Lauren's Story
Stroke rehabilitation
As a middle school English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, 42-year-old Lauren Victor had spent years helping students find their voices.
But after suffering a stroke, she found herself struggling to use her own.
“The day of my stroke I was dizzy and my head was hurting and I felt off,” said Lauren. A friend quickly drove her to a local urgent care center. Lauren passed out before she was seen by a doctor.
She was rushed to Medical City Plano. “The paramedics took me, and I woke up two days later in the hospital. I had a stroke and couldn’t move the entire right side of my body,” she said.
Lauren was also unable to breathe on her own resulting in a tracheostomy, the placement of a tube in her windpipe to open her airway. She also received nutrition through a feeding tube.
After two weeks in the hospital, Lauren stabilized and was transferred to Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation (BSWIR) - Dallas for inpatient rehabilitation care.
Her husband and brother had toured several rehabilitation facilities and felt confident that BSWIR was the best place for her recovery. “The person showing them around asked about me—what I was like and what I do—which made my family feel like they would focus my care directly on me,” Lauren recalled.
Upon arrival at BSWIR, Lauren’s challenges were significant. She could not walk, use her arm, dress or bathe herself and her speech was severely impacted. The physician-led rehabilitation team worked with Lauren to put a treatment plan in place so she could reach her goal of returning home to her husband and two sons and the life she loved. Her plan required physical, occupational, speech and respiratory therapy.
Lauren’s physical therapy team focused on rebuilding strength. Physical therapists helped her stand and take steps again, using body-weight-supported treadmill training and a three-person assist to help shift weight and use of her legs. As Lauren’s strength and endurance improved, she progressed to walking with braces and assistance. She also worked on changing directions when walking, turning and lifting objects and maintaining balance. Lauren took advantage of the pool to strengthen her muscles, build endurance and relax. At discharge, Lauren was able to walk more than 3,000 feet and use a rolling walker to navigate outdoor environments with supervision.
With BSWIR’s research-based shoulder program, Lauren’s occupational therapists targeted her ability to use her right arm and hand for daily activities like dressing and writing. This included supportive positioning, shoulder sling use and taping of her shoulder. Each exercise was therapeutically graded to improve neurologic and motor control. Lauren also engaged in reaching and grasping training using everyday items to improve functional use of her right arm for performing self-care routines and transfers. At discharge, she no longer needed the shoulder taped wore a sling for comfort and was able to use her arm in functional tasks.
When Lauren arrived at BSWIR, she communicated with gestures, mouthing responses and a communications board. Speech therapists introduced swallowing exercises, voice production and breath support to transition her from the tracheostomy to speaking and eating again. Her team used devices to exercise her throat muscles to improve cough strength, breath support and voice production. This also helped with swallowing food and liquids, and she was able to start consuming a diet of soft food and thick liquids. By discharge, Lauren could speak, eat a regular diet and drink nectar-thick liquids.
After more than three weeks, Lauren had made significant progress. She was able to speak and eat again and had regained enough strength to transition home with outpatient therapy.
“I wanted to be able to walk my dog again, to be able to participate with my family (hug my kids, play with them) ... be able to cook for my family, be able to go back to work and speak for all of my ESL classes,” Lauren said.
Lauren decided to continue her recovery at the BSWIR - Dallas Day Neuro Program, where she participated in intensive therapy five days a week.
At Day Neuro, physical therapists helped improve Lauren’s endurance and balance so she could confidently stand and walk for extended periods. She even practiced walking with a therapy dog to simulate walking her own dog.
Occupational therapy helped her regain fine motor skills for tasks like handwriting, drawing and cooking. She also took part in planning a party at the program, working with her therapist to organize and prepare for the celebration.
Speech therapy became a key part of her preparation for returning to the classroom as well. Lauren participated in mock classroom sessions, where she practiced speaking for extended periods and refined her pronunciation with Spanish-speaking patients. “After practicing in Day Neuro and doing practice classes with other patients, I feel so much more ready and confident – I love it,” she said.
Lauren credits her therapy team with helping her reach milestones that once felt impossible. “There wasn’t one ‘ah-ha’ moment,” she said. “It was meeting little goals every day and continuing to move forward.”
As Lauren progressed the milestones began to really add up. “I realized that certain things that used to take a lot of thinking I was doing automatically, like squeezing my leg and using my right hand,” she said. “Like I went out to eat with my family and I used chopsticks with my right hand and didn’t even realize it ... my husband had to point it out.”
Lauren is happy to report that she is back to teaching full time. While she acknowledges she may not be exactly the same as before, she is embracing her progress. “I know I’m not the same as I was, but seeing what I can do with what I got is huge.”
