At 38, Catrina had a stroke. These are the signs she ignored
By Evelyn Lewin
Five years ago, Catrina Barnes, a fit and healthy 38-year-old childcare educator, was out with her fiancé and their two small kids when she developed a headache. When her vision began to blur later that day, alarm bells didn’t ring. Instead, Barnes assumed she was having a migraine.
Think fast: The letter F stands for face; A is for arms; S is for speech; and T is for time.Credit: iStock
Not long after, pain roared down the right side of her face. Barnes put it down to a toothache, took strong painkillers and tried to soldier on. Soon the pain was so intense she had no choice but to bundle up her family and head home.
The next morning, she lost use of the left side of her body. When she tried to get up and collapsed, her panic-stricken fiancé called an ambulance. Barnes woke up in hospital days later to the news she’d had a massive stroke.
To say she was shocked would be an understatement; the possibility of having a stroke at her age felt unfathomable.
Unfortunately, Barnes is far from alone in such thinking, says Dr Lisa Murphy, cheif executive of Stroke Foundation. “One of the things people don’t appreciate is that strokes can happen to anybody at any time,” she says. “They can happen to babies, they can happen to children, they can happen to younger Australians, as well as to what we think of as the ‘more typical’ older Australian cohort.”
Murphy says strokes are more common in the elderly, but that the incidence in younger Australians in their 20s and 30s is on the rise. “Around 27,000 new strokes happen every year,” she says. “And we’ve got around 450,000 people living with stroke in Australia, so they are a leading cause of death and disability.”
So, what is a stroke exactly? Murphy explains that a stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain suddenly stops. There are two main types: ischaemic stroke, in which a blood clot stops blood from getting through to the brain; and haemorrhagic stroke, which is due to bleeding in the brain.
Regardless of the type of stroke, “there’s a lack of oxygen and a lack of nutrients getting to the brain, so brain cells die,” says Murphy. “Whichever part of the brain it affects, that part of the body doesn’t work properly.”
While there are some causes of stroke you can’t do anything about, Murphy says “the good news is that 80 per cent of strokes can be prevented”. She says measures such as regular exercise, eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, avoiding smoking and treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes can all help reduce your risk of stroke. Talk to your GP about further ways you can lower your risk.
“The sooner you can get them to hospital and the sooner you can get treatment, the better the outcomes.”
Dr Lisa Murphy
But how do you know if you’re having a stroke in the first place? While there are several symptoms and signs, Murphy says the acronym FAST is helpful because it highlights the most common ones. The letter F stands for face. “So, if somebody’s face is drooping on one side, that’s a sign.”
A is for arms: “If somebody can’t lift both arms above their heads, that’s another sign.” S is for speech, relating to slurring or difficulty getting words out. Lastly, T is for time. “Stroke is always a medical emergency,” says Murphy, adding that 1.9 million brain cells die every minute after a stroke.
If you think someone’s having a stroke, call 000 immediately. Even if you’re unsure, Murphy advises erring on the side of caution. “The sooner you can get them to hospital and the sooner you can get treatment, the better the outcomes,” she says.
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