SHE WAS just 17 years old and taking part in a PE class at her school when Derbhla Connaughton, from Kill, Co Kildare, collapsed with a stroke.
That was on January 29th, 2008. She told her story yesterday in a bid to raise awareness of stroke and to back the Irish Heart Foundation’s campaign for better stroke services nationwide.
She remembers the day well. It was her brother’s birthday and she got out of bed in a panic that morning because she was having her Leaving Cert mock French aural in a few hours.
By lunchtime she felt sick but thought it was because she had eaten too much. In the afternoon a sharp pain struck the right side of her head.
“The pain was unbearable and I didn’t know what to do. I tried to continue on with PE but when I tried to pick up a basketball it was like trying to pick up a boulder . . . then the most horrifying thing happened. I couldn’t hear, speak or make any sense of what was happening to me,” she said.
Her legs went from under her. Her left side went completely numb and she went into a fit of shaking and throwing up. An ambulance was called and she was taken to Naas General Hospital.
“They ran a lot of blood tests, X-rays, CT scans and a lumber puncture because they thought I had a viral infection. I was later brought to Tallaght hospital where they ran an MRI which confirmed I’d had a stroke.
“A month later I was released after my stroke. I then had to engage in intensive physiotherapy to get my left side working again. It was tough. It was nearly a year later before I felt like myself again,” she added.
Derbhla says many people think she was too young to have a stroke, but her case demonstrates it is something to be alert for at any age.
She has recovered well and is now studying art in Kilkenny.
EITHNE DONNELLAN