S10E38: STROKE SURVIVERS NEVER QUIT. ( guest, Maggie Victor)

Hello, beautiful survivor, how are you? This is Karina from Stokes Surviving the arts of the podcast. Today we have another fabulous guest and she's going to tell us the story of resilience like you wouldn't believe it. And searching her purpose, searching her purpose now, not knowing where life is going to bring her in the next little while, but embracing each and every moment just to introduce myself.

I am Karina and I suffered a brain stem this Section 28 years ago and that caused me to be in locked in syndrome as well as in a coma. But as you can see, I am well in here with you guys, not without fails. So if I can do it, if I can survive this world as a stroke survivor, all of you can. Sounds good.

Audio podcasts, Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Podcasts are where you can download the episodes. And on YouTube you will find all the great videos. I post little clips here and there, but if you want to watch the full thing, you guys have to go to YouTube. Without further ado, I am introducing to you Maggie Victor, and I'm going to let her say where she's been and where she's going. So, Maggie.

Hello, my name is Maggie Victor. I'm from Tulsa, OK and right now I live in a suburb of Tulsa called Broken Arrow and it's it's fun, it's little and it's quieter. I like it living there 'cause it's not quite as busy as Tulsa and I live in a house with seven people. After I have my strokes, my mom and dad wanted as much help us they could have and since I couldn't drive after the strokes they wanted, like I said, they wanted as much help as they could get. And my brother-in-law is a stay at home dad and so I figured he could help drive me places.

So my brother-in-law, my sister and dirty kids moved into a big house with us, and it was such a big, happy family. And it's really been fun. Yeah. Full of love, yes. And so it really helped me a lot in my recovery. And I had a really fun but kind of challenging childhood. I suffered with asthma so bad.

I had all things to get my asthma under control and went to a bad doctor. He kept saying that my asthma was not allergy related. And so he just kept giving me steroids, which made me bigger and bigger because steroids can make it just make you like balloon. And so I went on at 8, my pediatrician said you should go to a hospital on Denver called National Jewish.

So went there, found out I was practically allergic to everything. And so I came back from there and went and started getting allergy shots. And that just changed my life. I was not having asthma out asthma problem. When you were young, when you were diagnosed with the with asthma yet. Very young, like probably 4. OK.

And so very, very young, yes. And then I was about 13, I started having problems with depression and I just kind of got worse as time went on. I was diagnosed as bipolar disorder when I was 16. And so they couldn't find medicines to help my depression. And that kind of comes like into play later in the stroke soil. We're not going to quite get a stroke sore. I'm very musical.

I have very musical family and music has basically kind of helped. Like that's helped my recovery and everything has helped soothe me and everything. I'm very, I've always been resilient, like all throughout my life and. Maggie, I just want to ask because I think you're going to go into your story and I want to know first and foremost who was Maggie before the stroke?

Maggie Maggie was kind of a shy little thing. I was always shy, kind of in the corner person, like don't talk to me, don't mess with me. I'm not here. And I felt like with my sisters, like I was kind of like trying to feel like I felt like, I'm not trying to say I felt like I was the least like I was the least.

I'm in the middle. But like, I felt like I was the youngest all the time. And so my childhood was kind of like, I don't know what to say, but like, but I also like my childhood. I was in a doctor's office all the time, doctor's office, hospitals. And so it was kind of a rough childhood at the start.

But then, you know, I was resilient then too, kept going even though all these things were happening to me. You're breaking up, Maggie. You're breaking out. We can't hear you. OK. Is it better? I don't know, we keep breaking but but keep talking. Maybe it's going to get better. Is that better? Yeah, so I heard comfortably.

You were a middle child and you were saying that it was hard with your sisters. And then I cut off. OK, yeah, it's hard with my sisters because they always they, they picked on me. You would think I was a little, but the baby, the way they picked on me and so I feel like kind of thing. It's hard to think free stroke.

I think like my memory like I don't have much. Memory since your time? Yeah, it's going to come back, don't worry. And you were saying that your dad was in and out of the hospital. No, I with my asthma. OK, because because you were sick when you OK, you was OK. Now I'm on track. Now I'm on track. So I guess that already because of your asthma started at such a young age, you were already built. You were building your resilience for what was coming next, a stroke.

Do you think that had you not have the turmoil of before the asthma in and out of the hospital, things were unstable because of your health? Do you think it made you stronger for your stroke? Yeah, I think so. I will do, yeah. Very powerful what you just said, Maggie. Well, and you told me beforehand, can you talk with those people around you?

