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Race Against Time
Traci Miller woke up to the sound of quick footsteps scampering toward her room. It was shortly before dawn on a rainy Saturday in April 2006, but her three-year-old daughter, Alexis, was up unusually early. Traci tucked the toddler back in bed, then checked on one-year-old Rylee, who was sound asleep in her crib. It would be nice to slide under the covers for a few more minutes. But the redheaded mom from Hackettstown, New Jersey, had a busy day planned. She and her husband, Michael, had an appointment with a real estate agent to look at larger houses for their growing family, and her parents would be visiting later in the day. "I'm going to take a shower," she told Michael, who was still dozing. "I've stuff to do before Mom and Dad get here -- and we need groceries too."Seconds later, Michael heard a thud. He didn't know it, but a desperate race against time had just begun. He leapt out of bed to see what was wrong. In the bathroom, he found his wife of five years slumped against the tub. "I was screaming her name and asking if she was okay, but she just stared straight ahead and didn't answer," says the 36-year-old civil engineer. "She was moaning, kind of crying. I was terrified." He carried her to their bed, then dialed 911. During the call, he noticed that Traci couldn't move her right leg. "That scared me even more."
Within minutes, police rushed in with their radios blaring. Since Traci couldn't talk, they asked Michael what had happened. "Maybe she hit her head and got a concussion," he replied. Before long, the bedroom was full of paramedics, who examined Traci, slipped a brace around her neck, and loaded her onto a stretcher. During the wait for the ambulance, which was delayed on another call, Michael asked a neighbor to come over and watch the kids until he could reach relatives. Amazingly, baby Rylee slept through the commotion, and Alexis played quietly in bed, unaware of the emergency.
By the time the ambulance finally arrived, Michael was frantic. The right side of Traci's face had developed an alarming droop, and her mouth hung open. She was raced to a local hospital, then airlifted to a trauma center in Morristown, New Jersey. "I knew they wouldn't do that unless her condition was very serious," says Michael, who followed in his car. "I was crying as I drove. How could she have hurt herself so badly slipping in the bathroom? I panicked to the point that I thought about losing my wife, and our girls growing up without their mother."
When Michael reached Morristown Memorial Hospital at 7:40 a.m., he tried to get his emotions under control. During a brief visit with Traci, who was paralyzed on the right side of her body, he discovered that she could communicate with head motions. "Did you fall?" he asked. She nodded yes. "Do you remember how you fell?" She shook her head no. Then she was wheeled off for tests, including a CAT scan, while Michael prayed in the waiting room and called home to check on the kids.
Nearly an hour later, ER doctors returned with shocking news: Traci had suffered a stroke -- loss of blood flow to part of the brain, usually caused when a vessel is blocked by a clot. Michael couldn't believe it. How could this have happened? His wife, a slim, physically fit nonsmoker, was only 35. His mind raced from one terrifying scenario to another. One of his relatives had a stroke and was never the same afterward. Would that happen to Traci? Would she ever walk or talk again? Was she going to die? Strokes kill more than 157,000 Americans a year, about 60 percent of them women. Survivors can be left with paralysis, impaired vision, chronic pain, difficulty speaking, or cognitive or emotional problems.
The neurologist explained that it might be possible to reverse the stroke. But it all depended on whether Traci could be treated in time. The longer her brain went without blood flow, the greater the damage. Before the doctors could do anything, they needed to pinpoint when the symptoms started. There are only two FDA-approved therapies for stroke, and both had to be given within strict time limits. Michael hadn't looked at a clock, but his best guess was that she was stricken at around 6 a.m., or possibly a little later.
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