- Francesca Murray, 45, woke up groggy from celebrations, took a painkiller, and returned to bed.
- When she started slurring her speech, her nurse friend had Murray airlifted to the hospital.
- Murray had suffered a stroke, and had to rebuild her strength to walk. She's now running a 10K.
When Francesca Murray's friend Natasha cancelled her 2020 wedding due to COVID-19, Murray and some other would-be guests made the trip to be with Natasha anyway.
The crew celebrated with drinks at one pal's house, leaving Murray feeling groggy the next day. So, the 45-year-old stylist and mom of two from Dublin, Ireland, took a painkiller and went back to bed, according to the Independent.
But when her symptoms progressed into slurred speech, Natasha, a nurse, called the emergency number. Murray was airlifted to Cork University Hospital (CUH). When she landed, she was unable to speak, feel on her left side, move, or swallow. She also lost her peripheral vision.
"I remember the doctors around the bed saying I had had a stroke. It was horrible," she told the Independent. "But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It gave me a whole different outlook on life."
Murray is running a 10k to raise money for the hospital
Murray said she spent more than a month at CUH undergoing speech and other therapies before she was transferred to a Dublin hospital to continue her recovery.
Now, about two years later, she's preparing to run a 10K on June 5 to raise money for CUH, which she credits for her ability to walk.
"I'm nearly there. Now it's like I'm working on myself. I've joined a gym and I'm reclaiming my life," Murray told the Independent. "You have to remember how lucky you are to have each day."
Younger women — and their doctors — may not recognize stroke symptoms
Women are more likely to have, and die from, strokes, according the American Heart Association. About 10% of them occur in people younger than 50, and the risk goes down the younger you are, Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, AHA's president, previously told Insider.
Young women can be prone to stroke misdiagnoses since they're not the typical stroke patient. They're also more often victims of medical gaslighting, in part due to medical literature largely focusing on symptoms in men, Insider previously reported.
And, like Murray, younger women may not even recognize symptoms — like facial drooping, arm weakness, and speech difficulty on one side of the body — in themselves.
Jayme Kelly, a 29-year-old nurse and CrossFit enthusiast, thought her numbness was due to sleeping on her limbs wrong.
But just a few hours later, she couldn't speak. At the hospital, she learned she'd suffered a stroke related to a blood-clotting disorder that had gone undiagnosed. Now, 2-1/2 years later, Kelly remains out of work and in speech therapy, occupational therapy, music therapy, and psychotherapy.
She previously told Insider she wants people, and especially women, to put their health first. "Sometimes we need to focus on ourselves more and then we can focus on everyone else," she said. "And if I can have a stroke, so can all of you."