Health & Wellness The New Face of Stroke By Gail Jansen-Kesslar
Lee Cayer
At age 45, Lee Cayer never would have considered herself a candidate for a stroke, but a growing number of younger Canadians are starting to feel its devastating affects. When Lee Cayer first felt unwell, she initially blamed it on her hectic schedule as a business woman, wife, mother and grandmother, putting it on the backburner until she had time to deal with it. Cayer felt as if she just had the flu, with a massive headache and body aches. She was also experiencing a bit of slurred speech and her mouth and jaw hurt. A few days later, at the age of 45, she suffered a stroke that paralyzed the entire right hand side of her body. In Canada, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, stroke is the leading cause of adult disability and the third leading cause of death. It’s a problem Gwen Gordon, director of Stroke Strategy at the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Saskatchewan, says is of particular concern here in Saskatchewan, considering that we have some of the highest rates of smoking, obesity, and inactivity in all of Canada. “The real tragedy – and the real opportunity – is that 80 per cent of strokes are preventable, whether you are a man or a woman,” says Gordon, “so it is critically important that people know their risk factors and start working to manage or eliminate them as soon as possible, and it is equally as critical that they seek help as soon as they start to exhibit the signs and symptoms of a stroke.” For Cayer, with no family history of strokes, and as someone who has always taken care of herself, her biggest risk factor was the level of stress she experienced in her day to day life, and her lack of a stress management plan that could help her deal with it. “I’ve always looked after my body,” says Cayer, “but I never really learned to deal with my stress. Whether it was with the business 32 |
FOR SASKATCHEWAN WOMEN
or my family, or with my relationships, I was always the deer in the headlights, or always on the run.” Cayer also never learned to take time out of her busy schedule to take care of herself, always putting the needs of her family and others before her own. This is a story all too familiar amongst women today. Always the caretaker, her sense of not wanting to bother anybody continued, even as her stroke manifested, causing her to wave off the concerns of her increasingly panicked husband, and resist the idea of going to a hospital or doctor. “I sat in a chair and told my husband to just let me sit for a moment,” says Cayer. “I kept telling him, ‘It will get better, I’ll be fine.’” But when Cayer saw herself in the mirror, she saw for herself the reality of what was happening. She wasn’t fine. “The whole side of my face was just hanging and even while I was watching, my eyelid started to droop, and I felt like a sock had been stuffed down my throat.” Starting with her arm, then to her hand, and then to her face, the effects of the stroke engulfed her like a tsunami, sweeping everything in its path.
“That was one of the scariest parts,” says Cayer. “Not knowing how much it was going to keep taking.” Luckily for Cayer, the type of stroke she suffered was treatable with Tissue Plasminogen Activator (TPA), a clot-busting drug that, if administered soon after the onset, can reverse many of the devastating long-term effects a stroke can leave behind. With the entire right half of her body paralyzed by the time she reached the hospital, within six minutes of having the drug put into her IV line, Cayer could start to move her fingers. Six hours later she could start to move her arm.