Continuing prayers for ongoing healing now that you are back home. Yay!

Fantastic!

Oh, great news! A bunch of us either live in CT or have close ties. Let us know if you need any medical networking on your behalf (you never know!)

Thank you so much for the update - glad you are home with your family.

Well, you must feel a whole lot better to be home! Best wishes for continued improvement and good luck finding a great medical assistance team!

Thrilled to hear you are home with your family, very best wishes for a speedy recovery. :-)

Glad to hear you’re home. I’m right up the road, let me know if I can help. I’m retired, home all day.

Wow they operated fast :-). So glad they took care of you quickly. Now it's time for you to heal and to continue to move forward. Healing prayers will continue to be sent your way.

So happy to hear of your tremendous progress! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Roarah .. so glad to read your update and to know you are home! I wish you a speedy recovery! I expect you will see great results from the speech and occupational therapy. And thank you so much for the update!

Wonderful news! Best wishes for a speedy recovery! I know you'll do great! I am so amazed at your writing ability after and during all you have been through.

So glad to check in and read your positive update! Being home will be the best medicine.

I’m so glad that you are home with your family. You will continue to be in my prayers for a complete recovery.

Yale-New Haven hospital? https://www.ynhh.org/news/us-news-and-world-report-once-again-recognizes-yale-new-haven-hospital.aspx

Just seeing this for the first time. So sorry to read of your stroke, but thrilled you are home and can concentrate on rehab. Both my Mom and husband had strokes, so I'm very familiar with all that is involved. DH also had a PFO closure done after his stroke in 2009. We are in NH, so Mass General was a godsend. He has cardiologists, neurologists and neuropsychologist there. Also participated in the Benson-Henry Mind Body Institute for cardiac rehab. It was a great program.

Find yourself an advocate that can help you maneuver the health system. Two sets of ears are much better than one.

Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery. Hugs, Carole

Welcome home. The GW LocalUnion stands ready to help, no kidding.

I'm so glad they found the cause and fixed you up. Now you just need to keep your spirits up over your therapy. Just remember that it beats the alternative : )

What great news to read you are home - and you got to see your son's performance. Those are both so important. Rally your troops and get whatever help you need to get your therapy and follow up care lined up. But you are home, have had the surgery and are on the mend. All quicker than we were thinking. Wishing you continued success in your recovery!

So happy to hear from you and that you are back home and have had the surgery. Continued good wishes for progress and a good team of doctors and therapists to help speed your recovery.

So glad to hear! You are (obviously) a fierce survivor. Sending you love and strength.

Excellent news! Thank you so much for updating us. I wish you continued speedy healing, but don't take things too fast. You are in this for the long haul so you need to take very good care of yourself. It can be harder to do once you are back in your home where you are used to doing it all for everyone. Healing is your number one priority and people will start to forget too soon what you have bee through....though they don't mean to. You are strong, but allow yourself to be taken care of. Best wishes.

So happy to see this!

Wonderful that they could address it quickly and that you are home. Wishing you a smooth, steady recovery.

I am happy you are home safe and sound. It must be a relief to be home. Your kids must have been thrilled that you were able to join them for your oldest's performance.

nhbaskets makes a good point to see if you can get into cardiac rehab. You are young so your insurance will likely fight this.

Glad to read you are home.

What fantastic news. I am so happy you are home with your family and recovering. Sending you my best wishes for an optimal recovery.

Roarah so happy to hear you are home and recovering. Very best wishes for your recovery!

Great news! Wishing you all the best!

Hi Roarah -- wanted to check in and see how you were doing!

Glad beagles asked. I was also wondering how you’re doing!

I have also been wondering - very close to this issue since DH had a serious stroke in 2013.

Was hoping to see an update but will join in hoping you are doing well.

Speaking of strokes, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Luke Perry. So sad, he was only 52.

Hi thanks for thinking of me. Luke perry's death hit me hard. I was lucky to be within ten minutes of a wonderful stroke center when I was in Orlando! It was a major factor in my survival. My SIL knowing the symptoms and knowing to act FAST saved my life.

F Face droop

A. Numb hanging arm

S impaired garbled speech

T time to call 911

i am physically at 90 percent still some foot numbness and weakness but otherwise really strong. Cognitively I am about 85% and hoping for some more improvement there. I would say in the mornings I am closer to 90% cognitively but by the evening I am pretty fatigued and that impairs my speech.

In addition to the hole in my heart, PFo with an atrial septal aneurism, I did test highly positive for Antiphospholipid antibodies and had a positive ANA so I need to follow up with a second antibody test in two weeks and if still positive it means I have an autoimmune disease called APS which causes clotting and will need warfarin for life. I am hoping to be negative at my next blood draw. I feel my anxiety and a flu shot and a case of shingles pre stroke might have lead to my elevated antibodies and now after a few months they hopefully have resolved.

