College student Jillian Marks was taking a photo in a mirror at her East Northport, New York, home when she lost vision in her right eye.
“I thought it was the flash, but it wasn’t,” she told the American Heart Association, who shared her story on their website Oct. 13, which was World Thrombosis Day.
It was a stroke.
Marks, 19 at the time, is part of the the minority of teens who experience stroke, usually as a result of heart defects or injuries. A 2016 study published in JAHA noted stroke was occurring more frequently in people between 25 and 44 years old—likely a result of increased risk factors like obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
By the time Marks reached the ER, her stroke symptoms had disappeared. Still, an MRI showed three blood clots in her brain, which doctors suggested might be the result of her regimen of contraceptive pills and, possibly, an autoimmune condition called antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.
“I’m nonchalant about it now,” Marks said, a year after the fact. “One day I was at the campus health service and they asked me why I’m on warfarin. I said, ‘Oh, I had a stroke.’ It was like everybody’s jaw dropped. I love watching the reactions.”
Read the full AHA story here:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.