She Didn’t Believe It Was a Stroke

Local woman is saved when her knowledgeable massage therapist calls 9-1-1

Signs of Stroke

Call 9-1-1 immediately if you see or experience these symptoms:

• Sudden, blinding headache with no known cause
• Trouble talking, confusion or slurred speech
• Sudden numbness, tingling or weakness on one side of the body
• Sudden vision loss or double vision
• Dizziness or loss of balance and coordination
• Brief loss of consciousness or fainting

Also be alert for less dramatic signs, particularly in women. It’s not unusual for female stroke victims to have nausea, confusion or the sudden onset of flu-like symptoms.

Looking back to the afternoon of her stroke, Sandra Eisenbise says she never suspected what was happening to her. The 67-year-old Bethlehem woman felt fine while getting a massage. “I didn’t notice any symptoms at all,” she says. Fortunately, her massage
therapist detected one: Eisenbise was slurring her words.

“Since my speech sounded perfect to me, I didn’t believe her,” she says. “To convince me, she told me to turn over. When I couldn’t move, I knew I was in trouble.” Right then and there her therapist, also a longtime friend, made the lifesaving call to 9-1-1.

Eisenbise was suffering an ischemic stroke, the most common type. It occurs when a blood vessel leading to the brain becomes blocked, cutting off blood supply to the brain and depriving it of oxygen. (A less common but more deadly type, called a hemorrhagic stroke, occurs when a weakened vessel in the brain ruptures, resulting in uncontrolled bleeding.)

Stroke is the third-leading cause of death and the number-one cause of disability in the United States. “But it doesn’t have to be that way,” says Soraya Jimenez, M.D., a neurologist at Lehigh Valley Health Network. One major reason is that people don’t heed the warning signs and seek treatment swiftly enough. “When the clot-dissolving drug tPA is given within three hours of the appearance of symptoms, some patients show immediate recovery,” Jimenez says, “and studies have shown that those treated with tPA are less likely to have a disability three months later.”

Fortunately, Eisenbise arrived at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest within that window of time, and within two months her life was back to normal. “I didn’t want to make a big deal about symptoms I couldn’t see for myself,” she says. “Now I know you shouldn’t fight the person who’s telling you something is wrong.”

Published from Healthy You Magazine, September October 2010

This page last updated 8/19/10 04:02 PM