Nadia Sheehan, 38, of Naperville, was out for a run with friends one afternoon last year when she began to experience a lot of pain in the right side of her head.
“At first I thought it was just another headache,” explained Sheehan. “But pretty soon, I had to sit down.”
Sheehan can’t remember what happened next, but her friend later recounted that Sheehan quickly began to deteriorate and exhibit the symptoms of a stroke. Sheehan was slurring her speech and becoming increasingly sleepy.
Even though Sheehan continued to insist she was fine, her friend called another friend to pick them up and take them to Edward Hospital. That quick and decisive action saved Sheehan’s life.
“Nadia had a massive bleed on her brain,” explained Endeavor Health neurosurgeon Daniel Heiferman, MD. “She was pretty close to dying. Her friends got her in just in time.”
Sheehan was rushed into surgery, where Dr. Heiferman removed a large blood clot from her brain.
“During that emergency surgery, Dr. Heiferman saved my life,” said Sheehan. “He left a large portion of my skull off because he knew that my brain would have significant swelling — and boy, did it.”
During the emergency surgery, Dr. Heiferman suspected that Sheehan had something called an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal cluster of blood vessels in the brain that are prone to rupture. He stabilized Sheehan and over the next several weeks, he did a series of workups that confirmed she did in fact have an AVM.
Two months after the emergency surgery, when Dr. Heiferman replaced Sheehan’s skull, he removed the AVM entirely — a complicated surgery only done at advanced neurovascular centers like Endeavor Health Edward Hospital, which is a Comprehensive Stroke Center.
“Early on, it was hard for the doctors to tell me what my recovery would look like,” said Sheehan. “Dr. Heiferman gently warned my husband that he wasn't sure if I would be able to move my left side or what my speaking ability would be, so the fact that I'm walking and talking is quite amazing.”
Initially, Sheehan lost all of her left peripheral vision and went home with a walker. She said that her husband, mother and a community of friends helped care for her and her kids while she recovered. “I don't think I could have recovered at home without that support system,” she said.
Once she was doing better, Sheehan began occupational therapy to combat the effect the stroke had on her memory and vision.
“She was a healthy 37-year-old running with a friend — if it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone,” said Dr. Heiferman. “It speaks to the importance of not ignoring things when they aren't right and getting to the hospital.”
Dr. Heiferman reminds readers to call 911 at the first sign of any stroke-like symptoms. “When we catch strokes in time, we can sometimes fix things,” he said. “When symptoms are ignored and people don't listen to their body, that's when we can't.”
More than a year after her stroke, Sheehan said she is careful to listen to her body and take it easy when necessary, but that her life is essentially back to normal.
“I regained the majority of my left field of vision, I can parent, and I'm back to playing tennis,” said Sheehan. “I feel so fortunate that I got my life as I knew it back.”
Sheehan credits her family and community for creating a support system that allowed her to make recovery her full-time job — and for teaching her that asking for help is not a sign of weakness.
“Before all this happened, I never considered myself a strong person,” said Sheehan.
“I would love for others in a similar situation to hear a quote that resonated so much with me: ‘Behind every strong person is a situation that gave them no choice’.”
