John: Surviving a Brain Attack
John woke up one September morning in 2008, expecting to enjoy a typical day in his Three Points, Arizona home. He got much more than he expected. While reading a book, he began to notice a burning sensation in his left eye. John headed for the eye drops but his wife headed for the phone. She called an ambulance, realizing her husband might be experiencing something much worse than tired eyes. She had noticed drooping on the right side of John’s mouth and slight slurring when he spoke. By the time John reached his bed to lay down, his entire right side was paralyzed.
When they paramedics arrived, they knew John was having a severe stroke. He was airlifted from Three Points to Carondelet St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tucson. “I remember flashes of consciousness,” says John. “The paramedics in my bedroom, the sight of mountains from above, and then a doctor standing in front of me in the emergency room.”
That doctor was Rod Anderson, a vascular neurologist from Carondelet Neurological Institute (CNI) and one of only two Board-certified vascular neurologists in Tucson. “John’s symptoms were classic,” said Dr. Anderson. “The kind many people ignore until it is too late.”
Dr. Anderson, Director of Vascular Neurology at CNI, says everyone needs to become alert to the signs and symptoms of stroke: sudden, severe headaches with no known cause; sudden weakness or numbness of the face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body; sudden confusion or difficulty speaking or understanding, sudden problems with vision; sudden dizziness or problems with balance or coordination or sudden problems with movement or walking.
“Time is brain,” says Dr. Anderson. The quicker people realize their brain is under attack from the stroke, the better their chance of surviving and minimizing the damage.
Because John’s wife reacted quickly to the few symptoms he was experiencing and because he arrived at the hospital within an hour of the onset of his stroke, Dr. Anderson was able to consider giving John a clot-busting drug called tPA, which can stop the stroke and, in many cases, reverse the damage. (The “window” for receiving tPA is approximately four hours from the onset of a stroke.) Since not every patient qualifies to receive tPA, determining which patients do qualify must be done quickly. At St. Joseph’s, the Brain Attack team has a highly aggressive goal of 60 minutes from the time a patient arrives in the Emergency Department experiencing a stroke to examine, test, return lab results and deliver the potentially life-saving drug.
John qualified, received the drug, and immediately began to notice a difference in his ability to move his body. His journey to recovery was a long one. He spent a month at Carondelet Neurological Institute receiving continued treatment and rehabilitation. Today, however, he is living at home in Three Points with his wife and has little – if any – lasting remnants of his stroke. “I owe them my life,” reflects John of the CNI team of caregivers.
When asked where he thinks he would be today if not for his wife’s quick reaction and the care he received at Carondelet Neurological Institute on the campus of St. Joseph’s Hospital, John has a simple answer, “Probably dead.”