Struck down

By Tania Martin
A KALLISTA girl who suffered a stroke has benefited from a $2 million State Government boost for rehabilitation services at Monash Medical Centre.
Jessica Trott, 16, was playing tennis on Saturday, 17 June, when she had a stroke and has undergone rehabilitation at the Monash Medical Centre for the past three weeks.
Acting Premier John Thwaites last week announced the funding and said it would more than double the capacity of the specialist Victorian Paediatric Rehabilitation Services across the state.
Mr Thwaites met Ms Trott last week and said a specialised paediatric and adolescent rehabilitation service would give people like Jessica the best possible chance of recovery.
Jessica’s father, Andrew, said she was playing tennis at Ferny Creek when the stroke happened.
“She was walking back to the base-line between points and she just stopped.
“She just stood there for a while and I thought she must have done something to her knee which she had previously injured,” he said.
Mr Trott said it was not until Jessica looked up that he noticed that something was seriously wrong.
“She looked up and her lip had dropped on one side, and that’s when we realised something was not right,” he said.
Mr Trott ran onto the court and Jessica told him that she couldn’t move her right arm or leg.
The Trotts rushed Jessica to the Angliss Hospital in Upper Ferntree Gully, where she underwent a number of scans and tests.
Mr Trott said Jessica was then transferred to Monash Hospital for an MRI and to see a neurologist.
However, he said because Jessica had metal anchors in the back of her mouth from her braces the MRI scan was inconclusive.
“The metal in the back of her mouth was blocking the area on the MRI that they wanted to see,” he said.
Jessica then went through a number of tests including a lumbar puncture as the doctors tried to find the cause of her paralysis. Mr Trott said it was finally diagnosed as a major stoke which shocked him because he had never heard of someone so young suffering a stroke.
He said the doctors still don’t know the cause of the stroke but they told the family that in five per cent of cases a cause is never found.
Prior to the stroke Jessica was an active teenager playing tennis and basketball and was a drummer in her school orchestra.
Mr Trott said his daughter was now on the road to recovery and had regained most of her speech and was gaining strength in her leg and arm every day.
During her stay at Monash Jessica started a physiotherapy and speech therapy regime which she is continuing to work on now that she is home from hospital.
Mr Trott said all the staff at Monash and Angliss Hospitals were fantastic and supportive towards Jessica during her diagnosis and recovery.