Let's Encourage Congress to Improve Stroke Care FAST

She thought she was choking. It was June of her first year as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. Joyce Beatty had just returned to her office following a luncheon when she felt her throat shut down. She couldn't swallow, couldn't talk. Couldn't cry for help. As she reached for water, her left side went numb. She collapsed. Someone called 911, thinking it was a heart attack. It was a stroke. Specifically, a brain stem stroke. The brain stem is a precarious spot -- a half-inch wide area that controls basic activities like consciousness, blood pressure and breathing. A stroke there could harm any of those functions. Or ruin all of them. Beatty was lucky. Because she was rushed to a hospital and treated by doctors who quickly determined the source of the problem, she escaped the worst of the worst. Yet the stroke still took its toll. She spent a month in the hospital and several more in rehabilitation. It was six months before she began feeling like her old self, nearly a year before she truly was. Walking was her biggest obstacle. Told she may never do so again, her reaction was to try twice as hard. Literally. When told to do two hours of physical therapy, she did at least four. Although she left the hospital in a wheelchair, she was soon on her feet. She celebrates her recovery by regularly wearing 2-inch heels. Beatty's stroke occurred in 2000. She's now in her fourth year as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Of those 435 legislators, she's ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news