Get your blood pressure tested this Saturday

Get your blood pressure tested this Saturday, urges Toni

Media release
10 September 2009

Stroke survivor Toni Watson is urging Kiwis to take advantage of free blood pressure checks being offered this Saturday as part of Stroke Awareness Week. The Stroke Foundation, St John and Lions are offering free blood pressure checks at a number of supermarkets around New Zealand (a list of sites can be found at http://www.stroke.org.nz/funding/free_testing_sites.html.)

Toni has personal experience of stroke and is telling her story to support Stroke Awareness Week, from 7 to 13 September. About 8000 strokes occur in New Zealand each year, and stroke is our leading cause of disability.

Strokes can be linked to high blood pressure, and the focus of Stroke Awareness Week this year is on having your blood pressure checked. If you are found to have high blood pressure, it can usually be controlled by a combination of diet, exercise and medication.

In summer 2007, at the age of 35, Toni’s life was going better than ever. She had set off on a boating holiday to Great Barrier Island with her partner Phil Crowther and 8 month old baby girl, Jazmyn.

“It should have been the most wonderful first Christmas together as a family, but it turned into a nightmare,” says Toni. 

“I recall waking up very early and trying to have a drink from my water bottle. I noticed a very strange thing – I felt an arm in the bed but it wasn't mine.  I tried to move and couldn't.  After a while Phil came down to see why I hadn't joined him upstairs.  I said to him that I was paralyzed from the neck down.

“Phil phoned for an ambulance and turned the boat around to head back and meet it. If it wasn't for his quick actions I would never have survived.  I owe him everything and will never forget how he saved my life. 

“After lots of testing and observations the doctors came to the conclusion that I'd had a major stroke, caused by a blood clot. I had changed my oral contraceptive one month earlier and they figured that was the cause.  They then looked at my heart where they found a PFO, or hole in the heart, which had caused the blood clot to shoot to the brain.
 
“I had apparently had this all my life, as do a lot of people, but it never gets found until a major incident such as stroke occurs. My stroke was not blood pressure related, but for some people just reducing high blood pressure could stop you from having stroke.”

Toni spent two months in Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital in a wheelchair - learning to do everything, from walking to dressing.  In February 2008, she was finally allowed home.

“I continued with home based physio for the next few months. My main problem was I had such bad fatigue that I found it very hard to do anything at all.  It was so difficult for me to watch Phil have to do all the housework, cooking, looking after Jazmyn, as well as holding down a stressful job.

“I felt absolutely hopeless and helpless but I was determined to get better as soon as possible and fight the fatigue.  Luckily, all my life I had been a fitness freak and loved my exercise.”

A few months later, Toni had an operation to close the hole in her heart. At around the same time Phil had secretly organised their wedding in Fiji.

“We invited our closest friends and family and had a perfect wedding day.”

Twenty months on from the stroke and Toni feels things are slowly getting back to normal again.

“The fatigue has got better and I can do a lot more without getting so tired. I'm swimming every week and I walk every day. I've also been driving again for 7 months – it’s been absolutely wonderful to have more independence.  I would never have made it through this horrific ordeal if it wasn't for my devoted caring husband and all his ongoing help and support and for my angel Jazmyn who gets me through each day and pushes me to my limits and beyond every day.”

Having been through such a difficult experience, Toni is passionate about helping others prevent stroke, which she emphasises can happen regardless of your age.

“Stroke can strike young people too, and I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I did. Many strokes are blood pressure related, and it’s so simple to get your blood pressure checked. And the sooner you find out that you have high blood pressure, the sooner you can control it, and increase your chances of a long and healthy life.”

ENDS

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