The husband ran into the room first. The daughter slumped on the couch. We were shocked when we realized what happened to her – says Katarzyna from Toruń, mother of 13-year-old Natalia.
August 2011 began normally for Katarzyna’s family. With her husband and two daughters, 10-year-old Natalia and 5-year-old Daria, she spent several days at the Polish seaside. – Nothing extraordinary – says Katarzyna. – It was rather chilly, we walked a bit. Yes, I have already been asked if it was not the heat and the excess of sensations that caused Natalia’s illness. Now, although it is hard to believe, there were no reasons or any previous symptoms that this would happen to my daughter. It just happened and it happened.
On August 10, after returning home, XNUMX-year-old Natalka was playing in the neighborhood yard. Towards evening, she returned for dinner. As her parents bustled around the kitchen, the girl turned on the TV in the living room. She was watching the program. At one point, she felt excruciating pain in her head. She screamed. The father immediately ran into the room, saw the child sliding down on the couch. He’s trying to say something. Bełkoce.
– It was so unexpected. The husband grabbed the phone, called an ambulance. We didn’t know how to help her. The daughter could not move, say clearly what had happened. But she was awake! – says Kasia.
After arriving at the children’s hospital in Toruń, the girl underwent standard neurological examinations. The next morning they were taken for an MRI scan.
– When the doctor invited me for an interview in a separate room, I felt that it was something serious – says Kasia.
– But when I heard that Natalia suffered a stroke, I didn’t believe it at first. Stroke? In a healthy 10-year-old child? It is impossible!
And yet. The ill-fated evening, Natalia suffered a stroke on the couch in front of the TV set. As a result of the stroke, the left part of the child’s body was paralyzed. The left side of the face was also paralyzed. The girl, although conscious, could not utter a word. She was terrified of what had happened. She did not understand. She looked pleadingly at her mother and cried.
– How to explain to a small child that in a few moments his cheerful, orderly world falls apart like a house of cards? How to prepare them for months of struggle for recovery, for arduous and painful rehabilitation and for completely new situations in her life? I was no less scared than my daughter, but I knew I had to bury my horror somewhere in the corners. When I cried, it was never in front of Natalka. In the beginning, there was such a great fear for her life that everything else was relegated to the background. In the ambulance to Warsaw, I prayed that she would survive at all. At the Children’s Memorial Health Institute, additional tests confirmed the diagnosis of doctors from Toruń. First, Natalka spent a week in the neurological ward, then she was transferred to rehabilitation. We left CZD with her after two months. Intensive rehabilitation shortly after the stroke turned out to be beneficial for my daughter. Natalia left the hospital on her own feet, and I was afraid that she would be in a wheelchair – says Kasia.
Stroke affects everyone, including children and very young people. However, at a young age, it is quite rare, in about 3 people / 100000 / year. The effects of acute ischemia cause various long-term and often permanent disorders that affect future life. These are movement disorders, paresis, impaired speech expression, cognitive deficits, delayed development of higher nervous functions. The consequence of these changes is worse functioning of the child in the motor, cognitive and social spheres.
The risk factors for stroke in patients of developmental age are much less known than in adults. The etiology of strokes in children is often complex, involving the coexistence of genetic, developmental, metabolic, immunological and environmental factors. Contrary to the causes of stroke in adults, lifestyle (stress, drugs, low physical activity, obesity) is of less importance.
Among the many causes of stroke in children, the most common are: congenital heart defects, acquired heart defects (endocarditis and myocarditis, rheumatic disease, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias), systemic vascular diseases, inflammatory diseases of various etiology and localization, blood coagulation disorders, disturbances in the structure and function of blood vessel walls, anomalies of the cerebral vessels (aneurysms, hemangiomas), head injuries, as well as injuries of distant parts of the body.
A stroke is a medical emergency. The patient’s life and condition after the acute symptoms of brain damage have subsided depend on the speed of diagnostic and therapeutic measures. It is important that the patient is hospitalized as soon as possible after the disturbing symptoms suggestive of a stroke, and comprehensive treatment should be implemented from the first days of the disease, aimed at improving the functions lost due to the disease, i.e. extensive rehabilitation. A rehabilitator and speech therapist should work with the child, and then an occupational therapist, psychologist and pedagogue. (From www.fum.info.pl Fundacja Udaru Mózgu)
– Rehabilitation of a sick child as soon as possible is the best way to minimize the effects of a stroke – explains Katarzyna. – These first weeks and months are decisive. We experienced incredibly difficult moments in the fight for Natalka’s return to psychomotor performance. She cried, she rebelled. Pain accompanied the exercises. I had to explain to her for a long time that what had happened would never be undone. That now we have to think about the future and move forward. Until the event in front of the TV set, Natalka was an ordinary, healthy girl. She rarely caught even a cold. From the first grade of elementary school, she went to the swimming pool. She belonged to the school’s Sardynki club. She dreamed of a sports class. During the summer holidays, from the third to the fourth grade, she successfully passed the qualification tests for the swimming class. She was very happy when she got the athlete card. She was also tested to be completely healthy. He can play sports. No, even the tiniest signals of a tragedy – says the mother.
So why was there a stroke? This question did not bother my loved ones.
– We were bothered because no one in our family was ill. We lived a normal life: work, home, children. Nothing special. Doctors also responded to our inquiries by shrugging their shoulders. It just happened. You have to do everything to get your baby back to normal. So much.
Currently, Natalia is 13 years old and still needs to be intensively rehabilitated. She returned to school in the second semester of the fourth grade. Earlier, her mother had discharged her from the sports class.
– I am full of admiration for my daughter, although there is still a long, difficult way to go. He’s still trailing his left leg. Must wear special braces and walking shoes. He has a displaced pelvis, so we do everything we can to prevent scoliosis. Left hand remained functional enough for Nati to move something on the table, to hold the ruler. My husband and I sometimes laugh that Natalia forgets about her. She even learned to put on tights with one efficient hand. Fortunately, clear pronunciation has returned. Hours of speech therapy exercises in front of the mirror did their job – says Kasia.
There are still memory problems to overcome. Mental performance is no longer what it used to be. But the girl does not give up, she exercises. Mentally he is brave. She has come to terms with her fate and focuses on the here and now. Parents do not allow her to feel sorry. They repeat like a mantra: that she can manage, that she is strong, that she will overcome obstacles. Because he has the spirit of an athlete in him. And that helps.
– Reimbursed rehabilitation of a child in Poland is a fiction. The National Health Fund refunds two appointments with a physiotherapist per week. Half an hour of group exercises from eight to three, which is the time when the child has to be at school! What treatment effects can be obtained after something like this? Who is it for? We have to rehabilitate our daughter privately so as not to squander what has already been achieved through hard work. She has to rely on herself in the future. We did not quit our professional work and we arranged our family life so that there was room for professional work and time for our daughters. With great effort we pull the daily trolley of cares. So does Natalia, because she knows that she has to do her chores and exercise day by day. I do not wish anyone what happened to our daughter, but if I had to advise families in a similar situation, be patient. A stroke in a child does not have to be the end of the world.
Tekst: Joanna Weyna Szczepańska