Sonja survived a stroke on January 16, 2019. Although the type of stroke, (hemorrhagic bleed at her brain stem), is extremely serious due to its location, Sonja is making amazing progress in her recovery! After 2 weeks in Neuro ICU at Swedish Hospital in Denver, she has moved to Craig Rehabilitation Hospital (
http://craighospital.org/) to regain her motor skills, improve speech, mobility, and life skills. This will take several months and up to a year for a full recovery, which we all feel is entirely within her reach. She is thinking clearly and speaking more clearly every day. She’s in the very best place for rehab in the country with truly outstanding therapists. Their approach is whole body & mind therapy with support from her family and friends being exceptionally important. Sonja’s number one goal is to get her life back and return to being an outstanding mom to Valentina, her beautiful, soon to be 9 year-old daughter (birthday coming up on Feb 24!).
You can send a note of love and encouragement to Sonja at the following address or post messages below:
Sonja Lowe, Room 335
Craig Hospital
3425 S. Clarkson Street
Englewood, CO. 80113
To donate to help cover Sonja’s medical expenses, visit
https://www.gofundme.com/d369u-sonjas-medical-expensesThank you in advance to all of the wonderful people in her life!
More details:
Sonja’s local support group includes Janie (her mother), Tom (Janie’s husband), Caitlin (Tom’s daughter), Brady (awesome boyfriend) and Ruthe and Darrell (Janie’s sister and brother-in-law), and Greg (her uncle).
Sonja lives in Ft. Collins, but was headed to the Denver Tech Center to stay overnight on Jan 16, prior to a day of training there for work. On the way she stopped at Caitlin’s house in Denver where the stroke hit within minutes and Caitlin called 911 (how fortunate that she was not driving at the time!). She was quickly transported to the nearest hospital, Rose Medical, where she was stabilized and diagnosed and then transferred by helicopter to Swedish Medical Center, the foremost stroke center in Colorado.
The hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke was located in the part of the brain called the pons, which is the upper portion of the brain stem and functions to relay messages between several areas of the brain and the body. Although better than an ischemic stroke caused by a clot cutting off blood flow, causing immediate death to brain cells, a bleed in this location has nowhere to go, creating pressure and inhibiting brain function. “There are many important nerves that originate in the pons. The trigeminal nerve is responsible for feeling in the face. It also controls the muscles that are responsible for biting, chewing, and swallowing. The abducens nerve allows the eyes to look from side to side. The facial nerve controls facial expression.” (www.healthline.com)
Sonja’s face is ‘frozen’ on the left side, and she cannot see much out of her left eye. She also cannot swallow sufficiently to eat (but see update below) and so has a feeding tube into her stomach. The right side of her body is weak and slow to respond, requiring attentive direction to move. Nevertheless, she does move, riding a stationary bike every day for 30 minutes and beginning to walk with help. While her deficits so far are physical, her cognition, memory, speech and personality are all there!
After extensive testing at Swedish for a physical cause for the stroke, none was found, and the conclusion was that Sonja’s occasional extremely high blood pressure was to blame (systolic of 150-180 mm Hg; less than 120 is normal).
Craig Rehab Hospital requires family support, and Janie is the primary support, residing in adjacent Craig-provided housing. Janie spends 12+ hours every day with Sonja, participating in up to 8 hours of intensive daily therapy and providing additional care. Consequently, she has no time to respond to emails, texts, or phone calls; so best to express your support on this site.
Valentina, Sonja’s daughter, is with an incredible, supportive extended family in Ft. Collins. Consisting of Claudia, a good friend of Sonja’s, a single mom with 2 girls, Mya, age 7, and Kya, age 11, and her parents Bruce and Kim; they are truly angels! Valentina visited Sonja for the first time last Saturday (Feb 2) at Craig, and was very supportive and understanding. The hospital environment was pretty boring, however, and she asked to return to her friends in Ft. Collins, rather than staying another day, which Sonja wholeheartedly supported. Valentina is obviously very happy with her temporary family! Sonja had planned a cruise with Brady and friends for Valentina’s 9th birthday on the 24th, but now we’re planning a celebration for Val in Ft. Collins instead.
Updates:
We intend to post updates weekly, as long as there is continuous daily improvement. Significant breakthroughs or (unlikely) setbacks will warrant more frequent updates.
