Judy’s story.
Stroke at 37.
Me with my son, June 2024
I had my stroke at age 37, 8 days after I delivered my son. There were no warning signs, no whiff of high blood pressure, nothing at all.
He came out surprising everyone - even the midwives - full term 40 weeks + 1 day, weighing 8 lbs 14.5 oz. We were discharged after staying at the hospital for 24 hours. Throughout my pregnancy, I had no signs of having any complications at all. In Ontario, Canada, you can get midwives as a pregnancy primary care provider only if you’re NOT high risk.
In those early pre-stroke days, he would fit inside my arms easily. I could nurse him. But then, he was crying and crying, and I would learn through a lactation consultant I didn’t have enough breast milk for him. We moved to a triple feeding system, I would breastfeed, my husband would bottle feed formula, and I would pump my breast milk into bottles. He easily took more than 90 mls per feed, and I couldn’t keep up with his demand. I remember my relief at my lactation consultant’s suggestion of feeding him in bed, on March 13, the night before my stroke happened. I thought, “now we’re getting somewhere” and had a huge sigh of relief.
I found strength from the depths of my soul, and when that wasn’t enough, through grit. I was determined to be the best version of myself, always.
For the first 14 months, I treated recovery as a full time job. Every week, I would set aside time for SLP in three different languages, neuro-physio, vestibular rehab, vision therapy, acupuncture, and Pilates. Only recently did I set aside one day for my family, and one day for me. I couldn’t have done it without an army supporting me, most of all my husband and son.
I was also lonely, so lonely. No one, not even my husband, could possibly understand what I went through. The stroke, new motherhood, the seizures… I needed someone to have gone through it to even begin to understand.
Post-stroke I struggle with various issues — sensitivity to light and audio, double vision, balance, prone to dizziness, neuro fatigue, trouble concentrating, and having to live without tv! I’m also affected emotionally as whenever I hear sirens, I tear up.
But what I learned from my stroke is I’m still here fighting the good fight, one moment at a time.
We had the audio monitor hooked up in our 3rd floor bedroom. Upon hearing my son cry, I went up to go get him, from the 1st floor all the way to our bedroom on the 3rd floor. I took him to the rocking chair I had nearby. All of a sudden, my right side wasn’t able to bear any weight at all. I fell and thankfully, the chair caught me. I had a thunderclap headache, 10/10 on the pain scale. I said to my husband via the audio monitor, “something’s wrong.” My husband came to me from the first floor. And took my baby. And called 911.
I had had a clotting stroke in my brainstem, I later learned. I vomited and vomited while I waited for the EMS team to bring me down. I was finally brought down from the third floor to the first floor by a couple of firefighters. Then somehow I was out the front door on a stretcher. My husband, with our newborn in his arms, said he’ll join me soon.
While carrying my son in my womb, I never vomited.
The EMS team brought me to NYGH. Throughout the journey, I continued vomiting. I was brought to a different part of the emergency department. Then I was moved to a different location. Through it all, I remember that I had to be brave because of my new identity—I was a mother now. I kept trying to speak, my voice to me sounded normal, but to everyone else it was so weak. My husband found me, he had dropped off our newborn at his parents first. Then we travelled to Sunnybrook Hospital where I was to receive the clot busting medication.
At Sunnybrook Hospital, we were greeted by what must have been 20 or so stroke staff. As I gave my consent to whatever treatment was on the table, they wheeled me around on a hospital bed. They administered the clot busting drug TNK simultaneously as they confirmed through the CT scan that yes, I had a clotting stroke in my brainstem.
And as I got sleepier and sleepier, the mood was definitely celebratory by all bystanders. I said to my husband: I’m getting sleepy. Is that normal? Which was relayed and responded to: it’s good to sleep, I was just given TNK. Trusting the doctors, I drifted off to sleep.
Turns out, I had a bleed in my left brain from the TNK. The next 5 days would be lost to me. Apparently, I had a team of dedicated nurses, and I was in the second highest level ICU. I was in and out of consciousness. I remembered being prayed over on March 19, 2024. And lo and behold, by that night I started feeling better. They said I would not need surgery to relieve the building pressure in my brain.
I would remember vividly with amazing colour, in minute details, that every so often, I would be in a different room surrounded by many patients in hospital beds, with two or three nurses watching over us. I later realized, much later, that I had dreamed it all.
By the time I thought of my child again, it was already 10 days later. I remember my panic having forgotten to feed him anything. I didn’t know where I was. I was struggling to make myself clear in English. I had expressive aphasia, and it was especially troublesome at the beginning.
So I’m struggling to communicate. Surrounded by machines. They found a breast pump and hooked me up. Except that I found out later that my husband had already made the decision to not have me pump at all, because it was such a burden on me physically. Somehow, on that day, they let me try again, but to my disappointment I didn’t get much of anything. I would have given anything to nurse my child. Anything.
Two weeks later, I was transferred back to the stroke ward at NYGH.
I spent the next week there. My husband was there by my side. Towards the end of our stay, I got to do simple recovery exercises, like sitting up. Like trying to get my right side (my affected side) to obey my brain’s commands.
I was frustrated by expressive aphasia, a side effect of my left brain bleeds. Although, in those early days, I could sing 90’s music like Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and Britney Spears. When I wasn’t singing though, I was full of resentment and I didn’t have a way to express myself.
At the end of the week at NYGH, I got into downtown Toronto Rehab Institute for 6 weeks in the stroke ward inpatient. During my inpatient days, I met with my PT and PTT 6 days a week. I started inpatient as a wheelchair user. Then slowly, I began to race down the hallways, still in my wheelchair. It was only in the last two weeks on inpatient when I would start using a walker. I left inpatient with my wheelchair and my walker, both of which had been purchased.
Also during my inpatient days, every Sunday, my husband would leave me only to bring me my baby. He would make the trek to his parents, then back to me downtown, then to Richmond Hill where he would drop off our baby at his brother’s, then come back to me downtown.
I had a hard time connecting with my baby, even then. I had had a previous miscarriage, and so I was afraid of bonding with my baby. I was leery of my baby, to tell the truth.
After I completed my Toronto Rehab Institute stay as an inpatient, I then went on to completing my outpatient also at Toronto Rehab Institute. I was fortunate enough to continue doing private therapies. I was gaining so much ground, my seizures took me by surprise in January 2025.
By the one year mark, I was walking unaided on a 200 meter track x4. I no longer needed any of my mobility aids to get around.
