local hospital; I remember bits and pieces.

Initially at the hospital the doctors thought I had overdosed on drugs. Then they believed I had an aneurysm and required brain surgery.

I was sent to North Shore, a bigger and better hospital in an ambulance.

I can remember a doctor talking to me in the ambulance; it was a strange state of consciousness. I remember the voice, but not getting in the ambulance or leaving it.

My next memory is waking up days later. I was paralyzed on my left side, and I could not talk.

No one in the room knew I could hear them. I heard the doctor telling my parents I would never walk again; the best case scenario might have me using a walker some day. They felt that I would never overcome what had happened to me, mentally or physically, too much damage had occurred.

I had no idea what they were talking about, or where I was. I did not know that I had suffered three strokes, one in the carotid artery in my neck. I had brain damage; enough to lead my doctors and family to believe I would never go on to lead a normal life.

I went through many tests to try and determine what caused this to happen. None of the tests were conclusive.

I put my right leg over the bed a week later and pulled my left leg to the floor. I dragged myself to the television, holding myself up by the pole attached to my IV.

Every day I practiced walking this way and eventually I could do it without the pole.

I was able to lift my left arm, and waved at people walking past my room, just because I could. The doctors had said I wasn't going to be able to move my arm again, I had a different plan.

I started to talk, and my voice was slurred and I could only speak in a monotone for at least a year. I was sure it would not stay that way.

A nurse had seen me walking to change the television channel and I was scolded and told not to try and get up. I didn't tell anyone I could walk, since I thought I'd be reprimanded again, and did it when I knew no one would see me.

Finally, I told my mother I could walk. She was highly skeptical. I got up and walked to the television. She was amazed, and so was everyone else. My doctors were incredulous.

I learned how to read, write, and get dressed by myself when I left the hospital. Every day I went to school in the mornings, and then to a rehabilitation center for the remainder of the day.

Going back to school was very hard. I went from being in accelerated classes to being in special Ed. I was given new IQ tests though, and I was regaining my intelligence.

I had a long hard road to recovery, it took a long time to think clearly and function independently. I had to learn to accept and deal with the fact that I could not have a one hundred percent recovery. I have permanent deficits that I have accepted as part of who I am.

Seven years a doctor became very concerned because my left pupil did not respond to light. I have something called pupil aniscoria from my injury. That is why my left pupil will constrict or dilate at the wrong times. The doctor said it could indicate I had a brain tumor. So I had to get an MRI.

That MRI showed a cyst on the lining of of my brain. The doctor explained all of the awful things that would happen to me if it grew. He explained the surgery I would need. I underwent an MRI every six months for a few years. A bony protective shell grew around the golf ball sized cyst.

I would say my recovery is almost complete and it has been an ongoing process. When I have had to tell my health history to a new doctor they find it hard to believe.

"Are you sure you had a stroke?" I have been asked. "Who told you that?"

Not that long ago, I shared that I had a stroke to the sister of someone I was dating. She refused to believe it. She insisted that I had been misinformed, and that she couldn't believe that I bought into it. That made me laugh. I wish that were the case. On some level though, I am glad that I know I have faced adversity and overcome it.

Story submitted by "Erica S" [email protected]