Lisa O'Neill Hill had a stroke at 22 and didn't recognize the symptoms when she had a second stroke in January.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- The first time I had a stroke, I was 22, too young and naive to know what was happening.
The second time I had one, about two months ago, I didn't recognize the symptoms and resisted my husband when he suggested that we go straight to the emergency room.
In the United States, someone has a stroke about every 40 seconds. And about a quarter of those people have had a stroke before.
Having a stroke increases the risk of another, and recurrent strokes have a higher death and disability rate because parts of the brain injured by the first stroke may not be as resilient, according to the National Stroke Association.
On January 3, just after I'd finished dinner at home with my family, my second stroke hit. I thought I knew a lot about stroke, but I had no idea that my sudden loss of vision meant I was going down that road again.
"One of the tricky things about stroke is that no two strokes are alike," said Jim Baranski, chief executive officer of the National Stroke Association. "Each one is uniquely different. Therefore, the signs and symptoms can be different. One of the things that all of them have in common is the suddenness."
One minute I was standing up, and the next I was buckling, telling my husband, Toby, that I couldn't see. Yet, I foolishly thought this would pass and told Toby that I just needed to lie down.
Stroke: Knowing the warning signs in women
Read more from the original source:
No two strokes are alike