After surviving a stroke, Trillium cofounder puts his heart into marathon
JC Tetreault didn’t think it would happen to him.
The moment when the cliche became real for Trillium Brewing Company’s cofounder happened in 2021, just before Christmas, when Tetreault awoke on a Sunday feeling a little off.
“When I woke up I felt like I had banged my head, but not really hard. And I had a headache going on, and was sort of seeing stars,” says Tetreault. “If you’ve ever banged your head in the garage or whatever, you kind of have that uncomfortable feeling.
But it wasn’t severe at all. And I was like, ‘Oh, just go back to bed.’ I took some ibuprofen to knock the headache out.”
The headache subsided, but Tetreault’s other symptoms did not. At the urging of his wife, Trillium cofounder Esther Tetreault, JC sought medical attention.
“Esther and I were sitting in the ER saying, ‘OK, the next test is gonna show us that it’s not a big deal, right? OK, not that one, but the next one,’” says Tetreault.
“We’re talking to the ER doctor, who’s a big fan of Trillium, and so the mood always lightens when you start talking about that kind of stuff. But that changed pretty significantly when his face turned serious coming in with the MRI results.”
Tetreault, 45 at the time, had suffered a stroke. Luckily for him it was minor, but it left him with a hole in his vision that only got a little better. On the trivial side, he’s now terrible at PingPong. On the serious side, Tetreault, who says he exercised regularly and had no known health problems prior to his stroke, had thoughts about his own mortality.
Called a TIA (transient ischemic attack), Tetreault’s stroke had no identifiable root cause, though surgery to repair a very small hole in his heart wall, called a patent foramen ovale, reduced Tetreault’s further risks. His story is not unlike that of former New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi, a stroke survivor who has channeled his post-career energy into Tedy’s Team, a nonprofit which raises awareness for stroke and heart disease.
“[Bruschi’s wife] Heidi and I created Tedy’s Team after my stroke to help other stroke survivors and caregivers,” says Bruschi. “Survivors like JC are what makes our team so special. It helps us not only raise more awareness of stroke, but also gives hope to other survivors that you can make a comeback — whatever that comeback may be.”
Tetreault is running the 2024 Boston Marathon for the first time, to raise money for Tedy’s Team. In addition, Trillium will partner with Tedy’s Team for the brewery’s 5K in Canton on May 11. Two Massachusetts breweries, Trillium and the South Shore’s Untold, are separately brewing a beer called Comeback Bru, a medium-bodied hazy IPA, with some of the proceeds supporting Tedy’s Team.