After my strokes I had a much harder time trying to curb my anxiety than I thought I would. I am being treated for PTSD, which I think actually started when my husband was diagnosed a few years ago with CRC but came back with a vengeance after my strokes. My treatment involves CBT mindfulness and it has changed my life! As a life long anxiety sufferer I wish I had seeked treatment years ago! I can not help but believe my possible autoimmune disease, recurrent shingles and ultimately my stroke were direct results of my anxiety. Stress causes inflammation which ultimately causes disease.

after years of being a stay at home mom I started a part time job in a local school. I had started applying right before my stroke to jobs and got a call a week after I returned from Florida and interviewed with aphasia and all. I started on December 3. It is just a few hours a day but I really am enjoying being at work again. And being in the same school system as the kids means I still get to be home for them too.

I hope 2019 is going well for all here and I really love this community so much! As part of my therapy I am trying to limit my online time and thus my limited amount of posting. I have a bad habit of medical searching when I go on line and it spikes my health anxiety ;). I feel like garden web is a second family and everyone has been a godsend in my life!

Xo

Terriks, you might want to delete that post. I know you didn't intend it this way, but it might not be something someone who has a stroke wants to hear about now.

Thanks Cyn, but I think it is an import,albeit sad message, that can be learned by Luke's passing. Strokes are not only a disease of the elderly. More than a third of stroke patients are under 65 with no known risks and who they hit is hard to predict or protect so the best chance of surviving a first stroke is to get to a hospital with in 60 minutes. I have none of the obvious risk factors, i.e. High cholesterol, blood pressure or BMI. My hole in the heart and possible clotting disorder even if they had been known about before my CVA would not have been treated without a history of clotting or prior stroke. It would be great if we could truly prevent strokes but in under 55 people we really can not so knowing the signs of stroke and well equip hospitals are the only reasons more people are now surviving strokes.

My husband had a small stroke two years ago at age 57, but his was a brain bleed, not a blockage. He had woken up in the middle of the night with the worst headache that he could remember having, but didn't tell me about it or go to the hospital until almost two days later. Fortunately, no intervention was required, though they kept under observation for 3 days.

The doctors couldn't find any sign that it would happen again, but he does have high blood pressure and has been on BP meds for years. His doctor upped his dosage, because he wants his blood pressure to remain in the "perfect" range.

It was really a wake up call for both us us. I have always been active, but my husband has been more sedentary, though he isn't overweight. I suggested that he go to work a half an hour later each day (which he can do because he's the boss) and walk on our treadmill. He went one better and now spends an hour every day walking on the treadmill - weekends included. He has also changed his diet somewhat. His diet before wasn't horrible, so it just needed a few tweaks.

Roarah, I’m so happy you checked in and continue to improve. You are one strong woman!!!

Terezo, I have always worked out and was not overweight when I had my two warning shots. I guess my BP had been creeping up although it didn’t show up in my yearly physical. I have not exercised at all since December because I have been too fearful. The last episode was frightening. I think I’m going to go to the gym instead of home workouts because if something happens I’ll have people around to save me or call an ambulance. Does your husband have a gym membership? All I was doing last time was sit-ups on an exercise ball, but I was home alone. Now I’m too chicken. I’m going to make sure people are around. BP is finally good but I’m on pills grrr.

So glad to hear that you’re continuing to improve, Roarah. I can understand about the anxiety. I too had a bad case of shingles and the nerve pain hasn’t totally gone away and I attribute that (and perennial allergies) to my anxiety. Please take care. Terrik, thanks for the reminder that we all need From time to time.

Glad to hear you're doing well Roarah! I can't imagine how scary it was to experience what you went through and I think it's great you recognized the anxiety/PTSD and have been able to get treatment for that as well. I hope you continue to improve and that your next blood draw is negative!

(((Roarah))) So good to hear from you! Your grit and determination, as shown by this " and interviewed with aphasia and all" just shows your resilience and helps explain why you have made such an amazing comeback. Rest assured we all care about your recovery.

Nice to see your positive updates. I saw this on the NYTimes, and the author seems like her situation is very similar to you. NYTimes article

One of our former graduate students who is about the same age as me had a stroke about 2 weeks after her masters graduation. She has recovered very well.

So happy to hear from you roarah. Thanks for taking time to let us know how you're doing.

Really great to hear from you roarah. Wishing you continued progress. I appreciate your description of what you went through and can only hope it will help someone else.

I am sorry for multiple, duplicate posts. I keep getting the message that my post won’t load, so I try again and then realize a few minutes later it apparently does post. I think I have deleted the duplicates.

Roarah.....sending good thoughts for your continued progress and recovery.

I am so happy to see you here and know you are doing better. I think of you often. May you look back on this as a distant memory soon (distant in feeling, not time.)

Such good news you are improving everyday. What a life changing experience and you really stepped up to the plate. Wonderful news about your new job. Wishing you continued success.

Really good to hear from you. I'm glad you are doing well and hope you continue to improve. I think it's great that you have been able to start the new job and have something that lets you feel productive and not just focussed on the stroke. I really do believe that helps your recovery more than you know. Keep doing great!

Thanks for the update. Sending positive thoughts your way!