DENVER — A stroke was the last thing 33-year-old Shyhesha Simmons thought would happen to her.

Simmons, a single mother of three young children, is vegan and works as a dispatcher for Kroger stores.

“I make sure Krogers and King Soopers in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are shopping every day. So we take care of the truckers, the logistics all the way down to Krogers itself, making sure they get their loads every day, 24 hours a day. So it’s something that doesn’t stop.” , Simmons explained. “It’s busy, it’s difficult. It takes half your day, it takes a lot of time.

In early August, Simmons was working a long shift. Naturally, she thought she was tired.

“Anyone would think you’re tired of going back to work. So I just thought I was tired. I was really blurry-eyed and trying to concentrate,” Simmons said. “I just kept denying it. I’m just tired. I’m just tired. Just let me focus. Just let me focus. And then slowly, it wasn’t me who noticed the symptoms but someone else who noticed the symptoms.

Simmons ended up falling out of her chair and was unable to get up on her own. She was rushed to UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus. Inside the ambulance, she learned she was having a stroke.

“I couldn’t move at all. Like, not at all,” Simmons said. “Now, you’ve been through so much in your life, so much trauma in your life. I know you could do it, but I couldn’t do it. That was the hardest part.

Once at the hospital, doctors determined she would need surgery to remove the blood clot from her brain. After surgery, Simmons regained his ability to move, but his road to recovery was far from over.

She had difficulty walking after her stroke and suffered from extreme fatigue. Doctors told Simmons that full recovery could take 18 months. She will have another medical procedure in a few weeks and will have to take certain medications for the rest of her life.

Medical bills have also piled up for the single mother, currently totaling around $20,000. She set up a GoFundMe online fundraiser to help pay these bills.

“I was told, basically, that your body is grieving because you’ve sort of lost a part of yourself in the sense that you’ve lost a part of your brain that you can’t get back. .You’re overstimulated, and that’s one thing. things that I still have to deal with now, especially going back to work and being a mom,” Simmons said. “It’s getting really overwhelming. It just doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop.

Simmons believes the stress of his life contributed to the stroke.

“I know there are many black women who experience strokes every day and who work hard to have children. And we all need to know that. We all need to take care of our bodies,” Simmons said.

According to UCHealth, strokes, which are normally considered to occur with age, are increasingly affecting young adults.

“A stroke is an injury to the brain caused by a problem in a blood vessel. And it can be due to a blocked blood vessel – so insufficient blood flow gets to part of the brain and that part of the brain dies. – or it can be caused by bleeding from a blood vessel inside the brain and into the brain tissue,” explained Dr. Sharon Poisson, a vascular neurologist at UCHealth on the Anschutz Medical Campus.

Dr Poisson said there is evidence of an increase in strokes among young adults in recent decades, while the overall number of strokes has declined over the same period.

“We think that among older people there is a trend toward fewer strokes because we may be more successful in preventing strokes. But over the same period, we are seeing an increase in the number of strokes among young adults,” Dr. Poisson said. “We know more about strokes and we have more information about medications that can help prevent strokes. (…) And on top of that, I think there has been more awareness of vascular risk factors – things that put people at risk for stroke and heart disease. public attention and that people take some of these risk factors more seriously.

According to Dr. Poisson, risk factors for stroke include high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, atrial fibrillation, obesity, decreased exercise, sleep apnea, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption.

“Part of the reason (for the increase in strokes among young adults) may be because we are seeing more vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes in older age groups. young people, and maybe we’re not doing a great job of addressing these factors early in life,” Dr. Poisson said.

Young women appear to suffer strokes more often than their male counterparts. Dr Poisson said research was underway to try to understand why.

“We see more strokes in young women than in young men. So, factors like pregnancy and pregnancy-related complications, like preeclampsia, may play a role in this,” Dr. Poisson said. “We want to know more about the link between migraine and stroke. We discovered a lot about PFO, which is a heart disease that can sometimes be associated with stroke in young adults. So we don’t know the answer yet, there’s still a lot of research to do, but I think we’re starting to make progress in learning.

Dr. Poisson said black and Hispanic Americans are at high risk of stroke compared to white Americans.

Denver7 asked Dr. Poisson if birth control plays a role in stroke risk in young women.

“We certainly know that contraceptives, especially those containing estrogen, can increase the risk of clots. So in some populations it may increase the risk of stroke, especially in older young adults. So people over 35 who smoke and get migraines, we know that’s a very high risk population and a population where we should try to avoid things like excess estrogen,” Dr. Poisson said. “On the other hand, pregnancy is a risk factor for stroke. And so, some form of contraception, I think, is really important for some people, for many reasons. And so I don’t think the whole trend that we’re seeing with strokes is real. young adults can be blamed at birth I think if that plays a role it would be a very small part.

Dr. Poisson said young adults with stroke symptoms are less likely to call 911. Once in the hospital, she said it normally takes longer to diagnose these patients, too.

“Knowing the signs of a stroke and being aware that a stroke can happen at any time, regardless of age, is really essential so that we can better recognize strokes at an early stage” , said Dr. Poisson. “Even a 30-minute delay in treatment can therefore result in a significant change in functional outcomes. So there are some things we can do to try to stop the stroke in its tracks, but we have a short window of time to do it.

The acronym recommends retaining the signs and symptoms of a stroke are BE FAST.

• B – Balance: Sudden difficulty standing or walking
• E – Eyes: Sudden loss of vision or double vision
• F – Face: Drooping or irregular smile
• A – Arm weakness
• S – Speech: difficulty speaking, blurred or confused speech
• T – It’s time to call 911 if you notice any symptoms