Graduating Ursuline Academy senior Christine Phan had a stroke when she was a sophomore, but fought her way back to health and academic achievement.

Graduating Ursuline senior suffered stroke – and learned to really live

By Jeanne Houck • Community Press • May 26, 2010 

 Graduating Ursuline Academy senior Christine Phan was just a sophomore when a knife-like pain sliced through her brain, nearly knocking her out.

 It was Nov. 17, 2007, and Phan had just suffered a stroke. 

Rushed to the hospital, Phan remembers being hooked up to six beeping machines, surrounded by her parents and sister and thinking, “This is how I am going to die.”

 Phan wasn’t exaggerating the seriousness of the situation

“The doctor informed my family that I had a massive bleeding in my brain,” Phan said. “He said that I had only a 1 percent chance of survival and that I would most likely die within the next few hours.

“However, my mom would not give up on me so easily and argued with the doctor to have a helicopter take me to University Hospital for surgery. After four hours of surgery, I was alive. Nevertheless, the doctors at University Hospital could not reverse the stroke, and when I woke up in the neuro-ICU, my right side was paralyzed.”

Phan was 15.

“The months following my aneurysm were the most trying period of my life,” Phan said. “I couldn’t walk, eat or go to the bathroom on my own. Taking a shower required two extra people. I was like a baby again. I also had trouble finding words and communicating. I could feel people getting frustrated with me and I imagined them thinking, ‘Spit it out already!’

“Many days I felt defeated. I wondered why this happened to me,” Phan said. “Trapped in the confines of my wheelchair, I realized I had a decision to make. I could run away from what had happened to me, or I could start rebuilding my life.

“Today, after countless hours of therapy and hard work, I am living proof that I can conquer my 1 percent chance at life,” said Phan, now 17 and planning to major in international business and minor in psychology at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. She is the daughter of Dean Phan and Angie Trandai and lives in West Chester Township.

“From not being able to walk, I can once again sprint across the tennis court and gracefully hit a backhand,” Christine Phan said. “From struggling to find the simplest words, I have become confident, humorous and trusted enough to be elected by my peers to serve as their senior class co-president.

“Simple rites of passage for normal teenagers, such as getting my driver’s license or having my first boyfriend, are miracles and treasured experiences for me.”

Phan said suffering a stroke was in some ways both the worst and the best thing that has happened to her.

“Before, I was robotic in my academic work, producing the same product over and over,” she said. “My brain injury brought me the gift of being human. Now, I can truly appreciate emotions and moments. I am grateful to simply be alive, because I cannot know when my last minute on earth will be. I have a crooked smile and a scar on my head to remind me of that night, but I also have the knowledge that I can overcome anything I set my mind to.”

Phan credits the Ursuline Academy in Blue Ash community and her relatives, friends and psychologists with refusing to allow her to give up.

“I can’t even begin to thank them,” Phan said.

“Determination, perseverance and laughter at oneself is the advice I would give to kids going through some difficulty like this.” 

Physicians:

Dr. Encarnacion (Air Care)

Dr. Shutter (neurocritical care)

Dr. Choutka (neurosurgery)

Dr. Zuccarello (neurosurgery)

Robert McFarland was finishing breakfast when the right side of his body froze. “My right hand was numb. I couldn’t raise it. I couldn’t talk.” The  next moments were a blur. Paramedics. University Hospital. The clot-busting drug TPA, given an hour and 47 minutes after his stroke. Robert benefited from the team approach University Hospital uses to treat stroke. An angiogram indicated his carotid artery was closed off, and quick action by Dr. Mario Zuccarello and Dr. David White kept him alive.

Though he arrived completely paralyzed, Four days later he was walking, talking, and giving his doctor a hug. When it comes to the power of teamwork, Robert is living proof.