I can talk. There's not a lot of people around me. OK. And where are you right now? I'm in the members lab. I'm going to go see if I can find somewhere a little bit more quiet. Hold on a second. You pause or something. No, but it's OK. We're going to go with you. We're following you. No problem, honey. I'm with you.

I'm not letting you go. I don't know if anybody's outside, but there's not anybody outside. We meant to do that, but I couldn't do it. So if I remember, you just told me that you were kind of like in a rehab center where you have adaptations for the exercises and the machines and things, and you go there twice a weekend.

That's what you had told me before. Oh, nice. Yeah. No, there's nobody else that's perfect. Let's sit over here. What's the weather like over there? Huh, It's been a little sunny today. Our weather is going from hot to cool, hot to cool. It's really kind of reaching re breaking havoc with allergies. OK.

What is your weather like there? Yeah. What's the weather like there? Oh my God, we actually had a snowstorm again. Oh wow. 2 days ago. Not like a Blizzard, but a snowstorm. Enough to say it's a storm. Oh there you go. Though even the lighting is better. Yeah, so it's still snow and slush and I just can't take it anymore. I've fallen three times this winter. I fractured my ribs, so I got better. I fractured my ribs again.

So I can't wait for it to be done and over with. So. So you were saying that you you think that because of the ordeal you had when you were younger with your health, that it made you stronger for the stroke. Do you feel like telling us your stroke story as you remember it, as you felt it? OK, so I was 32 years old and I was having really, I have really bad headaches and I had Vertigo for a few days. And like I knew that like it was probably not right to have Vertigo, but I didn't want to just go for headaches and Vertigo to the doctor.

So I just kind of like brush it off. And then I was volunteering at my church and this one day I couldn't climb stairs. It was really odd and like my wife's like Jelly. And it's like I was like Laura, not I cannot climb the stairs. I mean, I did climb them, but I was like, OK, I can't climb the stairs.

Something's probably really wrong. And having all these rubbish and things like Vertigo and like I said, I have Thunder clap headaches. And so then the next day I went to urgent care and the urgent care doctors, well, based on your symptoms, I'm going to order an MRI and it's, you know, entrance.

It took two weeks in order to get the MRI approved. So I have the MRI and I, I, before the strokes, I was a preschool teacher. So the the the urgent care doctor calls me back and I can't answer because I'm working and he leaves a message on my answering machine saying I've had a small stroke. I'm like, I saw something you doing on an answering machine and then so I'm like at work, she's like my head's slinging and I'm like, what do I do that I like? So I went and told my, my boss like, I've had a whole small stroke.

And so he calls back. He says, well, the stroke team said that I didn't need to get checked out. But my primary care doctor was like, no, you need to get checked out. I was like, right now she goes, yeah, like now. So I need to like tell my boss that I need to go get checked out now. She goes, can you wait until till?

Waiting time was like, no, I need to go now. So I go and wait. So there's a hospital called Saint Francis here and supposedly a stroke hospital, but that's kind of a joke. They go and the neurologist goes, well, I guess this little blip right here is a stroke, but I think it might be an over call.

And so I was in the hospital for maybe a week and then they disturbed me, which is really kind of an interesting and cool thing because my grandmother had dementia so bad and she was not doing well. And so they discharged me. And the first thing my mom did was take me over to my grandma. I got to say goodbye and I love you.

I love her. Give her a kiss. Then I'm not even 24 hours later, I had symptoms on my second stroke. And so my dad and so I was getting into my car and everything went black. I couldn't see anything if I had my witch about me. I said I just had my dad take me to the hospital. But I was like dad, can you take me to work?

And like he, he was up all night with my, I know he was up all night with my mom because, you know, my mom was really upset and everything. And so I get to work because that was the only something I had was everything was black. And at that point I got to work. I could see it wasn't like black anymore. But then shortly after my black leg went numb. I was like, OK, no, I need to get an ambulance. So I called an ambulance and it's like chop drop off time. And so then my boss has some doctor to say, why do you call an ambulance?

Yeah, So like, why don't you come on ambulance? I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm like having a stroke. And and so they get to the hospital and they're like, Yep. Well, no, actually that's the worst part. I get to the hospital and like, I had to have like a different kind of stroke than most people. I did not have the symptoms.

And so they're like, you're not actively having a stroke. So they put me in the ER waiting room for 8 hours. Didn't even. Suck off and. Then by that point it had a major stroke and didn't. Have a major stroke yet, but now you're having so now you had three small strokes and one major. Unbelievable. And was it on type Maggie?

