Michelle Hughes was on vacation in Florida when she started having vision problems similar to what she previously experienced with migraine headaches. But the Decatur mom, 38 at the time, didn’t consider it to be a sign of a larger health concern.
“I thought myself very healthy, you know, no underlying medical conditions, no high blood pressure, nothing.” She even completed a 5-mile run with her husband the day before, where they were staying with their two young children and his parents in West Palm Beach.
When she started slurring her speech and noticed the left side of her body felt “droopy,” her husband — an emergency room doctor at Emory Healthcare — began taking steps to save her life.
He called a neurologist friend, who confirmed she needed immediate care at a hospital, so he drove her to the closest emergency room. There, doctors administered medication that can break up blood clots in the brain that cause a stroke if caught early enough…