Mickey Clancy and her husband were supposed to be heading to Las Vegas to celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary. Instead, they were in an emergency room near their California home,worried that she might have suffered a stroke.

When she woke up that day, the left side of her body was numb, her vision and speech were impaired, she had trouble walking and thinking, and she was nauseous and had a severe headache - all telltale stroke signs that Clancy, then 41, knew all too well, because her sister, then 43, had suffered a stroke six weeks earlier.

Dr. Brian Leahy, Ph.D., Director of Neuropsychology Services at the Alexian Neurosciences Institute, and Tracy Rogers, ABHN Vice President of Operations, (second from left), greet stroke survivors Cari Biamonte (second from right) and Mickey Clancy at the formal launch of the ABHN-ASA partnership to promote SSEEO.

Today,more than 10 years later, Clancy still bristles at the memory of a triage nurse's reaction when Clancy told her she thought she'd had a stroke."Well, what makes you think that?" the nurse asked.

"She asked the question condescendingly, like a 41-year-old couldn't have a stroke and like I wasn't in the medical field, so how could I know the symptoms of a stroke?" says Clancy, a founder of Stroke Survivors Empowering Each Other (SSEEO), a grass-roots group dedicated to providing support and resources to stroke survivors and care givers, advocating on their behalf, and increasing stroke awareness.

The nurse's reaction, Clancy's subsequent treatment in the ER, where she was tested and observed for six hours before a neurologist diagnosed her stroke, and the years of rehabilitation that followed made her determined to ensure that future stroke victims "don't have as difficult time as I had," she says.

Clancy, who suffered the second stage of her stroke less than 48 hours after she was admitted to the hospital, had to learn to walk, talk, think and use her arms and hands again.Now living in Illinois with her husband, she describes herself as fully functional but not fully recovered. She continues to work on her balance and happily reports recent improvements. She considers herself lucky to be alive."I'm always recovering every day," she says."Here I am, 10 years after my stroke, and I'm still improving."

For many of those years, Clancy has worked closely with the American Heart Association (AHA) to make things better for other stroke survivors."I would go and do anything the American Heart Association asked me to do," says Clancy, who has played a leading role in AHA stroke education campaigns and lobbying efforts on behalf of stroke survivors.

Her efforts recently received a boost when Alexian Brothers Hospital Network (ABHN) joined forces with the American Stroke Association (ASA), a division of AHA, to promote SSEEO, the only group of its kind in the nation."It's wonderful. It's awesome. It's great," Clancy says of the new partnership."It proves to me that we are doing the right thing and something that's needed."

ASA decided to partner with ABHN because "Alexian is renowned for their stroke center of excellence," says Katie Neisen,Grass-roots Advocacy Director for the ASA and AHA."They were an obvious partner for a stroke group like SSEEO."

With stroke striking about 700,000 Americans each year, and with growing numbers of survivors because of advances in stroke treatment, the need for stroke education and support services is increasing, says Wende Fedder, Director of ABHN’s Stroke Center.“This is a very integral part of our mission at ABHN: to reach out and partner with other facilities and organizations like the American Heart Association to help people prevent stroke and cope with the residual issues of stroke,” she says.

A key focus of stroke education today is helping people understand that stroke is a medical emergency, says Kelley Clancy,ABHN Assistant Vice President for External Affairs.Medical advances have made it possible not only to save the lives of stroke victims, but also to avoid permanent disabilities. Rapid treatment, however, is critical to victims' chances of survival and recovery." If people don't get to the hospital in time,we can't use these fabulous new techniques to help save their lives," Kelley Clancy says.

Yet people often ignore stroke warning signs or take a wait-and-see approach."They "try to go to bed, shake it off and wait six hours,"Kelley Clancy says. The message ABHN wants to convey is: "Don't wait.Don't you decide.We want you to come in,' '' she says.

SSEEO's mission dovetails with ABHN's commitment to stroke prevention and helping stroke survivors. Since Mickey Clancy and four other stroke survivors founded the group in 2004, the organization has grown rapidly, enlisting nearly 300 stroke survivors and care givers in Illinois.With ABHN's backing, she expects further growth and hopes someday to expand SSEEO nationally as an autonomous organization.

Under the new partnership,ABHN is providing funding and other resources for SSEEO, including a toll-free, call-in support group that connects stroke survivors and care givers with stroke experts about nine times a year.During each callin session, a guest speaker delivers a presentation on a stroke-related topic for 30 to 45 minutes, and the lines then are opened for questions and dialogue among all participants. SSEEO's steering committee selects the topics, and ABHN identifies experts from ABHN or elsewhere to deliver the presentations.

Dr. Brian Leahy, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist and Director of Neuropsychology Services at the Alexian Neurosciences Institute,was the featured speaker during an inaugural three-part series of call-in sessions this past fall. More than 100 people participated in the first session, which occurred Sept. 21 during the formal launch of the new partnership at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, Ill. Leahy addressed the psychological impact of stroke during the first session.His presentations at the next two sessions focused on family and care-giver issues in stroke cases, and the cognitive effects of stroke and techniques for remediation.

"The calls are really helpful to a lot of people, especially downstate, where people may not be able to get to a stroke support group because the closest hospital might be 50 or 60 miles away," Mickey Clancy says.

Plans call for making the call-in sessions available to a wider audience through a Web-based archive, and possibly offering the sessions live via Webcasts. ABHN also plans to work with SSEEO to develop a patient visitor program, under which stroke survivors would visit with recent stroke victims to comfort and encourage them. In addition,ABHN stands ready to connect survivors with rehabilitation programs, support groups and other services.

As SSEEO continues to evolve,Mickey Clancy envisions a "warm-line"program, in which stroke survivors would be on call to counsel other survivors and recent stroke victims by telephone."We're an invisible community," she says of fellow stroke survivors."My wish is to get stroke survivors to believe they are viable people, who can be out in public and can do what everyone else does."

Her overarching goal is to make stroke and its symptoms as well known to the public and health-care personnel as heart attack and its symptoms are.With ABHN's help, she hopes to achieve this goal. "They bring with them the expertise about stroke," she says."They care about stroke. They care about stroke patients and about getting rid of this disease. They realize stroke is a life-changing event that needs to be addressed not only while you're in the hospital or rehabilitation, but also after you get out."