Stroke Recovery: A Cleveland Clinic Success

At 5:15 a.m., Eddie Cook got so dizzy he could barely walk while working at Belden Brick Co. He soon noticed the left side of his mouth was drooping, and he developed double vision and slurred speech.

“It was scary. It put me in panic mode to call 911,” says the 68-year-old Dover resident. “I knew I had to do something.”

An ambulance took him to Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital in Dover, and after a CT scan, doctors determined he was experiencing a basilar artery stroke. He was transferred by helicopter — despite his condition he remembers looking out the window as it flew — to Cleveland Clinic Akron General.

There, Dr. Jenny Tsai explained Cook’s treatment options, which were to take a strong blood thinner to stabilize and gradually dissolve the clot or undergo a mechanical thrombectomy, a surgical procedure that removes the clot. Because Cook had experienced two small strokes months before, with less severe symptoms, he was afraid of having another one in the future, and he trusted Tsai.

“She was my angel,” he says

He opted for the mechanical thrombectomy, which Tsai performed, threading a catheter through his right arm up to his brain and connecting it to a vacuum-like pump.

“We were able to remove the blood clot and allow the blood to flow back very quickly. The whole procedure took half an hour,” says Tsai. “We certainly are always racing against the clock whenever we’re trying to re-establish blood flow to the brain during a stroke, so our team moves very fast.”

Cook woke up next to his wife, and he no longer had slurred speech or other symptoms.

“She could tell right away — I was back to normal,” Cook says. “I’ve been good, knock on wood, since then.”

He’s back to work, and he’s enjoying his hobbies, doing housework, taking rides with his wife and visiting his sons out of state. Before this, Cook didn’t like going to the doctor. But he now has a new perspective.

“I tell people, Go for your annual checkups. Go whenever you think there’s something wrong.”

Tsai says Cook’s quick action to call 911likely contributed to his successful recovery, and she recommends people call 911if they experience stroke symptoms such as sudden changes in balance, eyesight or speech or facial droopiness or arm or leg weakness.

“Every moment that we think that some-body’s having a stroke, the message is always to call 911 right away,” she says. “Every minute during an acute stoke, we can lose approximately 2 million braincells. ... Time is brain."