Angela Kirk is coordinating a stroke support group with the NorthBay Medical Center and it is the only one of its kind in the county. (Joel Rosenbaum/JRosenbaum@TheReporter.com)
Fourteen years ago, when Kirk was 34 and with her then-young sons at a Vacaville pizza parlor, she started having symptoms of a stroke. Thankfully, a police officer on a lunch break was able to call for help.
"I had a fluttering in my head and then I started to lose my speech," Kirk recalled. "I couldn't talk and I had to use my hands to tell them my husband's phone number."
Kirk was taken to Vaca Valley Hospital, where she spent 10 days in the Intensive Care Unit in a coma and completely paralyzed. Eventually, she improved enough to be taken to Napa, where she spent more than a month undergoing physical, speech and occupational therapy.
She also joined a support group -- reluctantly.
"My therapist would drag me, I didn't want to go," she said. "But it was very encouraging to keep going."
The help she received in the group has inspired her to run a stroke support group in Fairfield.
"Your life just stops," she said. "People want to know where to go from here. It's so devastating when you first have it. It was devastating for me, but also for my family. God had just been so gracious to me the whole time."
Unlike most stroke victims, Kirk knows what caused her stroke: a herbal diet product that contained ephedra.
"Just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's good for you," she said.
The rest is here:
Stroke patient, NorthBay team up to offer support group