Suzie McClellan had a stroke. And she was only 8 years old.
She’s 17 now, bright-eyed, energetic, confident, a senior at Warren Regina High School, where she is an honor student, a member of the golf and tennis teams and anticipating graduation, college and life beyond.
She remembers the day, March 21. She was a second-grader at St. Thecla School.
“I had been having headaches for about a week. (On that day) I had a really bad headache. I was really dizzy. I couldn’t concentrate.”
Suzie went to the principal’s office, where she passed out. “When I woke up, I couldn’t move. My left side was paralyzed.”
Suzie was transported to Mount Clemens General Hospital, then to St. John’s Hospital in Detroit. With all the medical staff hovering over her, she said she remembered being “worried about my homework.”
The next day, Suzie was air-lifted to U-M’s Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, where she remained for a month and a half.
“They started physical therapy right away,” said Suzie’s mother, Terri McClellan. “I was amazed they started so soon.”
Right along with therapy were prayers, particularly to St. Therese of Lisieux, namesake for Terri (her formal name is Therese) and Suzie’s middle name. “We prayed to her every night,” Terri said. Suzie added: “People sent bottles of holy water. I was being blessed every night. We never stopped praying.”
“Doctors told us they couldn’t guarantee (Suzie’s recovery),” Terri said, “because the size of the damaged brain area was the size of a half-dollar.”
But, energized by the presence and support of parents and grandparents, visits by classmates and friends, letters and messages, she progressed from wheelchair to walker to cane.
“My major goal was to walk down the aisle without a cane for my first holy Communion (in May, barely two months later),” she said.
“She did it,” said Terri. And in a white dress, with sparkling flowers and white tennis shoes.
Aggressive therapy was ongoing. With the help of tutors through the summer, Suzie caught up with her studies to enter third grade at St. Thecla in the fall. By the fifth grade, she said she “started living OK” enough to play soccer wearing leg braces.
In the seventh grade, her father encouraged her to try golf. “I absolutely hated it at first,” she said. When she enrolled at Regina, she tried out for the golf team.
“The first time she was in a match, the other coach offered to allow her to use a cart,” said Bob Artymovich, Regina’s coach. “She refused. She didn’t want to be different.” He added: “It’s been a privilege to coach her.”
A pronated left wrist and a barely discernible limp are the only signs of the stroke. Suzie, who continues therapy on her own, admits to moments of discouragement. In her essay accompanying her college applications, she wrote: “I have learned to see the positive from my situation ... I’ve learned to look at life as a precious gift because it can be changed, even taken away, in an instant.”
In an interview, Suzie said, “I thank God for so many blessings. This has all made me a stronger person.”
It’s also given her a direction for her future. Suzie couldn’t say enough about her “motivated, dedicated, even persistent” therapists. Her life’s goal now is to become a therapist “so that I can have an impact on a patient’s recovery, to get them to work toward their full potential.”
Don Horkey is a freelance writer from Shelby Township.
