For Pedro Antaran, an 83-year-old Seattle resident, the stroke came in the morning, with little warning. After waking up to make coffee, he noticed that his right leg felt different than usual. “I felt that my leg was heavy, and I could not lift it,” he recalls. “I thought in my mind that maybe this was a stroke.” He asked his wife to call 911—and soon afterward was at the hospital.
Antaran’s fast reaction helped ensure an early intervention to the stroke, which in turn has aided his remarkably short recovery from stroke. He still suffers from some minimal neurological effects (he sometimes has difficulty recalling the name of objects, for instance). But less than four months after his stroke, Antaran is already living at home, walking without a cane, and traveling throughout Seattle by bus.
This article continues at Recovery From Stroke