NEED TO KNOW
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Florida teacher Todd Meiklejohn suffered a massive stroke at home while getting ready for his day on Aug. 8, 2025
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Meiklejohn made a remarkable recovery, leaving the hospital in under 48 hours, returning to work within four weeks and completing a 100-mile bike ride two months later
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Looking back, Meiklejohn credits his “miracle” recovery to his wife and one specific decision she made that day
A Florida man was getting ready for an early morning meeting when his day took a terrifying turn.
Todd Meiklejohn, an adult education teacher in his mid-50s, had gotten up around 6 a.m. and was going through his usual morning routine on Aug. 8, 2025, according to a CBS News.
Then, without warning, he felt an intense squeezing pain.
What happened next remains hazy in his memory. Meiklejohn could see through only one eye and had lost movement on the right side of his body.
“I must have exited the bathroom. I went down on the wall, and I just remember the paralysis on my right side,” he recalled.
Heart rate monitor (stock image)
Credit: getty
As an accomplished athlete and avid cyclist, he suddenly became unable to control his body.
“I just kept falling,” Meiklejohn said. “I just didn’t have enough strength.”
About 45 minutes later, his wife — a nurse who had previously left the house to go to the gym — returned home on her way to work.
She discovered her husband on the floor and immediately called 911. Meiklejohn was rushed to Miami Neuroscience Institute at Baptist Health, where doctors determined he was experiencing a massive stroke.
For Dr. Guilherme Dabus, the interventional neuroradiologist who treated him, every minute mattered.
“Time is brain,” Dabus said while speaking to CBS News.
A stroke occurs when the brain’s blood supply is blocked or interrupted, depriving brain tissue of oxygen. The longer that interruption lasts, the greater the potential for permanent damage.
Doctors quickly decided to perform something called a mechanical thrombectomy, a procedure that uses a catheter to physically remove a blood clot and restore circulation to the brain. Dabus said reopening the blocked vessel “basically almost resuscitates” the affected brain tissue.
Just 38 minutes after his wife placed the 911 call, Meiklejohn was undergoing the procedure.
The speed of his treatment made an enormous difference. Dabus said Meiklejohn was left with very little permanent damage, and soon after the procedure, he could once again speak and move the right side of his body.
Less than 48 hours after the stroke, he was able to leave the hospital.
Dabus described the recovery as “amazing.”
“I remember [Dr.] Dabus coming in and saying, ‘You’re a miracle,’ ” Meiklejohn recalled. “I’m one of the lucky patients to say I’m blessed that I was able to walk out and tell this story.”
But after doctors stabilized him, another question remained: Why had an otherwise healthy, active man suffered a serious stroke?
Before that morning, Meiklejohn said he had “been very blessed health-wise up until that moment,” adding that he rarely even came down with a cold.
Doctors initially explored whether a clot had developed in his leg before traveling to his brain, but testing and his medical history did not support that explanation. Their attention then turned to his heart.
Scans ultimately revealed a patent foramen ovale, or PFO — a small opening between the heart’s upper chambers that ordinarily closes shortly after birth.
According to the Mayo Clinic, while most people born with PFO experience no complications throughout life, the opening can provide a pathway for a blood clot to reach the brain in rare cases.
Once doctors identified the PFO, Meiklejohn underwent a minimally invasive procedure to close it. Dabus said the procedure was successful and that his patient’s chances of experiencing another stroke are now “very, very small.”
Over the year that followed the scary ordeal, Meiklejohn turned his attention to rebuilding his strength and endurance.
He returned to work just four weeks after his procedure. And only two months after suffering the stroke, the dedicated cyclist completed a 100-mile bike ride.
However, some reminders of that morning remain. Meiklejohn still has scars on his legs from injuries he sustained while repeatedly falling, and now must keep a close eye on his blood pressure and heart rate.
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He also sometimes finds himself thinking about how differently the morning could have ended had his wife not happened to return home when she did.
“Thank God, she came back,” he said.
Read the original article on People