Sarah Miles was 33 when she woke up to a 'severe' headache: 'My gut was telling me that wasn't normal'

Sarah Miles was just shy of her 34th birthday when she was woken up by "quite a severe headache."

"I just thought, 'Something doesn't feel right'," she tells 9honey.

When she woke up the next day, she noticed her vision was partially obstructed which she put down to "really tired eyes," having been woken up the previous night by her six-month-old son Benji and the headache.

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"In the shower it wasn't going away," the Victorian mum recalls. "I told my husband who was working from home and he went to good old Dr. Google? and it said I might be having a stroke."

She dismissed the suggestion, opting to see her optometrist instead.

?"He did the usual visual fields test on me and he said, 'It doesn't look good at all.'" He too mentioned the possibility Miles may be having a stroke.

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"I think I was quite naive," she says. ?"All I knew about strokes were that they only ever happened to really old people and when it happened to them, it was basically a death sentence."

An ambulance wasn't called. Instead her husband Jeremy drove her to the nearest emergency room with a referral from her optometrist?.

?"They basically whisked me off straight away to the back," she says.

Tests confirmed a blood clot in her brain but now how or why it had developed.

"I know my body and I know that up until then I was completely fine," she says.

"It was that headache, I remember it woke me up and just something in my gut was telling me that wasn't normal."

Doctors began treatment with an injection and medication to dissolve the clot "and then it's just sort of a blur" she says.

"Everything happens so quickly and then I've got all these doctors and specialists and nurses coming in, telling me things and I'm trying to keep up."?

Each time hers and Jeremy's eyes met, Miles felt the gravity of the situation.?

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"I knew he was freaking out so I was freaking out internally but I didn't want to worry him anymore," she says.

They discovered the clot had originated from a dissected artery in the back of her neck. Doctors asked questions about her activities over the past few days.

"I knew he was freaking out so I was freaking out internally but I didn't want to worry him anymore."

?"A couple of days before I was out the back of our house loading wood into the wheelbarrow and bringing it back to our house," she says.

"That's not exactly a strenuous walk and I've done it that many times. They said I fell into a certain percentage of people that these things just happen to and there's no explanation for it."

Some of her eyesight returned, but not all of it.?

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"?Some of it did return and they did say that if it's going to return, it will return anywhere between a few weeks to about a couple of months and anything outside of that is pretty much permanent," she says.

"I've still got a blind spot, but I can drive. I've been given the all-clear as far as the vision goes," Miles says. "For a very long time, post the stroke, I couldn't drive. And that was probably the hardest thing to deal with because that was my independence, especially with four kids."

Aside from her vision problems and bouts of fatigue, Miles has recovered from her ordeal and with a new lease on life, deciding to sign up to play AFL with local team the Macedon Cats.

"I grew up in a footy home and my brother always played it, my dad loved it, he even coached my brother and it's just part of life," she says. Her husband also played AFL.

So far she's only played one season but has already earned a trophy.

??"After it [the stroke] I did a lot of reading and a lot of research and stuff like that, so sort of then realizing just how dangerous a stroke is and where you can end up," she says.

"You look inwards and you start re-evaluating everything," she says.

Sarah is sharing her story to raise awareness about a research breakthrough from the Heart Research Institute, with scientists discovering a molecule in broccoli triples the effectiveness of clot-busting medication given to stroke patients and can reduce the likelihood of a stroke occurring.

This research continues, with the hope the breakthrough can be used in the future to treat stroke victims.?

When it comes to advice for busy mums who may be putting concerns on the backburner, Miles says: "As mothers we are so guilty of just fobbing things off and rationalising them as something else."

"It absolutely does not hurt to question it and seek professional help. You're not a bother. Even if it is something minor, something small, if it doesn't feel right, it's not right."

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