Model Shauna Lindsay (30) has revealed that she suffered a stroke while taking part in a boxing class last month.
The Limerick woman explained that she was attending a 7am class and after 10 minutes into pad work (where a person boxes pads) with one of her coaches, she suffered a stroke.
“I just remember I was throwing two punches and automatically my whole right arm went numb. I thought I dislocated my arm and I thought to myself ‘I’m very strong. Wow! This boxing thing is really suiting me.’ I had never experienced that, it was like deadweight on my body,” Ms Lindsay told RTÉ presenter Brendan O’Connor on his Radio 1 show.
She ran into the bathroom and the feeling began to return to her arm and she was thinking “that’s so weird.”
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“I saw my friend Christina through the gap in the (bathroom) door and I was trying to tell her to get my phone and that’s when I noticed that my speech was completely gone,” she said.
“I was saying some words correctly but then some words were just gibberish. I put that down to shock or maybe it was adrenaline because of the injury. When I got outside then I was as white as a ghost and she said (Christina) ‘go outside and get some air.’ So I did and I just knew I wasn’t okay. I could not speak properly. I couldn’t form a complete sentence. So I had written out on my phone, ‘ambulance, I need help’.”
Ms Lindsay said that she felt so scared by what was happening to her.
“A stroke never came to my mind, although my grandmother had a stroke before. It wasn’t the first thing to come to my mind. I genuinely thought it was from the impact of me injuring my arm.”
Her friend Christina drove her to the hospital and a battery of tests were carried out on her. “They (medical staff) did all the tests to see if I was still having the symptoms of a stroke, but I wasn’t. I told them (medics) that there was a history of stroke in my family,” she said.
Ms Lindsay was admitted to hospital and CT and MRI scans were performed, which confirmed that she did indeed have a stroke and that is when she became “completely freaked out”.
“What was really scary was that there was a woman across from me and she was (aged) 40, she had two kids and she was in a wheelchair. I was genuinely so lucky but time is of the essence,” she said.
It was then discovered she had a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) or a hole in her heart, which the doctors believed caused her stroke. Ms Lindsay had no idea she had the condition.
“Every one is born with a PFO and my mum has one but as (a person) grows older they will close. For 25 per cent of people they don’t close but they will never cause you an issue. But I think I have a family history of stroke. I was probably a riskier person,” Ms Lindsay believes.
The social media influencer said that she will have surgery next month to deal with the hole in her heart.
Doctors advised her to get back to her normal life but Ms Lindsay she does not do “intensive workouts” currently.
After posting on her social media accounts that she had suffered a stroke, she admitted that what has completely “rocked her” was that so many people aged in their 20s and 30s had messaged her to say they too had had strokes.
She advised everyone to be aware of the acronym FAST associated with signs of a suspected stroke. These include: face (one side drooping), arms (weakness), speech (slurred or confused) and time (call 999 immediately).
If a member of the public sees any of these signs, they should call emergency services immediately, as prompt action is critical for treatment.
