Support Danie's Stroke Recovery Journey

Shortly after Christmas as the Hart family was preparing to move back home and Danie was recovering from a c section from her weeks old 5th baby she woke up feeling not great. She had a massive cryptogenic stroke and multiple seizures and upon rushing to the nearest hospital had to get transferred to another hospital that could give her more care and try to find out what happened. Luckily she regained consciousness and was not in a coma but she spent some time in the ICU while they evaluated the swelling in the brain and had to see if she would need a craniectomy. The cause of the stroke was a dissection in her carotid artery. Basically, the innermost layer of tissue in her artery developed a small flap and it blocked the flow of blood to her brain. They evaluated if it would heal on its own or if they would need to put in a stent. They said this is relatively common during/after pregnancy. She is doing very well with therapy although she still can't speak, but she is trying. Before starting at the rehab center her right side is still paralyzed and outside of some involuntary twitching (which is a good sign) she is not able to create or replicate intentional movement. Her left side is improving. She is able to feed herself again. She was able to be discharged from the hospital on the 9th of January to a state of the art rehab facility in Richmond. She will require anywhere from weeks to several months of in-patient therapy, and then several months of follow on in-home visits. They are confident that given her age and the severity of the stroke they will be able to provide the best possible care as they have a stroke and brain injury department that specializes and only deals with injuries like hers. Moving to the rehab center means she is 100% medically stable and no more daily imaging or blood draws. It also means that from here on out the focus is recovery. She does three hours of therapy every day, ranging from indentifying objects and using "singing" sentences to resistance training and electrical stimulation. In the last week her progress update has been: We are three weeks post stroke and she still has no function and little feeling in her right hand/arm, but has seen vast improvement in the use of her right leg the last few days, including limited assisted walking with walkers, hand rails, and canes during PT. She can not control her ankle, and has very limited control of her hip and her knee, but she works very hard to improve every day. She's working on speaking, and is battling a combination of aphasia and ataxia, meaning that both the mental formation of words and sentences and also the muscle movements required for them are difficult. She can get frustrated by this but tries to stay in good spirits about it (she laughed when she accidentally called her husband her wife today.) Her speech team says she is showing massive improvements since Friday. She is working hard to be able to go home. She has 5 babies from one month to 9 years old that need her and she is trying her best to maintain a supply to be able to pump for her newest baby when she can be on less medicines to make it safe. Damien is being an absolute rockstar, and even through the commute is 120 miles one way he knew this was the best shot for Danie’s recovery. They are in limbo with moving and are solely focused on her recovery and getting home back home to them. Her mom Julie was able to come down and help and is still there and helping Damien care for the kids. My hope is to support them and help cover all of the extra expenses that come with gas, traveling, care for the kids, food on the go, and so much more that comes with this tragic and unexpected medical crisis. Danie is one of the strongest people I know, she has overcome so much and is the best person, mom, wife and friend. If you could donate, share this and/or lift them up during this time it would be so appreciated. They haven’t asked for anything but they deserve all the love and support, they are such a wonderful family. Damien works so hard for them and is the best dad and husband and anything we can try to do to uplift and support him is crucial. He and Danie have been so grateful for the support and love and well wishes and he works hard to get Danie all of the messages. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we will keep updated on Danie’s recovery on here as well.