On the evening of February 13, 2019, I awoke from a deep sleep and could not feel or move my entire right leg. I recognized that it belonged to me, but when my brain would command it to move, nothing happened. It just laid there, a significant portion of my body, not responding.

I did not have a stroke.

Several weeks earlier, when I jumped over an inlet of water on the beach, as I landed my right leg bent sideways (ouch!), and I felt my knee effectively come apart. Sorry if this is gross, but it’s the truth – I could feel two bones (femur and tibia) separate when I landed, and then snap violently back together. I was instantly filled with dread, wishing I could hit the rewind button and not have made that jump.

The same thing happened to me during my regional track and field meet my senior year in high school 22 years earlier after a landing-gone-bad during the long jump event. At that time, I had torn my ACL and MCL (two ligaments that provide structural stability to the knee) as well as my meniscus (the cartilage cushion for the knee). It required surgical reconstruction, six weeks of immobility after surgery, and then months of extremely painful rehabilitation to return to walking/running. When I landed on the beach in the same way as I had landed during that fateful long jump in high school, I thought – surely I haven’t torn my ACL and meniscus again. What are the chances?

It turns out that it’s pretty common to tear a grafted ACL after an earlier ACL injury. As a physician, I believe I learn something new every day. The MRI the following week confirmed that I had torn my grafted ACL and my meniscus while also fracturing the top of the tibia (known as the tibial plateau – a common fracture to sustain with an ACL tear).

It is not melodramatic to say that I had moments of terror at the thought of going through surgery again. When I underwent surgery at 18, I had not yet become a neurologist, and had not seen a multitude of strokes that occurred in healthy patients while they were under anesthesia for procedures, but now I had. I feared I was going to awaken during surgery. I feared that I would develop a wound infection after surgery that would spread and that bacteria from that infection would start growing on my heart valves and in my brain (physicians can make horrible patients, by the way). I feared that I would experience a complication during surgery beyond what anyone thought possible and would end up in a medical journal as a case report. I had listened to the “Dr. Death” podcast – what if the surgeon did something completely awful to my knee and I was never able to walk again? My perspective was heavily biased, because I was so much more aware of the worst-case-scenarios this time around.

My fiancĂ© continued to reassure me that I would be okay, and that I would return to running by the spring. He clarified that he would help me after surgery while I couldn’t drive for six weeks, and while I couldn’t get up and down the stairs in my house.

Anyway – I underwent surgery on February 13, 2019 to have my Humpty Dumpty knee put back together yet again. When I awoke from anesthesia 22 years earlier, almost immediately I experienced tremendous pain, and then severe nausea from any pain medication given to me. I don’t know if the pain or the nausea was worse. This time, though, I felt absolutely no pain upon awakening, because I felt nothing in my leg. A femoral nerve catheter had been placed by the anesthesiologist, effectively putting my leg to sleep. It was a surreal, bizarre feeling to have lost all sensation and movement in a limb essential for walking. For three days, I felt humbled every time I could not get myself onto a commode or could not shower or bathe without substantial assistance. I could not perform my activities of daily living (“ADLs,” we call them in the stroke and rehab world).

This loss of autonomy and independence sent me into a deeply reflective state as I recognized what my patients who have survived their strokes experience. I had the great privilege of knowing that once the nerve catheter was removed I would regain movement and sensation in my leg. Stroke survivors lack that guarantee. Some of it may return, or it may not. I had confidence that in the coming days/weeks I would be bathing, toileting, and getting around independently, that this was a temporary inconvenience. Stroke survivors lack that confidence. While my fiancĂ© was a wonderful source of support in caring for me, being so dependent on another person when independence has been a given is frustrating. I felt guilty for being an imposition to him, even though he assured me he didn’t see it that way. How guilt-ridden so many stroke survivors must feel when they are in that position, potentially for years or even decades.

Fortunately, none of the worst-case-scenarios happened. Dr. Jonathan Riboh performed my surgery at Duke, and there were no wound infections, misplaced hardware, and no strokes while under anesthesia. This past week he gave me my clearance to start running again, and as I felt repaired knee carry me reliably during my run this morning, deep gratitude filled me to the brim. My knee seems to be in fantastic shape, perhaps even more stable than it was before my beach mishap! Thank you, Dr. Riboh.

Dr. Michael Kent, my anesthesiologist, not only ensured that I did not awaken during surgery, but that I woke up after surgery in good shape, and that I did not endure the excrutiating pain that had made me so miserable 22 years earlier. His placement of the nerve catheter also gave me a lesson in stroke awareness that, despite spending my days evaluating and treating stroke patients, had its own uniqueness to it. Thank you, Dr. Kent.

How often does a physician get to walk in the shoes of her patients temporarily, to feel what it truly is like to lose use of a limb? I recognize that I did not experience trouble swallowing, neuropathic pain, the loss of my dominant hand, the ability to speak, or any number of other disabling deficits that so many stroke patients face. But I remain grateful for the experience all the same.

May is Stroke Awareness Month. I encourage stroke survivors who feel comfortable doing so to share their stories as a way to raise awareness in their communities. Stroke is number one cause of long term disability in the United States and the fifth leading cause of death. We have highly effective therapies for treating strokes when we are able to treat patients early, before the brain has been significantly and irreversibly injured. The later a patient arrives at the emergency department, the less likely it is that his or her stroke can be treated. Awareness that symptoms such as a facial droop, difficulty speaking, slurred speech, and loss of movements/strength in an arm and/or leg could mean a stroke is occurring often makes the difference between calling 911 and staying at home to wait it out.