My Son Jason: A Young College Basketball Player and Stroke Victim
February 23, 2019
It was the morning of July 20, 2015. My son Jason’s 22nd birthday. I was living by myself in a cool little rental house and loving it. My cousin Julie and I partied the night before and I had left my car at the venue a few miles away. I received a call from my husband Joe the next morning (we were separated at the time), but I was feeling too crappy to talk to anyone right then, so I didn’t answer. Julie was asleep on my couch. Then a text came, and said something like “Dana, call me right now. Jason is in the hospital!” As I read it, my heart sank into my stomach and I quickly called him back. He told me Jason had suffered a stroke.
I don’t remember the order of things, but I was told he was being air-lifted to University of Colorado Hospital and we were all going to meet there. It was going to take me possibly two hours to get there and I still had to go get my car. I explained everything to my cousin the best I could while in shock and completely ashamed I was so hungover, which made it even more surreal.
She got me to my car and I proceeded to make my way to the Denver area from Canon City. Amazingly, we all made it to the hospital at the same time (Joe and the boys from Fort Collins, me from Canon City) and were able to park in the same area and walk in together. It was Joe, Joey, Joshua and me. We were all scared to death at what we were walking into. We had absolutely no idea what condition he’d be in when we saw him. Joshua was crying at the thought of it and the rest of us were just in shock. That’s all I can remember about the period before we saw him.
The helicopter had landed on top of the roof and they took him straight into surgery – THANK GOD (and thank the medical team!). By the time we all got there they had removed the clot and he was in recovery. I think we were able to go straight in to see him by the time we got there. Once we were in the room, we gathered around him waiting with baited breath to see if he could communicate with us. He was looking at us all ok but was clearly frustrated when trying to get his words out. Finally, in a loud whisper, he said “FUCK!” It was the sweetest sound any of us had ever heard. Joey doubled over and started crying and we all hugged and kissed on him with nervous joy.
The First Crucial Minutes
He stayed in the hospital a mere five days, and during that time they ran a multitude of tests as you can imagine. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Jason was a D1 college basketball player home for the summer and living at his brother Joey’s house. He said he woke up in the morning and felt strange but had to go pee. Not understanding what was going on, he tried to make his way to the bathroom. On his way he fell into a wall and made a loud noise, so Joey got up to see what it was (another THANK GOD). Joey found his brother at the bottom of the stairs in the basement. He had pee’d himself and couldn’t communicate, so Joey quickly realized there was something seriously the matter and called the paramedics. They arrived within just a few minutes and whisked him off to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, where they made the decision their capabilities were too limited to treat him in the best possible way. That’s when they airlifted him to University of Colorado Hospital.
I can’t imagine the trauma Joey must have experienced seeing his brother like that. A memory that will be with him forever.
Hospital Time
Here is a post his dad made on Facebook to let everyone know what happened:
“ATTENTION EVERYONE! PRAYERS NEEDED
this morning Joey Swahv McClellan
Found his brother Jason McClellan
At the foot of the stairs in their home.
He couldn’t move the right side of his body and he couldn’t speak.
It turns out that Jason had a small [not small, it was massive] stroke.
He was flown via helicopter to University Hospital in Denver from Fort Collins.
They removed a small blood clot from his brain. We are waiting for them to complete the 2nd MRI to make sure that the procedure removed all the clot.
Our family is all here with him and we will see him as soon as possible.
I will keep you posted
Please pray for my son
He’s the strongest man I know so I know he WILL fully recover. Also today is Jason’s 22nd birthday
Please share this so all his peeps can send prayers and healing energy his way.
You can’t keep the beast down
Update :
He’s in his room and we’re getting to see him.”
Video of Time Spent In the Hospital
Dana Gee McClellan I was walking with my arm around Joey while he was taking this video. He had happy tears flowing the whole time. He was the one who found his brother and saw the worst of it. I was spared that visual and didn’t see him until he was on the upswing. Joey saved his brother’ life yesterday ❤️
Did That Really Happen?
Our family stayed and slept in his room the whole time he was hospitalized. There were many visitors consisting of family and friends. Here’s a post I made on Facebook when I reflected on it a month later:
“Sorry to bring this up again, but I was just going through the photos, comments and videos of the week of Jason’s stroke and I am overwhelmed with emotion right now. Did that really happen?
It was so surreal while it was going on. We were all so scared and I don’t think it really sank in at the time. I guess because we were all in survival mode? I don’t want to think of how bad it could’ve been because as bad as it was there was another aspect to it. It seemed like his survival was set up for success every step of the way: Joey was there to find him, the paramedics came and got him to the hospital in Fort Collins in time to have him taken by helicopter to the best possible neurosurgeon available at University Hospital in Denver, where they were able to immediately pull the clot and restore his brain function.
To be with him now, you would never know it took place. Therapists have sent him on his way and he is back at UIC for the fall semester.
Thank you God! And thank you friends and family for loving and comforting us during that time with visits, comments, texts, phone calls and financial donations. It really helped us to get through it. This goes for you too Kay Marie <3<3<3
We love you Jason McClellan! And we are so glad you are still with us! All I can do is wonder why it happened to you of all people? Maybe because you were the one who could handle it? If nothing else, it brought our family closer together and made us realize what’s really important in this life. We are blessed to be able to take that from it.
