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Shannon Shivers
Feb. 16, 2008 was a day that can be recorded as a day of
miracles!
I was 31
(now 32 since November), training for a half-marathon, and
had received
top reports from my yearly physical just 2 weeks before.
I
woke up that
Saturday morning and stumbled my way to the bathroom,
almost making it
there, falling in the doorway! I could not pull myself up
and didn't
understand what was going on. I had to call my 4-year-old
son, my hero, and
tell him to go get mommy the phone and a pillow and
blanket, because I was
freezing! |  |
He brought the phone, and I called my husband at
work. I didn't
call 911 because I didn't know what was going on and
didn't want to scare
the children. He answered saying how surprised he was I
caught him because
he hadn't been in the office all morning!
He heard it
in my voice. My speech
was slurred and he knew immediately that something was
terribly wrong. He
was on his way and called 911 and his parents on the way
home.
By warming up, I was able to get up and make it to the den,
but that would
be it. I was paralyzed completely on my left side. Danny
made it home in
record time, his parents made it over to pick up the
children before the
ambulance came, and the ambulance soon followed. I arrived
at the hospital
with complete awareness of everything that was going on.
Long enough to hear
the doctor verify that I was having a stroke. I then
had a grand mal
seizure.
The Dilantin they administered pretty much spaced
me out from then
on. The doctors had told Danny that the seizure would
prevent me from
receiving the medication used to stop the stroke and their
was nothing else
they could do.
Danny just said that wasn't acceptable!
The ER doctor,
thankfully, had the number of a neurologist that he thought
could help. He
was training for a marathon, and they called him in on a
Saturday in his
running clothes! They confirmed that my right carotid
artery had dissected
100% and the doctor's suggestion to Danny for any hope
was surgery. He
signed the consent and they took me into surgery for 6 1/2
hours to place 2
5mm metal stents in my carotid arteries through my femoral
arteries!
Amazing!
I woke up after the surgery with complete feeling on my
left side! The
paralysis had left me and I was going to be ok, with no
therapy at all.
Still in ICU on day 2 with the catheters still in my
arteries, the doctor
came in and told me I wasn't going to get any running
done like that! My
family's jaw dropped at the thought of me running after
that, but he said I
could run when I felt like it and expected to see pictures
of the marathon.
I left the hospital 4 days after having the stroke, ran my
first mile one
week after, and ran a 5K three weeks after the stroke! I
just completed the
half-marathon on Dec. 6 and am now training for a 25K in
February to mark
the one year anniversary after the stroke!
I showed up to my post-op appointment 10 days after the stroke and was
told by the
doctor I was very lucky to be here and should be in the
nursing home with a
feeding tube!
He also told me that I have Fibromuscular
Dysplasia of the
carotids. After 6 months of taking Plavix to help protect
the stents while
healing, I had an angiogram that confirmed they were doing
their job and I'm
now off of the Plavix. I take a daily aspirin, but
that's it!
I have had
grand mal seizures in the past. I have tinnitus, and
experience quite a bit
of dizziness. A small price to pay for a second chance at
life!
I am very
blessed to be here, and miracles do happen! I can only pray
my story will
help others to know that being diagnosed with FMD
doesn't mean you have to
stop living!
Shannon Shivers, 32
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