It wasn't on. Type. Yeah, they're all the same. It's a type stroke, yes. So ischemic strokes followed by RCBS. Unbelievable. And they could not figure out what kind of what was causing them. And I kept having more and more at 9:00 because they decided to stop and send me to another hospital all the way to Dallas, 4 hours away. Thank you.

And so das the great well, so Saint Francis was focusing on CNF, central nervous system vasculitis. And so their their treatment was giving me like high doses of steroids and I'm a diabetic and that's not good. And nothing was working. And they even gave me one round of chemo. I was like, that seems like really extreme and it didn't work still.

And they're like, OK, we're going to send you somewhere else. They figured out pretty fast. And So what was that caused it? That was that cause the blood vessels in my brain just spasm went mimic, they thought. So I thought they stopped giving me Prozac and I stopped having strokes. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Can I ask you something? Yeah, only if you're comfortable answering. But at this point, I I'm listening and they're debating and they're saying, oh, no, you didn't have a stroke yet. You were in the stroke hospital. How did you feel after you had the strokes like? What do you say? What'd you say? I didn't hear you, Bella.

Oh, sorry, what did you say? Like, were you pissed? Were you disappointed? Could you feel anything at this point? I was pissed and my aunt was really pissed. She's a nurse and she's like, I'm going to take it all the way to daycare. And I got something like all the way to like the pious point that you take it to. She wanted somebody wanted to like sue them. I don't know if this is my aunt or somebody, but somebody wanted to sue them because they're like 8 hours in their waiting room, not even checking on me.

That's just ridiculous. And like supposedly, yeah, like they're still in hospital and they couldn't figure it out. I was like, that's kind of ridiculous. You, you. You must have felt that felt left out again, just like when you were younger and your sisters would tease you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I'm sorry you had to go through that, man. Wow.

And when was the last stroke? I don't know the exact date because they all happen in the month. Well, so the first one is in January and then they all happen within February. The rest of them happen within February. I just don't know the exact date. So how? How do you feel now? I feel pretty good.

I'm the major deficit I have is left side weakness, which is it's getting better and vision loss. I can't see peripheral very well. OK, OK. The peripheral on the sides. On both sides. Both sides of less doors. Wow, OK. And memory loss to some extent, like I have a terrible memory. So funny. My fiance is always like, I told you that I was like, OK, And so we had to say, so if I, if you want me to remember, remember something you said, OK, remember this, this is important.

Then I try to remember it more. OK, that's a good tip. You know why I I'm happy you said that because so many stroke survivors, Maggie, have memory loss and feel like people give them shit. They don't understand what stroke survivors go through with memory loss. They get upset, but then the stroke survivor feels stupid, for lack of better word, because you remember.

So I like that your fiance says, OK, you need to remember this. Now that's a great strategy to give to people. You know, that's that's good. Thank you for that. Thank you. Are you, are you, are you back driving? You can't drive now, eh? I probably never will. You know what? Probably never will. You probably never will.

We never know, right? That's true. Yeah, because when the cars start driving themselves like that's. True. Yeah, Yeah. You won't be leaving your terrific old vision anymore. That's a stupid joke. I'm sorry, Maggie. Yeah, well, you sound good. What exciting news is happening now? As soon in your life? Maybe I didn't.

You say move to Colorado? Maybe. Maybe move to Colorado? My fiance and I are going to check it out in April. April 6th through the 10th. I think we might cut this chart a little bit because that'd be a long time for the hotel and be kind of expensive, but we're at least going for a couple of days.

We're excited about it and the wedding. We have a date that's well, late July of next year, July of 17th of 27th. Yeah, 27th. Nice. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. So on your personal life, things seem to be a good study, a healthy study from what I hear now, the show's mission is all about moving forward past the events of the stroke, reclaiming your life, reclaiming your identity.

What? What were you and what are you that you want to bring together? I don't understand. OK, let me rephrase. Before you were saying you were shy and all that. Are you still shy? I'm not a shy, but I want to be a little bit more outgoing and be kind of more social and. I think you are. Yeah. I think you are so something good. Many good things came out of this from what you've told me. What advice would you tell stroke survivors that don't have the support because you live in a house with seven people? And I mean, I'm sure it gets crazy sometimes. It must be like really mayhem, but at the same time full of love.

But some people don't have that. What would you say to they don't have a family? Keep moving forward, got a inch forward, inch forward towards your goals and keep moving to progress. Make progress. And what? What if they get discouraged? Do you ever get discouraged? Yes, I do sometimes, yeah. So how do you bounce back? Just see how far I've come.

