READER’S DIGEST
July• 2019 | 75what had caused his strokes on an
echo-cardiogram: he had a hole in
the upper chambers of his heart –
probably present since birth. Clots
formed as a result, travelled through
an artery to his brain, and blocked
the blood flow.
Although more hospitals are
equipped for thrombolysis with
tPA than for the newer mechanical
thrombectomy methods, it shouldn’t
be an either/or choice. Thrombolysis
and thrombectomy used together are
the biggest breakthrough in stroke
treatment. Professor Bruce Campbell,
director of the Stroke Foundation –
Australia, explains that the clinical
guidelines for stroke management
state that eligible stroke patients –
those with a stroke caused by a large
blood clot – should receive intrave-
nous thrombolysis and endovascular
thrombectomy. “If there are bleeding
risks, for example recent surgery, then
thrombectomy alone is performed.”
FLORENCE’S RECOVERY
Doctors had stopped the strokes from
doing further damage to both Jan’s
and Florence’s brains, but they each
faced daunting disabilities.
“When I woke up I didn’t know how
to talk,” says Florence. “I couldn’t read
or write. I couldn’t even eat,” she says.
“I was like a child who needs to learn
everything.” But, despite that, “I felt
determined that I would one day fully
recover,” she says today. “That was my
aim. That was my hope.”
As life altering as her symptoms
were, they didn’t by themselves pre-
dict much about the likelihood that
Florence would recover. Dr Friedhelm
Hummel, an associate professor of
clinical neuroscience, says that strokesurvivors’ lingering symptoms might
outwardly look similar, but there can
be great differences from one person
to the next in the degree, area and
type of damage. These differences
can determine whether a person goes
back to a normal life.
After a month in hospital, Flor-
ence willed herself to get up from her
wheelchair. She soon advanced to
using crutches and regained limited
use of her right hand. Her progress
accelerated once she was moved to
a rehabilitation centre. There she
spent hours every day working with a
speech therapist, neuropsychologist
and physiotherapist in an intensive“I WAS DETERMINED THAT I WOULD FULLY
RECOVER. THAT WAS MY HOPE”
Florence Baudouin