Less than ten minutes after my cat scan, my room was filled in the hospital with a full team of medical staff.
Each of them wore a serious look at their faces. I asked, “What happened?”
A doctor stood in front of a computer screen. He turned it around and showed me an image.
“I'm afraid you have a brain blood,” he said, pointing to a huge, dark place in the back of my skull. “You have had a stroke.”
I was 48 years old and I was diagnosed. It seemed to come out of nowhere.
It is only now, two years later, that I can admit the truth: I had a ticking time bomb in my head and I was just too busy to see the warning signals.
I have been a driven person as long as I can remember -a straight -a -student, the girl at the front of the class with her hand up. I always wanted to be the smartest person in the room.
Julie Ferris-Tillman, depicted, was a high-flying PR professional when they suffer a stroke at the age of 48
Julie's husband Andy, depicted, would tell her not to work too hard and get irritated when she looked at her mobile for hours
It was an attitude that served me professionally when I sustained the ranks in public relations and crisis communication companies.
When I became vice-president of my current company, I worked with a team of 17 people and served a selection of powerful customers on a certain day, including Fortune 500 companies.
My pace did not change when I started working remotely during the Pandemie in 2020. If there was something, I worked harder. Without that water cooler chats with colleagues, what downtime I had disappeared during the day.
I would start every morning with an adrenaline-pumping four-fold latte from a cafe near my house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Then I would pound the keyboard late in the evenings, work on the presentations of the customer and occasionally encourage myself to Red Bull.
My husband Andy, 45, a real estate agent and timber vessels, would constantly ask if I had finished work for the night – but I could not stop checking my phone obsessively.
I was defined by my work and felt confirmed by good results. They stimulated my self-respect-so I said to myself.
Because, in all honesty, things were not as rosy as I was making love. Looking back, I walked to burnout and packed too much at work to notice the meaningful signs.
The biggest red flag was increased fear. I have always had the tendency to think about, but in the months before my stroke it got out of hand.
I would be worked up on small social situations. I would panic if my husband and I just invited friends. A full month before they arrived, I would worry that the house is not flawless.
Looking back, Julie realized that she was running to burnout and was packed too much at work to notice the Tell-Tale plates
Then there was my loss of interest in things that I used to like. I stopped yoga, walking and cycling and struggling to have meaningful conversations, even with the people I was closest to.
My marriage and evenings with Andy Leed. We would usually curl with our cat Maisy Jane and three dogs Ollie, Athena and Sir Reginald in front of the television, Binge-Watching Netflix.
I won 20 pounds that I put on the perimenopause.
In the meantime I would miss regular meals and snacks on sugary treats.
I constantly felt sick and exhausted. My stomach was not good, my joints hurt. I felt flat inside and ignored the terrible headache that, now I know now, indicated life -threatening high blood pressure.
It all seems so clear with the benefit benefit. But I was focused on work and, like many women, so conditioned not to make a fuss that when the worst happened, my first reaction was not to do anything.
Then, around 3 o'clock on January 23, 2023, I woke up screaming and I cried with pain. The headache at the basis of my skull was unbearable. Andy was so worried that he wanted to take me to the hospital.
But I insisted that it was too dramatic. It would be better if I managed to sleep. Then I vomited, so I was even less inclined to act because I thought it was a sign of food poisoning.
I didn't want to surrender anymore, so that day didn't eat anything and Dutte on the couch.
Then, four days later, my vision started to go. The relationships were eliminated – rooms looked small and the stairs were in the wrong place. I took my foot on steps that were not there. Nothing was logical. It was frightening.
I stumbled so badly that Andy had to support me. The next one, finally we went to the emergency care. The doctor suspected that it was a gastrointestinal bug and sent me home with an anti-sickness medicine that did nothing.
My blood pressure was around 175/90. Although I now know that it was high enough to indicate a hypertensive crisis – a normal BP is 120/80 – the doctor seemed to be more concerned about the headache and nausea.
He said that if my vision would not have improved within 24 hours, I would have to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist. It didn't have it.
Fortunately the ophthalmologist who saw me the next afternoon was incredibly thorough. He did a complete intake, including taking a picture of the back of my eyes.
He wrote something on a recipe pillow, gave it to me and told me: “You have to go to the first aid now.”
To this day, I don't know what he wrote, but whatever it was, I was seen very quickly.
They took my blood pressure that was so dangerously high on 176/91, the doctor ordered the cat scan that showed that ominous dark spot.
After her stroke, Julie learned to delay and spend more quality time with her cat Maisy Jane, photo, and her three dogs, Ollie, Athena and Sir Reginald
Now Julie has learned that there is more in life than work. Displayed, she hangs around during an external business meeting with colleagues and real estate Executive Bill Rancic
An MRI followed the full size of the bleeding on the right side of my brain. My changes in the eyesight were caused by enormous pressure on my optic nerve.
I spent the following week in the Intensive Care Unit in Frudert Hospital in a suburb of Milwaukee.
You may have thought that my wake-up call would be. But the truth is, understanding the experience was more a gradual phasing out.
I was prescribed medication to lower my blood pressure, but the doctors told me that I was an excellent candidate for another, possibly more serious, stroke if I did not change my ways.
Old habits die hard. My bosses said I had to rest, but I formulated a customer presentation from my hospital bed.
I didn't want to change my work, as a doctor suggested that I would do that, but even I realized that I had to take control of my stress.
Today I use anti-anxiety medication, but it is just part of a more holistic approach.
I delegate more and reduced the length of my working day to a strict eight hours. I only drink one shot coffee a day and have re -introduced yoga in my life. I also take the time away from my desk and walk three miles every afternoon.
My relationship with my husband has improved, my blood pressure is within normal reach and although I now have to wear glasses, my optician assures me that that has more to do with age than any remaining damage caused by my stroke.
It took a near-death experience to realize, but I finally learned that there is more in life than work. I recently received an e -mail at 5.30 pm on a Friday and I just ignored it until Monday.
Julie, who works with interdependence PR, told her story to Jane Ridley, Real Life Correspondent, Daily Mail Us. Do you have a powerful story to share? E -Mail a short summary to jane.ridley@mailonline.com
