Her centre of independence
GEELONG woman Sienna Posso was just 16 when she had the first of three strokes.
In 2008, Ms Posso was on a family holiday in Gibraltar when she started having severe migraines. She had no memory of experiencing the stroke that left her in an emergency department for weeks and stopped her from returning to Australia for four months.
Ms Posso suffered extreme fatigue, but eventually regained her strength. She was able to graduate high school and forge a career.
“I went back to a normal life and became a pastry chef,” Ms Posso said.
Then in 2015, the fatigue returned and Ms Posso was eventually told she had a rare heart condition, known as mitral valve stenosis, which doctors had failed to diagnose at birth. Ms Posso’s mitral valve was so narrow that up to 95 per cent of her blood was failing to properly get through the valve.
Aged 24, she underwent extensive open-heart surgery to correct the valve.
Unfortunately, Ms Posso suffered a second stroke during the surgery and another shortly after. Those two strokes were far more debilitating than her first, leaving her with a weakened left side and unable to walk. “I was leftside affected, I didn’t have any paralysis but I was uncoordinated and didn’t know if I would walk again,” she said.
While she gradually regained strength, Ms Posso felt increasingly disconnected from her friends.
“I felt like I didn’t really fit in with friends who were partying when I couldn’t go out or work,” she said.
“I used a walking frame and (stroke) just changes your life.”
Ms Posso joined the Barwon Stroke Support Centre when it opened in 2017 and credits the program with helping her to regain confidence and independence.
The state government-funded centre has assisted 3261 stroke survivors and the program is being expanded across regional Victoria.
Ms Posso now works at the centre as a regional co-ordinator and said being surrounded by people who had similar stories to her had been life-changing.
“It encourages you to push yourself, without the centre I don’t think I would be walking,” she said.
The program gives stroke survivors vocational support and confidence to prepare them to return to work in a capacity that suits their situation poststroke.