I was 15 when I had my stroke. This is my story.
“Homerun: Bottom of the 9th” by Matt Onofrychuk – Symbolizing his brain brain before his stroke, in the acute stage, and now.
My mom and dad went to watch my brother Josh’s hockey game. I had to work that day, so I stayed home alone. I didn’t feel great, I was dizzy and I threw up. My right side became numb and I couldn’t understand speech. My mom had an instinct that something was wrong, when they came home and opened the door, they saw that I was in trouble and took quick action. My dad started the car and they drove me to the ER. It was very scary. For two hours it was life or death, the doctors didn’t know if I would survive. Since it was winter, the helicopter could not airlift me, so an ambulance drove me to Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary. Everything went blank.
I had so much swelling in the brain, the doctors thought I might not make it. But nine or ten days later, I started to wake up from my coma. I had no speech, I couldn’t even make a sound, not even to say “ow”. I would only be awake for 30mins-1hour before falling back asleep. It was very scary, but hey, I was alive. My thoughts were: “what is wrong”, “spit it out”, “why don’t I understand?”. A large piece of my skull had been opened and put back together. I was taking a lot of pain medication. My cheeks were all swollen from the steroids they had given me.
It took roughly 1 month, but I began to say some words. The first words I was able to say were: “ouch”, “no”, and “strawberry milkshakes”. The milkshakes were weird, because I didn’t like those before my stroke, but I kept saying it all the time. It was very frustrating to try to communicate. For example, I needed my glasses, but without speech it was very difficult to tell the people around me. All my friends and family were great and so supportive. My best friend, Devon, came to visit me in the hospital too. Each day I had speech therapy and physiotherapy. I would do my therapies, eat, sleep, and repeat. I was exhausted. Every morning when I woke up I had to realize again that this was real, this was my new life. My dream of playing football and becoming a policeman were out the window. I had to come up with a new plan: to believe in myself. I told myself: “I can do this, I can do this”.
Stay tuned for “Chapter Two: 10 Years Later” coming January 2nd, 2021 on the 10 year anniversary of Matt’s stroke.