NEED TO KNOW
- A retired police officer, Nestor Montalvo, woke up with a headache that he likened to a “really bad hangover,” even though he hadn’t been drinking
- When his wife called the paramedics, he learned he was having a stroke — and later, was only given a 15% chance of surviving it
- With surgery and medication, he continues to recover, saying, “I could have been a vegetable”
A man woke up with what felt like a “really bad hangover” — even though he hadn’t been drinking. It turned out to be a symptom of something that could have been fatal.
Nestor Montalvo says he woke up last September with a headache and blurry vision and tells CBS News that when he tried to stand up, “everything started spinning … I fell.”
“I just didn’t understand what was going on. I couldn’t understand it,” the retired NYC police officer, 61, said. “I didn’t know why I was feeling that way.” He compared his symptoms to a “really bad hangover,” but said he hadn’t had any alcohol the day before. His wife called 911, and paramedics said he was having a stroke.
After he was rushed him to Catholic Health’s Mercy Hospital in Nassau, Long Island, he was given the bleak news that he had just 15% chance of making it through. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die. I don’t even have a chance to say goodbye to anybody,’ ” Montalvo told the outlet.
He had suffered an ischemic stroke, which the Cleveland Clinic explains is when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in your brain. “I could have been a vegetable. I could have died,” said Montalvo, who was treated with medication and surgery, which included a tracheotomy as he couldn’t breathe or swallow food on his own. “But they saved my life.”
The road to recovery was tough. “It was a mess. I couldn’t swallow, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t eat,” Montalvo told the outlet. But with speech and physical therapy, he was able to have the tracheotomy reversed and join his family that Thanksgiving for dinner.
“You take life for granted, and then when something like this happens, it wakes you up,” Montalvo told the outlet “You hear people talk about it, and it just sounds like it’s not going to happen to you. All of a sudden, it happens to you.”
He reunited with his care team in May, praising them and saying, “The people you meet along the way, they’re angels.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Read the full article here
