I had an ischemic stroke caused by dissection in my right carotid artery (the artery layers separated and created a pocket where blood could pool and clot). Eventually, the clot dislodged and traveled to my brain, causing the stroke. They never figured out what caused the dissection. The funny thing is, I was aware of this even if I didn't know what it was or what it indicated. A few days before my stroke, I felt a sudden wave of nausea and suddenly I could hear my heartbeat whooshing loud and clear in my right ear. It was so loud in my head, it startled me.

I went to the doctor that afternoon, he checked my ears and wanted to do blood tests. I said no thanks, went home, and per my doctor, took the rest of the week off work to rest. Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning, I had my stroke while I slept.

My cat woke me up in the early morning hours, sitting directly on top of my chest and staring at me (not her normal behavior, but I didn't think anything of it). I woke up with an itch on my right arm, but couldn't figure out how to get my left arm to function. I whimpered and whined and eventually I just rolled to my right and used that momentum to fling my left arm over to scratch the itch. This should have alerted me something was wrong, but I went back to sleep.

The most interesting thing to me, looking back, is that when I did get out of bed, I didn't see or hear anything amiss. I sounded normal and looked normal to myself. I was confident nothing was very wrong. This is not uncommon in stroke patients. The only issue I noticed was that I kept dropping things out of my left arm and was really struggling to do coordinated motions. My husband and children, however, noticed the drooping left side of my face and the slur in my speech. My husband suspected immediately that I had had a stroke, and eventually convinced me to go to the hospital. (He threatened to call an ambulance and as anyone in the US probably knows, you Do Not Do That.)