Like I couldn't walk. I don't even have to walk and see it, you know, I've come really far. I couldn't get out of bed and look at me now. Yeah, High 5, girl, high 5 Good. You know why I'm asking these questions, Maggie? It sounds pretty funny, but it's one thing for people to hear it from me, but the show is also to hear the same thing from other people, to see that we're all in the same boat, you know? Sounds good.

I just had my 28th anniversary on Friday, 28 years of survival and people are like, you know what, how long were? You in the hospital? Yours was a month ago. No, no, yeah, a month ago, February. How long were you in the? Hospital you're cutting. Oh, how long were you in the hospital? You had your. Yeah.

I was six weeks in ICU, six week as an inpatient, in rehab in five years as an outpatient. Wow, that's great. Crazy, huh? Yeah, I'm, I'm lucky. I'm blessed that I had the possibility to really my dinner husband worked and he didn't want me to work so I he wanted me to take care of myself. So after bringing the after bringing my daughter to daycare, I would go spend the day in rehab. Nice.

Wow, that's good. Yeah. So I mean, we got to do what we got to do, girl. I. Yeah, so I I mean, you know when you said you were waiting 8 hours and they never came to check on you? The show is not to talk about me as in, you know, you guys are. But this this is a conversation me and you are having. When I had my stroke, I presented, but I was 25. I was wearing my workout clothes. I was all kinds sick, but because I was young, fit, they didn't suspect anything.

They gave me a paper bag. I was like ventilating and they gave me a paper bag and I wasn't, I was in the waiting room for maybe 4-5 hours. So I mean, as much as they say, people say if you suspect a stroke, go to the hospital. But if you go to the hospital and you don't have the heart problem or something like that, they don't necessarily take you seriously. And it's very disappointing.

Have you gone back to the hospital? Let's say the whole stroke story is over, but have you felt ill and sick again that you said? That's it. I'm going to the hospital, I'm afraid. Yes, hey, yes, I have. I had, I had a seizure and actually at that time my neurologist wanted a 24 hour EEG and so I was in the hospital overnight.

Yeah. And I did have actually this past February, early late January, early February, I had a, my leg was all weird, like I couldn't walk very well. I was like, I've had a migraine since December and it won't go away. And so I had a migraine, my leg wasn't working well. So I was just like, it was like, I should probably go get it checked out.

And so I would got checked out and I'm like, no, it's not your brain or your, it's not that. So OK, as long as it's not that because so like my doctor thinks it's my back. So my back is jacked up, I have narrowing discs and stenosis, I'm just fine. So it's it's like, it's not one thing, it's another. I, I, I, I I'm listening to you.

And I'm like, wow, yeah, if it's not one thing, it's another. And you're still smiling and I, and I'm happy to see that you still see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, you really are an inspiration for, for people to see that they, they, they, they, they don't give up. You get pissed, you get sad, you get disappointed, you cry, you kick, but then you get back up. Good for you.

Yeah, that's when I'm in PC for my back. So that's funny the the girls and she was like, well whatever here can eat us so I'm back there. So it's funny. What, what? What are the girls saying? They're not saying anything, but like when I graduated APT for my shoulder, they're like, well, we're here if you need us, OK? So they're like, OK, yeah, that's funny. Good to know.

Good to know. Yeah, You know, I, I, I'm amazed when I hear stories like this of people just going at it and the services, the service out there, they do the best they can, but they suck at it sometimes. And, and unfortunately, stroke survivors have to surmount what's going on. But thank God. So I think that what me and so many other podcasters are trying to do is to bring awareness and to not just normalize all of us, not normalize all of us, but to bring awareness that you are not alone.

And if you're going to the hospital and they don't listen, somebody else is going to go and give them shit and and make sure you are taken care of. So right now you're still living with your seven siblings, family and all that. Well, I'm going to tell you enjoy the family and thank you for spending a bit of time with us with me.

I enjoy getting to know you and we're definitely going to keep in touch. OK, sounds good guys. This is what we we have for you today on stroke Surviving the odds. The podcast, Maggie shared an amazing story of resilience and she's still not giving up after another and another and another diagnosis.

So if that doesn't tell you to keep not giving up, I don't know what will. Make sure you like, follow and subscribe on any platform you listen to your podcast. And when you're on YouTube, subscribe and ring the bell. If it's free, it's for me. So guys, have a nice day. Love you, see you soon.

S10E38: STROKE SURVIVERS NEVER QUIT. ( guest, Maggie Victor)

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