PAT I E N T E X P E R I E N C E which took months to heal. Both Dr. Pfeifer and Dr. Bobenhouse are quick to point to a key factor in Jane’s success story: her family reacted quickly and called 911. “Unfortunately, roughly 70 percent of people don’t get to the hospital soon enough,” says Dr. Bobenhouse. “Studies show that if a person is treated even 15 minutes earlier, there is an increased chance of recovery.” Mary Ellen Hook, APRN-CNS, stroke program coordinator at Bryan, encourages families to remember the acronym FAST to help them quickly identify stroke symptoms. (See the illustration on Page 7.) “We teach the public to recognize if the face is droopy,
and they don’t smile equally, their arm is numb or tingling, and they develop slurred speech,” she says. Mary Ellen says the “T” in FAST stands for time, and it reminds people to call 911 rather than try to drive themselves to the hospital. Jane agrees. “I think it’s very important to trust the EMTs. You might, in your frugality, think you’re going to save money, but they’re preparing the ER on the other end for what’s coming in,” she adds. “You’re giving yourself the best possible chance for the best care.” Mary Ellen says Bryan is well-equipped to care for stroke patients, and it is the only hospital in Lincoln to offer a full range of stroke treatments, such as the
Quick thinking by Michael D’Lima (right) and Dan D’Lima was key to their mother’s successful recovery from a massive ischemic stroke.
angiogram, an imaging process that allows him to pinpoint the exact location of the clot. He was then able to try the first of two tools available to him for the procedure. “The first tool we tried for Jane is called an aspiration catheter,” he says. “This is a device that uses suction, similar to a vacuum cleaner, to grab the clot and pull it out of the blood vessel.” But for Jane, it wasn’t working. Dr. Pfeifer then
tried a device called a stent retriever, which can capture a blood clot by using an expandable mesh “cage.” This time, he was successful. When Jane awoke after the surgery, she tested herself to see if her language skills were intact. English, Spanish, Chinese, French — yes, she still had them all. She spent the next week in acute rehab and rested frequently. Soon it was difficult to tell that she’d had a stroke, aside from her broken ankle,
Kyle Pfeifer, MD, was able to remove clots threatening Jane’s brain.
6 Summer 2018
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