I Had 7 Strokes in a Year and Am Still Here to Write About It

Joyce Sampson, who survived seven strokes, works out at the Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex on Sunday, August 18, 2024, in Landover, MD. Cheriss May Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

I can still remember the day it happened. It was a sunny Tuesday morning in August 2009, and the weather beckoned me to sit on the deck with my laptop and write. I didn’t give a second

thought to the fact that I woke up lightheaded and a little disoriented.

The sun was so bright that it hurt my eyes, further fueling that odd, unbalanced feeling. I wasn’t in any pain, but I couldn’t shake the sense that something bad was about to happen.

Should I go to the hospital? Am I overreacting? Am I just groggy?

I went back inside and called for my son, but the words did not come easily. I could not come up with his name; I also couldn’t find the correct words for the car keys that I was frantically

searching for. At the time, I had no idea that impaired speech, sudden confusion and sensitivity to light were red flags for stroke. But the body knows when something is not right.

After an internal debate, I drove myself to the hospital — not the smartest decision in hindsight — and waited in the parking lot for who knows how long. I felt silly. What was I going to

tell them? That I was disoriented, confused and forgetful?

In the emergency room, the intake nurse wasted no time when I told her what happened. Someone rushed me in the back, stuck an IV in my arm and directed me to further testing. By the time the

results came back, I was feeling like my old self — already planning what I was going to do with the rest of the beautiful day.

It couldn’t be that serious, I reasoned. Then they told me that I’d had a stroke — an acute linear infarct within the left posterior frontal lobe. The frontal lobes are the largest of the

four major lobes of the cerebral cortex, which is the area of the brain responsible for thinking and memory. Three days later, I was discharged with instructions to take baby aspirin every

day, consult with my primary doctor to manage my cholesterol and to sign up for a smoking cessation class.  

Back home, I carried on as if nothing had happened — except that I quit cigarettes cold turkey. I was fatigued more than usual and noticed some difficulty with processing information. During

a live performance of a stage play, I couldn’t follow the dialogue — the actors’ words were garbled — and the stage lights bounced around my eyeballs like glittering rain.