Jacksonville mom makes incredible recovery from stroke

A Jacksonville mother is making an incredible recovery after a stroke made her unable to speak or move the right side of her body.

“I don’t have high blood pressure. I run every day. I was relatively young, so it really came as quite a shock,” said Sherry Pinkstaff.

Looking at the University of North Florida professor today, you'd never know she woke up six months ago with a medical emergency.

“I went to get up and I noticed that my right arm and right leg were weak and numb,” said Pinkstaff.

She woke up her husband and tried to tell him what was wrong.

“And he said, ‘What’s wrong, can’t you talk?’ and I realized I couldn’t, actually. And he noticed that the side of my face was drooping and so he called 911 right away,” said Pinkstaff.

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Within hours of arriving at Mayo Clinic’s Emergency Department, she got a procedure called mechanical embolectomy that changed her quality of life.

"This procedure is performed by going in generally through the artery in the leg, the main artery. And we travel with a catheter up through the blood vessels of the body all the way to the brain to deploy a device or give a medication to help open up a blood vessel," said Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Stroke Center endovascular neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Brown.

Brown said that procedure needs to happen within hours of the appearance of stroke symptoms.

That’s why he said it’s important to know the symptoms: weakness on one side of the face, numbness and speech problems.

“I’m very, very lucky, very fortunate to have such a good outcome because my husband acted so quickly and because I got the right care at the right time,” said Pinkstaff.

Mayo Clinic was the first Joint Commission Certified Comprehensive Stroke Center in Florida. It’s the only one in Northeast Florida.

Cox Media Group