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Stroke treatment at ECMC:
one patient's story.
What would it be like to wake up one morning and be unable to speak? For Betty Ann Swiatek, an active golfer and registered nurse, it was terrifying. Although a graduate of the school of nursing at another hospital and an occasional patient there, Betty Ann remembered something a former physician employer once told her–“if anything ever happens to me, take me to ECMC.” She strongly suspected she had suffered a stroke and while her husband was driving her on the Kensington Expressway to the other hospital, Betty Ann pointed to ECMC.
When Mrs. Swiatek arrived at ECMC she was suffering from extreme hypertension. Her blood pressure was extraordinarily high and medical center doctors worked aggressively to bring it down. An urgent MRI scan revealed that there was no blood vessel blockage but a small stroke-like event had occurred in the part of her brain governing her language. Under the direction of Dr. Michael Meyer, the team succeeded in lowering her blood pressure to normal levels and her speech gradually returned within the next few days.
