 |
Rebecca LeighAmerican yoga practitioner who suffered a stroke after doing one of her poses
Date of Birth: 01.01.1978
Country:  USA |
Content:
- Rebecca Lee: Yoga Practitioner Struck by Stroke Following Inversion
- Carotid Artery Dissection
- Discovery and Diagnosis
- Reacting to the News
- Anger and Coping
- Recovery and Return to Yoga
- Living with Uncertainty
Rebecca Lee: Yoga Practitioner Struck by Stroke Following Inversion
Rebecca Lee, a 40-year-old yoga enthusiast from Maryland, suffered a stroke when a major blood vessel in her neck ruptured during a complex headstand. Mere hours before the injury, Lee, who had over 26,000 social media followers, had been filming a tutorial.
Initially mistaking her symptoms for a slipped disc she had experienced years earlier, Lee noticed blurred vision, weakness on one side of her body, and a headache. She sought medical attention a few days later, only to receive the shocking news that she had suffered a potentially life-threatening stroke.
Carotid Artery Dissection
Rebecca's stroke was caused by a carotid artery dissection, a condition in which blood seeps through a tear in the artery wall. This accumulation forms a flap, blocking oxygen flow to the brain and causing a stroke. The specific pose Lee was performing involved an inversion, downward movement of the hips, and an arch in the lower spine, all while in a headstand position.
Discovery and Diagnosis
"I felt so good doing this," Lee recalled, "but when I got inside [from the porch], my peripheral vision went away. My actual vision felt a little blurry."
"It felt like a cloud was passing through my head. I sat down and I tried to tie my hair back and my left arm just flopped over and it wouldn't work."
Lee initially suspected a herniated disc, but the numbness subsided within five minutes, replaced by a headache.
"I've always had headaches and migraines since I was a teenager, but I knew this was different," she added.
Two days later, she noticed her pupils were different sizes and her right eye was drooping. Accompanied by her husband, Kevin, a 45-year-old law enforcement officer, Lee visited an emergency department, where an MRI scan revealed the stroke.
Reacting to the News
"A doctor came into the room where we were waiting for the news and he said so flatly, 'Well, you have had a stroke,'" Lee continued.
"Kevin and I kind of chuckled. We thought he was joking. There's no way that someone my age, as healthy as I am, could have had a stroke. But he was very stoic about our reaction, and his face said it all."
Lee spent the next five days in a neurological intensive care unit as doctors investigated the cause of her stroke in an otherwise healthy, non-smoking 39-year-old woman at the time.
"After all these blood tests, sonograms, MRIs, CT scans, they finally found that the artery had torn," Lee said.
Anger and Coping
Lee initially felt a mix of anger and disbelief, questioning how a discipline like yoga, which she had dedicated to for years, could have almost taken her life. She was furious with her body, feeling betrayed.
For six weeks, Lee endured excruciating headaches that rendered her light sensitive. She lost 20 pounds and couldn't get out of bed without assistance.
"I couldn't shower myself, wash my hair, feed myself, even take my own life-saving medications that they were giving me by the handful," she stated.
"Because the nerve was damaged, any type of light was unbearable. It hurt my eyes so bad. My house that is normally flooded with sunlight didn't have any sunlight for the first several months."
"For several months, there was a constant whooshing sound in my right ear. It was the sound of the blood trying to force its way through my artery to my brain."
Recovery and Return to Yoga
Gradually, Lee began to notice improvements, going for short walks outside, starting with just two or three minutes. She cooked simple meals, propped herself up in bed, and watched television.
These small accomplishments felt like major steps at the time. Within a month of her stroke, Rebecca ventured back onto her yoga mat.
"I just sat on my mat in a lotus position and I listened to my breath," Lee explained. "I slowly started doing some very basic stretches and poses that I knew would be safe for me."
"I knew if I didn't get back to it very soon after having the stroke, I would never do it again. There was too much trauma around it."
A scan six months later revealed that Lee's carotid artery had completely healed. However, an aneurysm remained, and she still faces consequences daily.
"That zap that I got in my arm when I had the stroke, that went away the same day, but my whole arm tingles almost all the time," she explained.
"It's like an electrical shock that starts from my elbow to my hand and back up. And I still have a headache every day, facial pain, and neck pain."
"The carotid artery has, I guess, a bundle of nerves in it, and those nerves were damaged when it tore."
Lee's facial pain makes it difficult for her to speak for longer than a few minutes. Her memory issues require her to ask for reminders of recent conversations. She fatigues easily, often becoming exhausted after a trip to a nearby store.
Living with Uncertainty
Most challenging of all is the realization that she could have another stroke at any time.
"It's so hard to recover from something that was so traumatic and came out of nowhere," she admitted. "You just feel like you're doing everything right, and then when something like this happens, it's hard not to think about it happening again."
Despite the ongoing challenges, Rebecca finds solace and gratitude in her return to the yoga mat.
"A year after having the stroke, I'm about 75% back to what I was," Lee stated. "I know I'm not going to be 100% again. But now I can just reach my toes and be happy."
