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At around 10:30 p.m. on April 5, 2010, mortgage professional Suzi Boyle was quietly doing what a lot of other people were doing that night: watching Jay Leno. But for Boyle, that seemingly typical, uneventful evening would turn out to hold one of the most significant events of her life, one both frightening and ultimately meaningful.
At the age of 50 and in good physical health, Boyle suffered a stroke. It is a testament to her character that now, a little over a year later, she believes, "There's so many gifts with a stroke."
Boyle, who has worked in the mortgage industry for 28 years, has always been a powerhouse of work-related and civic involvement. She credits her 2007 chairmanship of the American Heart Association's Go Red campaign for helping save her on that pivotal night.
"As chairperson, I had to know what I was talking about," Boyle said. So she memorized the female warning signs of a heart attack and stroke. However, when she initially began to experience the telltale signs herself, she dismissed them as having other root causes.
When numbness and fatigue set in she thought, "I've had a long day," so she ignored them.
She experienced nausea and began to consider what she might have eaten during the day to make her queasy.
When she was beset by shortness of breath, she thought it was longtime allergies from the cottonwoods so she grabbed her emergency...