Miracles Do Happen | Stroke and Aphasia Awareness
The Language of Love Telethon promotes awareness of stroke symptoms in order to educate people, so that you can prevent or at least minimize the effects of aphasia, which is what happens after someone has a stroke. Aphasia is a disease that can occur as a result of a stroke. This disease affects regions of the brain that are responsible for language, which results in difficulty understanding language and speaking. Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States. In this article, Lisa Leonick will describe a personal experience regarding the warning signs of a stroke. Having the proper Health Care documents such as a Health Care Proxy can be crucial in a situation like the story we will share with you in this article. This is her story.
Lisa’s Story:
“So on a Sunday when my mother was in the hospital, I was planning to go to the hospital later in the day, however on that day I just decided to get there as early as I could and had a weird feeling that maybe something wasn’t right. When I got there I was trying to talk to my Mom and she definitely was not as responsive as she normally would be. I noticed that she was slightly slurring her words and she just seemed a little bit dazed. Then I went and got the nurse and she said it’s early in the morning, don’t worry. I was watching this health crisis progress and I went and got the nurse several more times and indicated this is not right, this is not my normal Mom. Sure enough they called in a team of doctors and she was having a stroke. I was one of four children and I’m the daughter and the lawyer in the family, therefore I was chosen as my Mother’s healthcare proxy. I immediately had to jump into action and make certain decisions, so the doctors could give her medication that started reversing the effects of the stroke. My family arrived at the hospital, they saw that she was okay and were saying ‘are you sure that really happened?’ But it did happen and, I happened to be there and I was her advocate and luckily she signed a health care proxy appointing me to make decisions for her when she couldn’t.”
This experience is evidence of a good result that occurred because of stroke awareness and identifying the symptoms of stroke when someone is having a stroke. It’s also important to have the right legal documents that help in these situations, in this scenario Lisa was the healthcare agent, the proxy for her mother. Her mother had filled out a health care proxy prior to this situation happening. This is called an advanced directive. The healthcare staff in the hospital had to listen to what Lisa had to say because they knew that she had legal authority to do so. It’s also important to have a power of attorney in case there are financial problems when someone does have a health issue.
Preparing legal documents such as a Health Care Proxy and Power of Attorney with a qualified attorney can seriously help you prepare for anything that make occur in life. At Leonick Law we help our clients to plan for the unexpected and we’re happy to help you do the same.
Raising Stroke and Aphasia awareness is a crucial step to preventing stroke from advancing and saving lives.
There are signs that a stroke is happening
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