Lillian Rooks
"Fortunately, her daughter recognized the signs of stroke."
Lillian Rooks, 59 years old, awoke one spring morning, and felt like she did any other ordinary morning. However, when she stepped into the shower at 9:30 a.m., she slipped and fell. When her daughter found her on the shower floor, her left face was drooping, she had paralysis of her left arm and left leg, and she had difficulty speaking.
Michael Waters, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of neurology and director of the UF Health Shands Comprehensive Stroke Center, immediately gave her the stroke clot-buster IV tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) at 11:36 a.m. in the E.R. When her neurologic condition did not improve after a 60-minute infusion of tPA, she was taken to the neuro-angiography suite. At 12:54 pm, UF Health neurosurgeon Brian Hoh, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery, began a procedure in which he passed a catheter under radiographic control into the affected vessel and used special techniques to remove the clot blocking her cerebral artery. Twelve minutes later, Ms. Rooks’ right middle cerebral artery was completely open and functioning again. Immediately after the procedure, she regained the strength in her left arm and left leg.
She was discharged from the hospital four days later, fully recovered. Fortunately, her daughter recognized the signs of stroke and called 911. The Emergency Medical Service brought her to the UF Health Shands Emergency Department as a “stroke alert” patient. Faculty in the Department of Radiology performed a specialized computed tomography scan, called CT angiography and CT perfusion, which showed that she had a 100 percent occlusion of her right middle cerebral artery, the main brain artery to the right side of her brain. The entire right side of the brain was therefore starving for blood and oxygen.
Talk about a miracle of modern medicine! This is an extraordinary story of how a potentially devastating stroke, which could have caused a lifetime of disability, was averted by a highly skilled multispecialty team working together in a facility designed specifically to treat such a condition. And Ms. Rooks did not waste any time getting back to work. About seven months after her stroke, she was elected a Levy County commissioner.