My name is Annette Brennan. I am the mother of 2 wonderful little girls. The oldest is 4 the youngest is 15 months. I have been with my husband for 18 years now. Sometimes it feels more like 80 though.
My daughter's names are Arieanna & Katie.When Katie was 7 months old we found out she had a stroke. The doctors believe she had it while I was still carrying her, they have been unable to determine what caused her stroke. I imagine you are probably saying to yourself "I didn't know babies could have strokes" neither did we.
I am hoping to help raise awareness about this very important issue.
Anyone can have a stroke! Any age,Any race!
Infant have strokes,Kids have strokes,even unborn babies have strokes.
Since I found out about Katie's stroke, I have found a support group online for parents just like me. Since I joined the group I have found that many of the parents don't know why their children suffered a stroke either, and most had never heard of Infant & Childhood Stroke.
That is why we need more research into the causes and best treatments for childhood stroke.
Most of the money spent on stroke research is spent on adults.
While that may also help children, we need research that is geared at child survivors directly.
Child survivors have many issues that are the same as adults, but also many more that are totally different. If a adult has a stroke when they are 70 the causes will be very different than what may have caused my unborn baby to have a stroke. The treatments will also need to be different.
In a 70 year old woman you want her to recover as much as possible and survive as long as possible, but even in the best of circumstances that is maybe 20-25 years.
My daughter will be dealing with this for the rest of her life. I hope that will be 80 or 90 years.
When you look at it that way, it is a very big difference.
2/3 of the children that survive a stroke will have neurological deficits or seizures.
While we have been blessed and Katie is not having any seizures at this time. we will have to worry about one striking her for the rest of her life. Stroke survivors can start having seizures at any age, not having them as a infant is no guarantee that you will not have them later in life.
Katie's stroke caused her to have Spastic Cerebral Palsy Hemiparisis and Microcephaly.
What that means in non-medical terms is that Katie has weakness in her right side, trouble controlling her hand, arm, leg and foot and a smaller than average head size.
We have been lucky so far and it looks like Katie is only mildly affected by the stroke, she is now walking and learning to talk.
That is not the case with many other children. Some can't walk or talk or even eat without choking.So much more needs to be done to help these special kids.That is why I am trying to raise awareness and funds for Childhood Stroke.
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1 comment:
glad this was published
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