After Monday's news conference, Traci Beasley laughed with Dr. Justin Fraser, left, who treated her at UK Chandler Hospital after she had a stroke in 2012, and Justin Mueller, one of her nurses. HERALD-LEADER|BuyPhoto
University of Kentucky HealthCare has been designated a Comprehensive Stroke Center by The Joint Commission and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.
Michael Karpf, UK's executive vice president for health affairs, announced Monday that the selection fulfilled UK HealthCare's mission to connect Kentuckians with complex conditions to treatment within the state.
The classification "puts us in fine company," he said. UK HealthCare is one of 63 organizations in the United States with the designation, which means its hospital has staff, training and equipment for round-the-clock availability of specialized treatment. In the region, hospitals at the University of Louisville and University of Cincinnati also carry the designation.
Traci Beasley, 35, a stroke patient who teaches elementary school math in Anderson County, was at Monday's announcement to talk about her gratitude to UK HealthCare for getting her back into the classroom just a few months after her stroke in 2012.
Beasley, the mother of two young boys, was at a child's football game when she felt a popping sound, as if there was a sudden change in air pressure, followed by "the worst migraine I'd ever had.
"I was perfectly fine right before then. I was cheering, I was jumping, I was talking to my friends."
Beasley credited her husband and friends for realizing she did not have a typical migraine.
"I said: 'It's just a migraine. I want to go home and I want to go to sleep.' Somewhere in that statement, my words turned into gibberish."
Beasley's husband, Patrick, took her to Frankfort Regional Medical Center. When CAT scans showed bleeding in the brain, Beasley was flown to UK, where it was determined that a weak spot in a vein in Beasley's brain had ruptured.
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UK HealthCare's stroke program receives national designation