A five-year-old girl has been hailed a hero after spotting the warning signs of a stroke in her mother.
Lose Tafuna was being driven to school by her mother Robyn Tafuna in 2021 when the little girl noticed something awry from her booster seat in the back of the car.
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“As I was taking her to school, Lose asked me, ‘Why is your smile funny, why (are) you talking funny?’,” Robyn, from Boronia in Melbourne’s east, said.
Having worked in the medical field for two decades, Robyn, who was 40 years old at the time, immediately recognised she was in the early stages of a stroke.
“I didn’t want to upset Lose, so I dropped her off and drove the two minutes back home and called an ambulance.”
Robyn underwent several tests at St Vincent’s Hospital, which confirmed the diagnosis.
When her condition worsened several days later, she was rushed into the operating room to relieve the pressure on her brain.
“Apparently my family had all been called in to say goodbye to me because the doctors thought that was it, I was gonna die,” Robyn said.
The now 44-year-old was sent home after 10 days but struggled with her fine motor skills and mood swings.
Three-and-a-half years on, she still suffers from the side effects of the stroke and is unable to work or drive.
“I’ve been left with epilepsy and a lot of fatigue from the stroke,” Robyn said.
According to the Stroke Foundation, over 27,000 Australians experienced a stroke for the first time in their lives in 2020.
This equates to one stroke every 19 minutes.
More than 445,000 Australians are also living with the effects of stroke.
Despite the challenges she still faces, the outcome could have been much worse for Robyn, who attributes her survival to her attentive daughter, now aged nine.
“The neurologists … said that Lose either saved my life or prevented full left side paralysis,” she said.
“(I’m) very lucky that Lose … knew enough to say something.
“(I’m) very proud that she did speak up.”
To mark the start of National Stroke Week, which is run by the Stroke Foundation, Robyn reunited with the paramedics who helped her on Monday.
Paramedic Sascha Fortomaris said Robyn was lucky her stroke was treated so quickly.
“We’re really lucky to be able to see her today, that she’s made a great recovery now,” Fortomaris said.
“I think a lot of this is a credit to her daughter identifying those symptoms on the way to school.”
To help identify a stroke, the Stroke Foundation recommends using the F.A.S.T. test and asking these questions:
- Face – Check the person’s face, has their mouth drooped?
- Arms – Can the person lift both of their arms?
- Speech – Is the person’s speech slurred?
- Time – If you see any of these signs call triple-0 immediately
National Stroke Week runs until August 11.
More information about strokes and stroke prevention can be found on the Stroke Foundation’s website.
– With reporting by Tyra Stowers