By Kathy Stevens
The York Dispatch
Copyright 2007 York Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
YORK, Pa. — That Friday evening was to be like every other: supper, dishes and shopping.
But at 5:15 p.m., just before the dishes were done, Deloris Spahr’s plans changed.
She was washing dishes; her husband, Harry Spahr, was drying. He asked where to put a pan.
“I couldn’t understand what she was saying,” Harry said. “She was worried about going shopping and I told her, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’”
She says she’d told him where to place the pan, but her words were garbled. Then she began to fall. Harry caught his 81-year-old wife and managed to get her to a kitchen chair. Deloris doesn’t remember that, nor does she remember the call Harry made to their daughter, Cathy Spahr, or the medics who arrived minutes later.
“I told Cathy I thought she was having a stroke,” Harry said.
She was.
Had Harry not recognized the symptoms of stroke, his wife of 51 years might have been severely disabled, or even died.
He knew that stroke is urgent, that it is the third leading cause of death nationwide and the number one cause of disability in adults. But if caught quickly, complications due to stroke can be greatly reduced.
Called immediately: Harry called his daughter and then 911. Although Deloris insisted she was OK, Harry decided her Friday night outing would include an ambulance ride to York Hospital.
Because she arrived within two hours of the onset of stroke symptoms, she was given a drug that greatly reduces complications due to stroke. The drug is a “clot-buster” called tissue plasminogen activator, or TPA.
It must be given within three hours of onset of stroke symptoms. The sooner a person is given the drug, the better the chances of recovery, says Dr. Robert Reif, a neurologist at York Hospital who attended to Deloris.
Deloris arrived with classic stroke symptoms that affected her left side — limited vision in the left eye, no movement of her left arm and limited movement of her left leg, Reif said.
“She knew something was wrong, but didn’t have an appreciation of the severity,” Reif said. “That’s common. People tend to ignore the symptoms.”
Because Harry knew onset time and got Deloris to the hospital, the neurology team was able to complete necessary tests and exams and administer the drug. The idea, Reif said, is to save “at risk” brain cells. The more cells that die, the higher the chance of disabilities that often result in months-long recovery and sometimes incapacitation, he said.
The last thing Deloris remembers was telling Harry where to put the pan. She recalls moments of her five-day stay in York Hospital. She remembers well the two-week stint at Health South Rehabilitation Hospital, where from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. she retrained her brain and regained function.
“There’s no laying around in bed. They make you work,” Deloris said. “I never squeezed so many fingers or stuck out my tongue so much in my life.”
Taking it easy: She still has some weakness in her arm and leg, but she has resumed her daily exercise regimen, though slightly altered.
“The doctors told me not to overdo it,” she says.
So instead of an eight-block walk along rural roads in Weigelstown, she walks six. And the nightly 30-minute stationery bike ride while she watches “Wheel of Fortune” is shorter.
“I told her she better take it easy,” Harry said. “She rides 15 minutes.”
Reif credits her family for getting her to the hospital in time to receive the drug. Too often, he said, people don’t take stroke seriously. Too often they ignore symptoms, thinking they’ll feel better after a rest.
“It’s a matter of time,” Reif said.
Brenda Chapman, a registered nurse who works with Reif, sees most of the 40 to 60 people each month who are treated for stroke and “warning stroke” at York Hospital.
The neurology team has administered the clot-busting drug to seven patients in the past three months. She says that’s an improvement, but nowhere near the number she’d like.
“The number one reason (patients) can’t get the drug is because they don’t get here in time,” Chapman said. “And an ambulance not only gets you to the hospital, it gets you back to see a doctor.”
It’s all about time and considering stroke as urgently as one would a heart attack, she said.
Harry and Deloris had read articles about stroke.
And at 5:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14, Harry recalled what he’d read. He knew he didn’t have time, that the only help for Deloris was at the hospital. She continues rehabilitation therapy at Health South three days a week.
But Friday evenings are still reserved for shopping.