Every year it’s estimated that 795,000 people will suffer a new or recurrent stroke. Despite awareness and prevention efforts it’s still the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. A 38 year old Yankton mom is considering herself lucky and incredibly thankful that she won’t be counted among those last statistics. Because for nearly a month, Stacey Ginsbach was just feeling off.
“Just panicked, really like clammy, and then my arms started kind of feeling weird. And my mom actually said, l‘I think you're having a stroke.’ And I was like, "I don't think there's any way,” said Ginsbach.
Given her age, this young mom continued to push through until the symptoms piled on and got more severe.
“My daughter Googled stroke symptoms. I was like, "Yeah, I think we better call 911." And then they got me up to the hospital. My husband came from Vermillion home and met me up at the hospital and then I ended up being airlifted to Sioux Falls,” said Ginsbach.
Coordinated and Comprehensive Stroke Care
While Stacey was en route, the stroke team in Sioux Falls was using the imaging done in Yankton to rally the troops for a quick intervention.
“We're actually taking that radiographic information and then starting to ask questions like, OK, what are the symptoms that this patient has so that we can actually, instead of the patient being pushed to us, which takes a certain amount of time, we're actually using a pull model where we know there's something wrong here and we want to know more information and we're actually pulling the patient to us, which really cuts a lot of time off,” said Alex Linn, MD, a neuroendovascular surgeon with the Avera Brain & Spine Institute.
“One of the oldest things in neurology probably is time is brain, referring to treatment of acute stroke and how important this is. Every minute, the brain can lose as much as 2 million brain cells with lack of oxygen. So every minute truly does count in treatment of stroke,” said Bill Andrews, MD with Avera Neurology in Yankton.
Those images showed a clot was preventing blood flow to a portion of Stacey's brain. Because she was well beyond the time limit for medicinal intervention, the team went in manually to extract the clot.
“In Stacey's case, it took two attempts. We used what's called a stent retriever device with a catheter to suction or vacuum over that and remove the blood clot and we got it out in two passes and it was all open,” said Dr. Linn.
“Actually, I remember everything. The thing is, I was feeling so horrible for so long, almost a month, I want to say, that I was relieved. I was like, OK, I think I'm going to finally start feeling better and I'm going to be able to drive without panic attacks, I'm not going to be clammy and I'm not going have arm troubles and stuff. I was relieved to know that, OK, I'm finally going to have a cure to all this,” said Ginsbach.
Genetic Role in Stroke Risk
As with any stroke, the care team looked through Stacey's history for signs and potential causes to better understand who is at risk and how to prevent future attacks.
“And we found a couple of causes, actually. It turns out she has a hole in the heart from the vein side to the arterial side or right to left and this is known as a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO). What that means is that you can actually have clots form on the venous side and cross over into the arterial side in the heart and end up embolizing into the brain. She's actually set up to get that hole closed,” said Dr. Linn.
It was also discovered that Stacey has a genetic blood disorder that causes her blood to coagulate or clot a lot faster, two unique conditions that combined to cause her stroke.
“I'll be on blood thinners the rest of my life, but it definitely gives me peace of mind knowing, OK, this is why it happened and it wasn't because of my lifestyle or any of those factors,” said Ginsbach.
Awareness and Prevention Go Hand-in-Hand
After experiencing stroke symptoms for the better part of a month, it's incredible that Stacey has otherwise avoided long-term effects.
“That is really lucky. My golf game has struggled a little bit since the stroke. I'm a little weak yet on my left side. But that's definitely my physical therapy right now and for the summer,” said Ginsbach.
Meaning the only strokes she has to worry about are the ones that keep her under par.
With stroke awareness, doctors encourage people use the acronym: BE FAST.
- B - look for sudden changes in BALANCE
- E - changes in EYE SIGHT like blurred or loss of vision
- F - sudden changes in FACIAL drooping or paralysis of the face
- A - sudden ARM weakness, pain, or tingling
- S - sudden changes in SPEECH patterns or slurring
- T - if you see any of these signs, it’s TIME to go to the hospital.
Learn more about stroke care at Avera
