Patient Stories: Heart
Young people aren't supposed to have strokes,
but I did when I was just 19.
Although I’m still fighting to get to 100 percent,
the staff at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical
Center really helped me recover from the
stroke I had in November 2005. While they
were at it, they found and fixed a hole in my
heart.
I was a college student and working as a
waitress when my leg gave out, my right arm
went limp and the right side of my face felt
strange.
I was trying to ask a coworker, “Can you take my tables?” but the words
wouldn’t come out. Later she said she knew what was happening but
didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to freak me out.
At Memorial Hermann, I had a CT scan and was admitted to the stroke unit. My right side was totally
paralyzed.
I started therapy every day. At first, I would fall over without the therapists’ support as they tried to help
me sit in a chair
After two and a half weeks, I was discharged. I’m on my own; my family truly can’t help with finances
and the staff worried that I wouldn’t be able to get therapy after discharge, so they gave me exercises to
keep improving.
At home, I worked hard to get my abilities back. Walking came back pretty quickly, but not fine motor
skills. I had therapy for my hand and fingers, but my handwriting is still not normal.
The good news is that, while I was at Memorial Hermann, they discovered a hole in my heart that I never
knew about. Dr. Richard Smalling enrolled me in a research study and did a procedure to close the
hole. He’s done a million of them – well, thousands of them – but not on people as young as I am.
I’m still scared that I’ll have strokes when I am older, especially because no one knows why I had the
first one. Dr. Smalling thinks blood clots might have slipped through the hole in my heart. If that’s what
happened, it won't happen again.
For now, I am back in classes. I plan to major in business or maybe, after this experience, something to
do with pharmaceuticals.
Others think I’m walking normally, but I know I need to keep working. I’m even trying to get back into
modeling, something I did when I was a young teen.
With the doctors and therapists at Memorial Hermann on my side, I know I have a great future ahead of
me.