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Meilita Pilkionis, 16, suffered a spinal stroke in November that paralyzed her ¡ª all feeling and movement from the neck down was gone. It¡¯s a day ingrained in the mind of her mother, Indre Petrauskaite, a Palos Hills resident.

According to Dr. David Chen, section chief of spinal cord injury for Shirley Ryan ³Ô¹ÏÌìÌÃ91, although spinal strokes aren¡¯t as common as strokes in the brain, spinal strokes occur for similar reasons as brain strokes ¡ª loss of blood flow or a bleed. A disruption in the blood can cause injury or damage to tissues and can block messages (nerve impulses) traveling along the spinal cord. Petrauskaite said her daughter¡¯s nerves didn¡¯t get oxygen, which is carried by blood.

¡°Typically, individuals who develop spinal strokes are usually middle to older age individuals,¡± Chen said. ¡°Young individuals are a little bit more . It¡¯s those individuals where, oftentimes, you can¡¯t find underlying reasons why an individual this young would develop a condition like this.¡±

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Petrauskaite said her daughter will stay at Shirley Ryan ³Ô¹ÏÌìÌÃ91 until March 25, but Pilkionis is determined not to come home in a wheelchair. Instead, she¡¯s making plans to pick up where she left off ¡ª hanging out with friends.

¡°I miss driving around and the feeling of walking and being able to shower on my own every day,¡± Pilkionis said. ¡°I¡¯m going to try teaching my little brother how to play tennis.¡±

Since November, Pilkionis has made strides in her recuperation. Now at the Shirley Ryan ³Ô¹ÏÌìÌÃ91, Pilkionis is doing rehabilitation the majority of each day, according to her mom. It took Pilkionis a month and a half to talk, and now she is off the ventilator for three hours a day. Pilkionis says her right side is getting stronger, but her left side is ¡°not waking up still.¡±

Help from family and friends is getting both mother and daughter through this. Petrauskaite¡¯s sister traveled from Lithuania to help care for her 2-year-old son, Edward (who Pilkionis has only been able to see through FaceTime since her stroke.) Slezak, who used to see Pilkionis up to five times a week on the tennis courts, stays in touch with Petrauskaite ¡°pretty much every day through text or call.¡±

Chen said atherosclerotic disease can be an underlying condition that causes some spinal strokes.

¡°A narrowing of the arteries and the vessels that go to the spinal cord can be sufficient enough to cause a loss of blood flow to that area and therefore cause the spinal stroke,¡± he said. Chen added that spinal stroke victims oftentimes can recover very well, and even if they don¡¯t, they¡¯re able to resume as close to a normal life, in terms of function, as someone who doesn¡¯t have this condition.

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