#LOVE #LifeIsPrecious”
The response was loving and supportive. So many awesome people caring about our family.
Back to School
The specialists worked hard to figure out how and why it happened, but never gave us an answer. They worked with him on coordination, motor skills and speech and he was doing very well within a matter of days. An absolute miracle as far as I was concerned. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t know anything had happened, but there were still issues. The next decision was, does he go back to school in the Fall? He decided yes. Jason was blessed to have played one good season with the team, but was no longer able to participate. He was however, able to keep his academic scholarship, which we were very grateful for! Getting back into the flow of college classes wasn’t easy for him though. He now had a bit of a learning disability. It wasn’t that he lacked intelligence, it was more that he struggled taking notes in class and transferring information from his brain into text. His condition is called “aphasia, which is a “loss of ability to understand or express speech, caused by brain damage.” Regardless of his issues, everything seemed to be going fine until one fall day…
A Second Massive Stroke
It happened October 9th, 2015. This time on both sides of his brain. Luckily his roommates were home when he was found crawling out of his room. They knew something was very wrong and they called the paramedics immediately. THANK GOD (and his roommates of course!). Paramedics came and scooped him up within a short period of time and got him to the hospital within a matter of a few minutes. EVERY MINUTE COUNTS. Jason lives in downtown Chicago in little Italy and the hospital he was taken to was only a couple miles away. The neurosurgeon was able to pull both clots out quickly once again. One of his roommates called Joe while it was all taking place, which started another panic in our family while we figured out our next moves from a thousand miles away. By the time I arrived in Chicago, he was still in the hospital but seemed just fine – almost. He was able to recover more quickly than the previous time. Maybe it was because the clots were removed within a shorter time frame? He was able to leave the hospital the evening I got there.
After a battery of more tests, the doctors still had no idea what was causing it. They put him on blood thinners and a statin drug to decrease his risk of another stroke. They also inserted a heart monitor which would record everything over a period of two years. I just kept asking myself “how could this be happening to such a strong young body? Why him?” While I was there in Chicago, I stayed on the couch in his bedroom and the night before I was to leave, Jason said something to me that completely shook me to my core. Just as we were shutting our eyes to go to sleep, Jason said “Mom, what if it happens again when you’re gone?” The shakiness of his voice was absolute fear. It was a comfort for him to have his momma there on the couch right next to his bed after such a scary event and OH MY GOD, I had never heard him like that. It crushed me. Of course, he’s going to be fearful and who else is this strong beautiful human going to be so vulnerable with but his mom? I took his hand and let him know I was right there and all he had to do was reach for me and I’d take immediate action. I also cancelled my flight and stayed a few more days until he felt more comfortable. Our time was spent eating, relaxing and riding bikes around the harbor – almost like it never happened!
A Partial Diagnoses
It took a while, but we later found out from part of the team of specialists, that Jason has a genetic disorder in the MTHFR (methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) gene (i.e. the motherfucker gene, so I can remember it). According to https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/MTHFR, “Polymorphisms in the MTHFR gene have also been studied as possible risk factors for a variety of common conditions. These include heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure (hypertension), high blood pressure during pregnancy (preeclampsia), an eye disorder called glaucoma, psychiatric disorders, and certain types of cancer. Research indicates that individuals who have the 677C>T polymorphism on both copies of the MTHFR gene have an increased risk of developing vascular disease, including heart disease and stroke.” From what I’ve gathered by doing my own research, this probably isn’t the only culprit, only a contributing factor. Jason is now taking a folate supplement along with blood thinners, and has his INR (International Normalized Ratio) checked regularly.
Two Strokes and a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications
It was hard for me to imagine Jason going back to school after all this adversity, but it wasn’t my decision to make. There wasn’t a question in his mind. He was going to finish school and finish he did! He graduated with his Bachelor’s in Communications and our family was there to cheer him on!
Through all of this, Jason has taken on a new motto, “No bad days!” When I associate it to all he’s been through, it helps me get through my own mental bullshit and realize my problems are miniscule compared to what they could be. Jason is my hero!
His attitude a day after his second stroke in a Facebook post:
“I’ll tell you one thing… It’s gonna take a lot more than a couple severe strokes to take me down.”
Since then he became somewhat of a poster boy for youth stroke. His neurosurgeon featured him in a series of promotional videos aired on local television in Chicago, and also during the World Series when the Cubs played and won! We had people tell us they saw the video before we knew it had aired!
The thought of completely or even partially losing Jason was the scariest thing our family has been through. We don’t understand why it happened to Jason of all people, but we knew we had to find the good in it. For one, it brought our family closer. We’ve always been close, but It helped us to realize what’s most important in life and that we can always count on each other – as cliché as that may sound. It was the beginning of a better relationship between Joe and I as well. I believe Jason became a stronger person with a greater appreciation for life. Not that he didn’t appreciate it before, he’s always been a go-getter, it’s just that he now realizes how fragile life can be and that any day you are able to wake up to live another day, is a good one. “NO BAD DAYS!”
RECOGNIZE THE SIGNS OF A STROKE AND ACT F.A.S.T.
