At age 35, John Snowden seemed to be a picture of good health. But a year ago, this formidable young man suffered a stroke. “The day was June 9th—our wedding anniversary and the first day back to work for my wife, who had been on maternity leave,” recalls John. “I got up around 4:30 am with our new son, Jackson. I fed him and then I sat down to watch the morning news. About an hour later, I attempted to get up to check on the baby, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t get off the couch. My whole right side was suddenly numb. I was scared. I thought I was having a heart attack or something.” It was at that moment that John called for his wife, Sam, who is also a critical care nurse at Florida Hospital Ormond Memorial. First, she called 9-1-1. Then she grabbed her first aid bag, gave John a couple of baby aspirins and started asking him questions like to test his responsiveness. The ambulance arrived within minutes and took him to Florida Hospital Ormond Memorial.
Even though John was just 34 years old, within minutes, the emergency department staff suspected he had suffered a stroke. Even though the right side of his body was paralyzed, his speech and mental alertness were not affected. Cardiologist Humayun Jamidar performed a transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) which is the gold standard in detecting potential sources of cerebral embolism. The TEE confirmed a patent foramen ovale (PFO) was the cause of John’s stroke. PFO is essentially a hole in the heart and it’s a defect that exists at birth. PFOs are not uncommon and usually cause no symptoms at all. One in five people have a PFO but less than 1% of those people have a stroke as a result of it.
After the PFO diagnosis, Dr. Dalia Falup, a Neurologist and the Florida Hospital Stroke Program Medical Director, gave John a tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) which is a clot busting drug. Studies have shown that tPA and other clot-dissolving agents can reduce the amount of damage to the heart muscle and save lives. However, to be effective, tPA must be given within a few hours after symptoms begin. Within about a half hour of his tPA, John began regaining sensations in the right side of his body. He spent ten days in the hospital and after he was discharged, he enrolled in Florida Hospital’s cardiac rehab program. For 10 weeks, two times a week, the therapists helped John re-learn how to do everyday tasks like how to walk again and how to pick up his child again. Today, John has regained about 85 percent of his motor skills and his doctors are hopeful that with continued, routine exercise, he’ll be back to almost 100 percent. About eight months after his stroke, John underwent a PFO closure procedure, which will greatly reduce his chances of suffering a second stroke.
John says the one thing he most wanted to share with the readers of Well Aware, was the importance of knowing and understanding your medical insurance benefits. It wasn’t until he was recovering from his stroke that he realized his plan had very limited coverage for stroke rehab therapy. This limitation prevented him from being able to recover at Florida Hospital’s Peninsula Rehabilitation Center, the only inpatient rehab facility of its kind in the Volusia and Flagler area. Luckily for John, at the first sign of his stroke, his wife called 9-1-1 and he received immediate treatment, which greatly reduced the amount of damage from the stroke.
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