Ville Magazine l Insider Access for City Lifestyle May/Jun 2016 / Health & Fitness Issue | Page 34

HEALTH CHECK

A Second Chance
Interviewed by: Charity Mainville

On July 13, 2013, Brianne Cassidy went tubing with some friends. During one of the runs, Brianne hit a bump on the waves
that sent her into the air crashing her head against the water. After a couple of days, she was experiencing an awful
headache, neck ache, blurred vision in her right eye, numbness in her right hand, and other strange symptoms. Cassidy
went to a doctor who diagnosed her with reverse whiplash. He told her to go home and take some ibuprofen, but to return
if she didn’t feel better in two weeks. Ten days later, Cassidy’s headache had grown into a migraine, her vision was blurry
and white, and she was violently throwing up. She got the strength to drive herself to the doctor, who at that point agreed
she should have scans done; but she had to wait until her insurance approved the tests. So she drove back home. Twenty
minutes after being home, Cassidy had a stroke.

CM: Before your stroke, you were a different person. When you look back at
who you were before, what’s the biggest change you see in yourself?
BC: My life before my stroke was cripplingly and full of anxiety. So many things caused
me to freak out. Panic attacks and constant worry were just a way of life. If I had to
give a speech or even just talk in front of a group of people, I would panic. At the time,
I worked at a doggie daycare; I love animals and connect with them better than I do
with people most of the time. Even interacting with the dogs’ owners was difficult for
me. Since my stroke I have become a completely different person. I do still worry at
times. I think that is important in order to stay motivated, but I don’t let fear or worry
control my life anymore. I am not sure it was entirely a conscious choice to do this,
but I knew from the moment I woke up from anesthesia that I was not going to let
anything stop me from being exactly who I wanted to be.
CM: Do you think you would have made the change if you hadn’t experienced
a near death experience?
BC: No, I don’t. I often say that the stroke was the best thing that ever happened to
me. I don’t mean to suggest I enjoyed the excruciating pain and recovery, but I do
think that it changed my entire perspective on life. It flipped my world upside down
and gave me the opportunity to decide I was not going to let anything hold me back
from achieving any goal I set. When I got out of the hospital, the first thing I did, after
a ton of sleeping, was research local stroke events. This is ultimately how I found the
Heart and Stroke walk. The stroke allowed me to see that I had a purpose in life, and
that was to educate people on the signs and to spread my message. Recently I sat on
a stage and had the opportunity to thank the 1,000 people who worked on the device
that helped to save my life. It was an amazing experience that I never would have
dreamed of doing before my stroke without anxiety.
CM: During your stroke, you couldn’t get out of bed. Do you remember or
can you explain the physical effects that you were experiencing?
BC: After driving home from the doctor’s office, I laid down on the couch with my
family dog Casper. Twenty minutes later I woke up to Casper barking and running
around the room frantically. I tried to get up and calm him down and realized that
half my body was asleep. I waited a few minutes to see if it would come back, but it
didn’t. My cell phone was on the opposite side of the room, so I basically had to drag
half my body weight across the room to grab it and call my mom.
34 l VILLE l HEALTH & FITNESS ISSUE