Stephenie Whitfield, now 55, is the president of Bank of America Sarasota-Manatee. She’s also the mother of three sons and a daughter, and active in her church and community.
“So we were just doing some final touches that morning. My husband went into his home office.My mother and I were at the table. I was sitting there, and then all of a sudden, it just felt like a knife went into my head. It was just a stabbing feeling, and I've never had a migraine, so I didn't even know. I had no experience of a head hurting at that level. I stood up, and I know my mother was talking to me, but I couldn't really hear her anymore, and I was walking toward the steps, and I started-- and these are things now that my husband has filled in for me--but I started up the steps. Apparently my mother called him, screamed his name. He came out of his office, right across from the steps, grabbed me as I was falling.
"And so he and my mother took me to the ER. They went through the stroke protocol and admitted me. But the positive, the best thing that happened is he got me there so quickly that I was able to get the drug called TPA,” said Whitfield.
TPA,or Tissue plasminogen activator, is a lifesaving drug that instantly breaks up a blood clot. What typically would require a four-day hospital stay took Winfield just two before she was released.
Her husband Mark,who’d had a stroke some years earlier, advocated for her to get the care she needed. And was a great support later at home.
“He carried me into the house, you know, and he helped to bathe me and carried me down the steps and propped me up on the sofa. And he did that for months. I started physical therapy as soon as I was released.”
She’d been traveling for work a few days before her stroke, andfelt “off.” But kept telling herself she would rest after the holiday.
“And I just did what I had always done. I just pushed through, started cooking some things Wednesday night, like we do, and woke up Thursday early. Getting things together for our sons to take to the church. And I think my body was like,'I'm not waiting till Friday. And it just couldn't handle it. It just couldn't handle it,” Whitfield said.
Like many of us, Whitfield did not know how common strokes are in women.
Here’s Jessaca Rodriguez, Executive Director of the American Heart Association for southwest Florida.
“Stroke is actually more common than I think most people believe, in women. Stroke is the number five killer of women in the United States,” said Rodriguez.
To ensure recovery, a stroke needs to be treated within four and a half hours of symptoms appearing. Butmany people ignore or son't recognize those symptoms.
Dr. Jon Brillman is a senior neurologist at Lee Health.
JWarnings include any kind of difficulty with speech, any difficulty with extremity movements, balance, occasional headache, facial weakness, like drooping of the face on one side,” said Brillman.
An acronym to know is FAST:F for Face, A for Arm, S for Speech, and T for Time. Watch for drooping in the face, weakness in the arm or leg, difficulty with speech, and time,
...because the sooner the person gets treated, the more likely they are to recover.
Also: Call 911rather than driving yourself to the hospital, because treatment, including the clot-busting drug, can be started in the ambulance.
As for Stephenie Whitfield, she is back to doing everything she could before her stroke, and then some. But, she says, she will never be the same.For one
thing, she now knows she has the strength to survive a stroke.And she knows to prioritize her own health.
“Please take care of yourself first. It's not selfish. Because when we take care of ourselves first, we have so much more to give all those people we love. We're not giving them the leftovers. We're not giving them the crumbs. We are taking care of ourselves. We're eating right, we're exercising, we're sleeping. If we feel something,we're getting it checked out, because then we don't have to see the heartache on their faces if we'renot there.”
Jessaca Rodriguez of theAmerican Heart Association again:
“We know that one of the most common indicators of an incoming stroke in a woman is high blood pressure. So it's really critical that every woman knows what their blood pressure is, knows what range it falls in, and is seeking care to get their blood pressure on track. Which, healthy blood pressure is 120 over 80.”
Dr.Brillman recommends peopleget a blood pressure cuff and check it regularly at home. Between that and seeing your doctor for bloodwork, women can help ensure that they’re around for many more holidays to come.
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