Teacher’s Stroke Scare has him Focused on a New Lesson

“I’m OK,” Dan Kenny remembers telling himself. And his brother. And his buddies. Any time someone asked, he’d wave away their concern: “I’m OK.” “I’m good.” “Probably just tired.”

Never mind that he was suddenly talking with a lisp, or how incredibly tired he felt. He was on his annual pond hockey getaway with the boys in Eagle River, Wis., a trip he’d been looking forward to for months, and he wasn’t going to miss it.

At least, that’s what he thought.

His plans changed as the group headed over to some snowmobiles to go for a ride. When Kenny went to start the engine, his brain told him to yank the pull cord — and his arm did nothing.

“Nothing? What the heck?” he thought. Fear set into him like the February cold he was standing in. “I couldn’t rationalize anymore what was happening,” he says. “Something was messed up. I just did not feel like myself at all.”

His ride would instead be to an urgent care center. Kenny leaned against the window of his brother’s truck all the way there, the snow outside passing in a white blur.

At first, it wasn’t clear exactly what was wrong with him. But, after a transfer to a local hospital and a battery of tests, he received news he never would have expected.

Kenny was having a stroke.

The Warning Signs Come Into Focus

Looking back on it now, Kenny realizes the stroke came as a surprise only because he’d had no idea of what to look out for. (You can learn to identify the signs of a stroke by reading up on the acronym “FAST.”)

Kenny, a high school engineering teacher from Illinois, had just turned 40 and showed no signs of trouble with his health. He has a self-described inability to sit still, always on the move at home, in his job, and as a hockey player and coach.  

He is sharing his story not only to raise awareness of strokes, but as living proof that they can occur unexpectedly, and at any stage of life. More than 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year.¹

As he replayed his own experience with the benefit of hindsight, Kenny pointed out some key warning signs that flashed just before and during his trip.

Difficulty speaking: “I was talking with my students, and I had a dizzy moment,” he says. “I remember sitting down at my desk and starting to talk — and I had a lisp all of a sudden.”

Sudden confusion: “I went to type an e-mail and I was having so much trouble typing. I kept misspelling words.”

Overactive bladder: Right after the school day ended, Kenny’s brother picked him up and they drove north to Wisconsin. “I remember stopping to go to the bathroom three times. Normally I’m the type of person who says, ‘We don’t stop unless the gas light is on and we need to refill.’ ”

Arm Weakness: When Kenny couldn’t start the snowmobile, he knew he needed medical attention. “I walked over and told my brother: ‘It’s time.’ ” Off to urgent care they went.

In retrospect, “everything that happened was textbook,” Kenny says. “To this day, I look back and — had I known what I know now — I never would have gotten in (my brother’s) truck. I never would have done anything other than sit at my desk at school, call my wife and say, ‘You need to get me to a hospital.’

“It’s just that I didn’t know. It never would have occurred to me.”

A Long Trip Back

No amount of knowledge could have prepared Kenny for what happened after his stroke. As he would find out firsthand, recovery can be so. Damn. Humbling.

“It was very hard for me emotionally, dealing with not being able to work, not being able to do anything,” he says.

“I have to be clear that I was lucky that my stroke was, I would say, mild. But on the emotional side, I’ve never felt so tired like that in my life.”

His wife, Kelly, would come home to find him ready to smash his laptop from the frustration of not being able to use it. “Or see me starting to cry because I would try to type and couldn’t do it.”

That pain led to some gain, in the form of a change in mindset. From then on, Kenny vowed to be more proactive in listening to his body and protecting his health.

Meanwhile, his doctors focused on reducing the risk of another stroke. Tests revealed the cause of Kenny’s stroke: a patent foramen ovale (PFO). It’s an opening between the right and left sides of the upper chambers of the heart that never fully closed after birth, as it does for a majority of people.

A PFO doesn’t always cause problems, but it can in cases where small amounts of blood or clots escape through it and bypass the normal circulatory flow.

Kenny’s team determined he was a good candidate for Abbott’s Amplatzer Talisman PFO Occluder. Not only would it help close the hole, it also would be implanted in a minimally invasive procedure.

Kenny felt like his engineering students did after working out the answer to a problem: Eureka.

“Words can’t describe the care team and the doctors that I had, and what they did for me,” Kenny says. “It was just unbelievable.”

Ready to Run

After his procedure, Kenny was eager to learn if he could go back to “being me.”

“They said that within two weeks I could start walking and doing stuff,” he says. “Believe me: On that two-week morning, once I woke up, I was ready to go. I was ready to start moving.”

The first time he put his skates on and went back out on the ice was a thrill — but Kenny wanted a new activity for his new heart health journey.

He wanted to run.

Starting out on the treadmill, he worked his way up to circling his neighborhood. Then, almost exactly six months after his stroke, Kenny saw an opportunity to bring his story full circle.

He found himself back in Eagle River, Wis., and, while there, he decided to test out his abilities. He ran the distance of a 5K, starting at a local rink and ending at the site of the pond hockey trip.

Though the run took him past some familiar sites, the fear he felt the winter before had been replaced on this visit by a profound sense of hope.

That’s the beauty of heart health: When you have it, no one second-guesses you when you tell them you’re OK.

“That was one of my favorite runs of all time,” Kenny says, “doing that and knowing, ‘Yep, I’m good and I’m back.’ ”

This testimonial relays an account of an individual’s response to the treatment. This patient's account is genuine, typical, and documented. However, it does not provide any indication, guide, warranty or guarantee as to the response other persons may have to the treatment. Responses to the treatment discussed can and do vary and are specific to the individual patient.

The information provided is not intended for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Consult with a physician or qualified healthcare provider for appropriate medical advice.

References

¹ https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/data-research/facts-stats/index.html