Stroke: Lora Musikantow

In an instant, Lora Musikantow of Ocala went from having a normal phone conversation with her daughter to experiencing slurred speech, difficulty standing, and an inability to use her left side. As her husband, Elliott, recognized, Lora was having a stroke.

"I noticed the whole left side of her face was sagged. Her eye was drooping. Her mouth was drooping," Elliott recalls. "I said, 'This is a stroke. We have to hurry.'" 

Lora's mother had suffered a stroke in 1991 and later passed away from its effects. They were worried Lora may share the same fate.

Their son immediately called 911. Just moments later, Lora arrived at the HCA Florida Ocala Hospital emergency room, and a nurse put Elliott on the phone with a doctor who explained a proposed course of action and asked for his consent.

Elliott agreed, and within two hours of that fearful 911 call, Dr. Anand Venkatraman had performed an emergency thrombectomy, a procedure by which a clot was removed from Lora's brain with a catheter inserted in her thigh.         

Lora was discharged from HCA Florida Ocala Hospital a few days later with no physical deficits related to her stroke. "I was in the hospital for three days and they sent me home because everything was good," Lora says. 

"Their preparedness and their systems that they have in place for stokes here made all the difference in the world," Elliott adds.