Kate Comer knows better than most the life-changing effects a stroke can have on a person.
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As a radiographer, Mrs Comer studies CT scans for a living.
But five years ago, in October 2016, at the age of 34, Mrs Comer was living in Dunkeld, south of the Grampians National Park when she had a stroke.
At the time, Mrs Comer was a mother to two young children Charlotte, 5, and Mason 2 and her husband was at his South Australian fly-in fly-out job.
"I had a normal blood pressure, no pre-existing health conditions and no cardiovascular issues," she said. "I wasn't ultra-fit, I was just a mum.
I had a vertebral artery dissection.
- Kate Comer
Mrs Comer said some people have a vertebral artery dissection without even knowing where they feel really dizzy, but hers developed into a stroke.
"The night before I had been doing some exercise over my head with some friends and I had about a half glass of champagne at the end," she said. "I came back home and started seeing stars and I thought I'd go to bed and wake up fine.
"When I woke up at 5am the next morning, I was seeing stars through both eyes and I felt like vomiting but I couldn't.
"I did check for F.A.S.T but I could still talk and do all the things. I had some toast and laid back down and when I got up I felt good again."
Mrs Comer went about her usually day; dropping her daughter off for childcare and then driving 25 kilometres into Hamilton for work at the hospital and to drop her son off at childcare.
"In the car I made a doctor's appointment but my son was acting really clingy which was unusual," she said. "When I dropped him off I said if he's not right by 9.30am I'll pick him up and take him to the doctor with me.
At work I remember I said I feel like I'm having a stroke but I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong.
- Kate Comer
"The childcare called and said Mason still wasn't right so I went to go get him. I was chatting with the girls and I went to pick him up and I collapsed."
The staff at Mason's childcare acted quickly and took the two-year-old outside and called an ambulance.
Mrs Comer then went into 'locked in syndrome' where she was conscious but couldn't talk or speak.
"The girls calling triple 000 is the best thing they could've done," she said.
"I've spoken to nearly all the ambulance officers who were there, for one of the girls it was her first job as a qualified ambulance officer. For one of the other guys who was very experienced, he said he could see me stroking in front of his eyes and it was getting worse and worse."
When they called through the incident through to the Hamilton Hospital, because it was connected to Bendigo, Mrs Comer's colleagues didn't realise it was one of their own.
"The look on everyone's faces when they saw it was me was like they'd seen a ghost," she said.
What saved Mrs Comer's life, was the establishment of the Victorian Stroke Telemedicine program only a month earlier. This meant that her CT scan was sent off the Melbourne on a direct line and they could determine straightaway that she had a basilar artery clot.
Mrs Comer and her doctors were having a telehealth consultation to a neurologist in Melbourne who said she should be flown to Melbourne by helicopter immediately.
Mrs Comer arrived at a Melbourne Hospital by 2.30pm, her children were being picked up by family and her husband was being notified of the incident at his worksite in South Australia.
After a two-hour long surgery which Mrs Comer described as "touch and go" due to the difficulties in accessing the site, she awoke and could talk and move her whole body.
She left hospital three days later and returned to work four weeks later needing some time to mentally recover from the incident which had predominately occurred in her office.
Data from the Stroke Foundation revealed there were 191 first time strokes experienced by people in the Bendigo electorate in 2020 and 3,204 stroke survivors are living in the community.
For Mrs Comer, life has returned to a relative norm. She goes to the gym, works and runs but take blood thinners to manage the dissection in her neck which she'll have for the rest of her life.
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Now, approaching her 40th birthday, Mrs Comer is hoping to mark the milestone with a helicopter flight over the Great Barrier Reef and she continues to advocate for great stroke awareness in regional and rural Australia.
"The Stroke Foundation really advocated for the program to be rolled out in regional centres and it just shows you when the government put money into these resources what the outcomes can be," she said.
"A stroke can happen to anyone and it's important for everyone to be aware of the signs that can help someone in the event of a stroke.
"People need to make sure they advocate for themselves as well and make sure they get checked out properly. The amount of stories I've heard of delayed treatments and the person ends up on a disability pension for the rest of their life is heartbreaking."
National Stroke Week runs from August 2-8, 2021.
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