Christina Smith woke up with a headache after celebrating her niece's birthday the night prior but never suspected that it could be a brain tumor. (Fox 26 Houston)
A Houston mother who went to bed with a suspected hangover and woke up paralyzed in the hospital is back in nursing school after undergoing major brain surgery to remove an aggressive tumor. Christina Smith, who woke up with a headache after celebrating her niece’s birthday the night prior, had no other symptoms, Fox 26 Houston reported.
“I had the biggest headache all day, and when I finally went to sleep, I had a seizure and I didn’t even know,” the 23-year-old told the news outlet.
Smith’s husband, Willie, witnessed the seizure and she was rushed to Bayshore Medical Center, where doctors discovered an aggressive tumor wrapped around a major blood vessel in her brain.
“There was no way to remove that tumor without removing part of that vein,” Dr. John Tynes, chief medical officer at Bayshore Medical Center, told the news outlet. “When you take out the vein in the brain, as you can imagine, there are risks associated with that — risks like stroke, permanent brain damage, paralysis, so it was a very difficult, very brave decision that the care time at Bayshore and Christina and Willie made, to go ahead and have the surgery.”
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When Smith woke up, she was completely paralyzed on her right side. She began rehabilitation therapies in the hospital and began recovering quicker than expected.
“I was expected to have inpatient rehab and the next thing you know I started recovering a lot faster than normal, so I didn’t need much rehab at all,” Smith told the news outlet, adding that she’s since returned to nursing school.