09/26/2026
TLDR: Amy had a stroke, should’ve died, miracles abound.
I’m up early, and I’m so grateful to be alive. On Tuesday morning right at 9:00 a.m., I had a stroke. Not a TIA, a STROKE, and if it had been any normal morning, I would have died alone at my house.
Anyone who knows me knows I have a lot of energy, but that’s not how I am in the mornings. I “ease into my day,” as Daddy used to say. I will put off getting ready for work until the last possible minute and I constantly joke that if the Judge is not on the bench yet, I’m not late.
But Tuesday morning, I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned at Winn Smiles (shoutout Lara McPeters Fretwell). I wasn’t supposed to - they had a cancellation and plugged me in. I didn’t have an appointment until 9:30, and that was a phone conference, which I would have normally done from my bed with my pajamas still on.
Instead, I was at Winn Smiles at 8, and as I was leaving about an hour later, I saw some sparks in my vision, like you do when you have a really amazing stretch. I got in my car and dictated a text message to Leah Metheney Nerren (shoutout Leah!) and, because I’m a nerd, I was dictating punctuation. I noticed that I couldn’t seem to say the words “exclamation point.” I tried over and over, and eventually deleted the gibberish that Siri thought I was saying, punctuated with a period, and started to drive to the office. It was 8:59 a.m.
I talk to Mom every morning on my way to work, so I called her (shoutout Donna M. Campbell). She immediately knew something was wrong because she couldn’t understand a word I was saying. She asked if they had numbed my mouth just for a cleaning or if they’d put me to sleep or something, and I realized something was very off and I didn’t need to be driving. I parked about 15 feet away from where I started, and was already so affected that I bumped the car in front of me. This was MAYBE 2 minutes after I had just spoken to people checking out at the dentist and gotten into my car. It was that fast.
Turns out, the person I hit was either in her car or walking to her car, and came to my passenger window. I know now that it was a former client who recognized me, but I couldn’t see clearly by that time. She asked if I had bumped her car and I tried to speak but really couldn’t. Mom was still on the phone but my Bluetooth hadn’t even had time to connect yet - that’s how fast it was - and I handed the phone to the lady in the parking lot and had to focus all of my energy to say “I think I’m having a stroke.”
I could barely talk, but I could hear Mom saying to go back into Dr. Lara’s office and ask for help. I tried to get out of the car, but my whole left side was numb by that time. I fell out of the car into the parking lot, and two gentlemen doing electrical work at Winn Smiles saw it happen and came over to help. I didn’t know who they were at the time - just that they were very concerned and had on orange t-shirts. One of them called 911, I think maybe from my phone, but I’m not sure, because I think maybe Lara (who is one of my best friends) was talking on my phone to Mom.
This was probably 5 minutes after I had been walking and talking normally. Maybe less.
I remember now, after Lara reminded me, that she helped get me back in the car, took my pulse and was loving on me, keeping me calm. I tried to take a drink out of my water bottle and it ran straight out of my mouth because I was already drooping on my right side. Lara said I was sweating bullets, and if you know me well, you know I don’t like to sweat at all, so that wasn’t normal by any means.
I barely remember the ambulance arriving, but I remember asking the young man attending to me what his name was. He said “Josh Baker” and I remember thinking his mother must be so proud of him. (Shoutout Josh Baker!) I thought about my kids, and Suzanne Stanley and Austin Campbell and Emily Quinn, and all the clients I have, (117 at last count) and asked Josh to please take good care of me because a lot of people depend on me. I just now remembered that I said at least 2 or 3 times “this is so distressing!’ which is the nerdiest thing in the world to say in a crisis! I must have sounded like a drunk C-3PO.
I also remembered I had seen a Facebook Reel a few days prior about the importance of getting the clot-buster shot as quickly as possible, and I asked Josh to please hurry, that I needed that shot as fast as I could get it.
All of this was maybe 10 minutes from when I had been walking and talking normally. Not only did the stroke hit that fast, EMS was there like lightening. I got help within seconds of the onset of symptoms. And any other day, I would have most likely been alone in my home.
We went straight to Memorial Hospital’s stroke center. I just remember sounds and feeling motion - having some sort of scan, someone explaining that I was having a stroke that they were administering TPK (shoutout lifesaving drugs!), and the anesthesiologist telling me they were going to put me to sleep to do surgery on my brain to retrieve the clot. I think I gave a thumbs up.
I woke up in a hospital room with my kids, who I almost orphaned.
Suzanne, Austin and Emily were there as soon as they’d let them in the room, and my Mom and Peggy Selph Bratcher (who had driven her from McMinnville - shoutout Ms. Peggy!), and then Melissa Ming, who had jumped on a plane from Chicago. I was surrounded by people who love me and I was so grateful to see everyone’s faces, even though they all looked so worried.
Before too long, Dr. Bravo (great name, huh?), the neurologist came in and explained what happened. My right carotid artery tore at some point, and a clot formed, like it should have. But due to the volume of the blood flow, the clot broke loose and went to my brain. He repeatedly said that I was having a “big stroke,” but that we got me there and they had been able to administer the clot buster and do the surgery so quickly, he was optimistic.
They did a second MRI, and here is where more miracles happen - THERE WAS NO SIGN OF ANY DAMAGE. Dr. Bravo had to double-check that he was looking at the correct scan. The radiologist did not read the results as being a person who had just had a stroke. There’s literally no brain damage.
I’m typing this right now. I can type. Quickly. Just like I could on Monday at work. I have a headache, and my right eye is a little droopy and my left is swollen. My neck is a bit sore, and I can’t ride roller-coasters any more. I’m not allowed to work out or stretch in ways that could hurt my neck, but who are we kidding - I didn’t work out anyway! I’m under Dr.’s orders to rest for a couple of weeks and work as little as possible, and I’m going to do my best to do that.
But I am a walking, talking miracle. Me being at a fill-in dentist appointment rather than at home by myself, me hitting a car in the parking lot rather than someone on the road, good Samaritans jumping into action, Lara being there to comfort Mom on the phone, EMS being just down the street and getting me to Memorial so quickly, and all of the care I received there being top notch and so FAST - All of these things are nothing short of miraculous.
There is no other explanation for my being here than God being in His Heaven and loving me. Too many things went perfectly for anyone to say it’s a coincidence that I am alive. I am humbled and blessed and waiting for the sun to rise and to hear the birds singing outside, with my Mom and the kids asleep in the house, healthy and happy and safe and comfortable. And ALIVE.
I’ve never been a person who is loud about my faith. I won’’t even pray out loud because I’m afraid I’ll accidentally call God “Your Honor” out of habit. I’m a Methodist, and we are pretty boring - method is in the NAME. But I have always had the structured, constant, consistent feeling of undergirding that my parents and First United Methodist Church in McMinnville TN instilled in me. I’ve always known that, no matter what, everything would be OK.
I am so very blessed to have been right about that.
