Brain repair: How a teenager is rebuilding her life following a stroke
LIKE many teenagers, Shannonree Maher is planning to go to Electric Picnic next September — but unlike her peers, she’ll have to be deeply mindful of her health.
Two years ago, this upbeat, chatty young Limerick woman had a stroke and to this day, she still feels the effects.
“I won’t be able to go wild at Electric Picnic, but at the same time I don’t want the stroke to be something that stops me doing something,” says the 19-year-old, whose ordeal began in February 2016 when she was just 17 and on work experience.
Shannonree had enjoyed the first two days of her week working as a primary school classroom assistant and also carrying out some administrative duties for the school principal.
However, when she woke up on the Wednesday morning, her left arm and leg felt “very heavy and as the morning progressed, she noticed her balance was poor.
"I found it very difficult to walk with my left leg; it was dragging. I didn’t have a clue what was wrong,” she recalls, adding that she didn’t discuss her symptoms when she came home, and later went to bed. Her condition worsened in the days that followed. She became dizzy, experienced difficulty writing, and when she tried to speak, the left side of her mouth drooped.
However, Shannonree resisted suggestions that she see a doctor — “I thought it was nothing serious.”
By Sunday she’d begun to feel really ill so she saw the GP on Monday. Shannonree was quickly in hospital undergoing a battery of tests.
An MRI scan showed a clot on the brain — it emerged that Shannonree had had a stroke, which occurs when a blood vessel, which is carrying oxygen and nutrients to the brain, bursts (haemorrhagic) or is blocked by a clot (ischaemic). This causes an interruption of the blood supply to part of the brain which can damage or destroy brain cells, in turn affecting body functions — in Shannonree’s case, her left side.
That’s because the location in the brain where your stroke occurred will determine where in the body you experience weakness. Damage to the left side of the brain can result in weakness on the right side of the body. Similarly, left-sided weakness results from injury to the right side of the brain.
“A lot more tests were done, but nobody could understand why I had a stroke,” says Shannonree, adding that up to then she’d been a normal, healthy teenager who hadn’t spent a day in hospital in her life.
It was no wonder her doctors were taken aback. In St James’s Hospital in Dublin, for example, according to neurologist Dr David Bradley, about 70% of strokes treated are in people over the age of 65. Of the 30% or so of strokes that occur in people under 65, he says, only a tiny percentage occurs in people under the age of 30:
“Last year we had one patient aged 21 and one the year before — it is very rare,” he says.
Over the last five years at St James’s, around 30% of strokes involve people under the age of 65. Only about 5% of stroke patients are under the age of 40 and just 1.2% of strokes are under the age of 30. It’s so rare that we don’t see it much.
Nationally, in 2016, 8,500 people experienced stroke. Of that, about 2,000 were under the age of 65. Last
November saw the launch of a new national support network for this group, LifeAfterStroke, which can be accessed on Facebook or by calling the Irish Heart Foundation helpline on 1800 252550.
Stroke treatment facilities in hospitals have vastly improved in recent years — 21 hospitals around the country now have a specialised stroke unit, up from just one such unit for the whole country 10 years ago. However, Ireland still lags behind the European norm, last year ranking a disappointing 22nd out of 43 European countries for the administration of the life-saving clot-busting drug thrombolysis. The current European average is 12% of stroke patients, but, according to the Irish Heart Foundation statistics, many Irish hospitals are only achieving rates of 3%-5%.
One issue in this country, says Dr Bradley, is because many patients don’t get to hospital and access treatment quickly enough — thrombolysis can only be administered within a certain timescale.
“The latest figures for 2016/2017 show that around 65% of patients were being managed through a stroke unit — however that’s still behind UK levels in terms of stroke unit care,” he says.
“Getting into a stroke unit at an early stage is crucial — 90% of patients spending 90% of their time in a stroke unit is what we are aiming for in the longer term.”
Dr Bradley continues: “The biggest reasons patients don’t get treatment for the symptoms is because of not recognising symptoms or because they don’t go to hospital.
“If you don’t get there quickly enough you may not be able to avail of certain treatment before it is too late.”
Be aware of symptoms of stroke, he urges, and if you think someone is having one, call the emergency services immediately.
Remember, you can minimise your risk of stroke by having a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise (about 30 minutes a day, leaving you slightly out of breath) a balanced, healthy diet, six-monthly health checks with the GP, not smoking, and having a moderate alcohol intake.
For Shannonree, recovery was gradual. She was released from hospital after two weeks, but her left side was very weak, and to this day, she has a limp on her left side and experiences some cognitive impairment.
“My left leg doesn’t move as quickly as my right. If I talk a lot the left side of my mouth droops,” says Shannonree, who writes a blog about stroke and attends a vocational education programme in Headway, which will help her access a third-level education course in either psychology or beauty therapy — she hasn’t quite decided.
“I had to drop out of school because I couldn’t process material as quickly as I used to. I’m now attending vocational education in Headway which will help me access third level.
“I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will have a limp and a bit of cognitive difficulty; I’ve accepted it,” says Shannonree, who has been in hospital five times over the past two years.
“Every three to six months my left side goes very weak — they observe me and do MRI scans and other tests but they don’t ever find anything.”
She refuses to let it get her down, however, and is looking forward to Electric Picnic with her friends.
“I’ll go to the festival. It will probably take me about two months to recover but I want to be a normal teenager for that weekend.”
Be alert
- Numbness, weakness, or paralysis on one side of the body
- Slurred speech, difficulty thinking of words or understanding other people
- Confusion
- Sudden blurred vision or sight loss
- Being unsteady on your feet
- Severe headache
