JP’s Story: Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices After Mild Stroke

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J.P. Betsill has sayings that his sister affectionately calls “JPisms.”

One of his common JPisms, he says, is: “Life gives us a preview. It’s up to us if we want to watch the movie.”

He’s incorporating that JPism into his own life after suffering a mild stroke in December 2024.

Rapid treatment at UPMC Harrisburg helped save J.P.’s life and preserve his motor functions. J.P. says the stroke served as a wake-up call to make lifestyle changes for better health and to spread awareness to others about strokes.

“This isn’t just something that 90 days in, a year and a half in, (I’m going to stop),” says J.P., 61, of Harrisburg, Pa. “This is a true life change for me, and I have to address it as such.”

Sudden Symptoms

Dec. 13, 2024, began on a high note for J.P.

J.P. worked as an over-the-road tractor-trailer driver, and he’d completed a 10-hour trek from South Carolina to his home in one day. He’d only accomplished the feat a handful of times in all his years of driving.

“I started my day around 5:30 a.m. and ended it a little bit before 9 p.m., and for that accomplishment, I was elated,” J.P. says. “It was just a splendid day emotionally.”

Soon after he arrived home, J.P. received an unexpected call from his best friend, who invited J.P. to his home for a small get-together. J.P. says it was only the second call like that that he had ever received from his friend.

“Had this phone call not taken place, there is a high probability I would have been home alone,” J.P. says.

Early into Saturday morning, J.P. was playing a video game when he felt a sudden numbness in his left hand.

“I liken it to something like a camera flash,” J.P. says. “In a moment’s notice, there was a flash, and in my left hand, I had the joystick, and I just dropped it. I had no feeling in my left hand. It was like the proverbial ‘sleepy hand.’”

For about the next hour, J.P. tried getting the numb feeling to go away, but it remained. He left his friend’s house with his cousin. When he dropped his cousin off, J.P. asked him to do a wellness check on him the next day.

However, when J.P. returned to his house and attempted to retrieve his mail, he couldn’t hold onto it.

“It was like a newborn trying to hold mail,” he recalls. “It was three attempts, and it was falling out of my hand. Right then and there, I’m like, ‘That is not right.’ And in my mind, I even said the word, ‘Stroke.’”

Knowing he needed help immediately, J.P. called 911.

Emergency Stroke Care

J.P. was taken by ambulance to the UPMC Harrisburg Emergency Department. He arrived at 4 a.m., and staff quickly assessed his condition.

“In no time flat, there were three doctors, two orderlies, four nurses on me,” J.P. says. “They whisked me back to the CT scanner.”

“Within moments,” J.P. says, the emergency department staff connected with a UPMC neurologist via video. The neurologist viewed J.P.’s imaging and diagnosed him with a mild stroke.

The emergency department team quickly administered a clot-busting medication and admitted J.P. to the intensive care unit (ICU) for monitoring.

“I was just so grateful,” J.P. says of his care team. “They truly made me feel like I was the most important person in front of them. There wasn’t a question I couldn’t ask. There wasn’t a situation that occurred that they weren’t abreast of.”

Thanks to the clot-busting agent, the feeling in J.P.’s left hand began to return. He says by Saturday evening, the hand was at about 65% strength.

While in the ICU on Saturday afternoon, J.P. says he had a moment of clarity as he struggled to use a fork while eating a salad.

“I was almost cursing myself in my mind, and it was an out-of-body experience,” he says. “I stepped out of myself, looked at myself, and said, ‘J, we can’t hold the fork because we’re in the ICU unit of the hospital because we sustained a stroke.’

“It was a mental pause for me that just made everything crystal clear.”

J.P.’s care team also gave him informational literature about strokes. As he read it, J.P. says he realized how lucky he was.

“(The stroke) didn’t affect my motor skills, my speaking skills, my cognitive abilities,” he says. “Everything was intact other than below my left wrist.”

While he was in the hospital, J.P. began inpatient physical therapy that focused on strengthening his left hand and side.

The hospital discharged him on Tuesday evening. A few days later, he returned to the emergency department with cards and flowers to thank his care team.

“I can’t be more expressive as to share and give my gratitude to them,” he says. “I just cannot speak enough on their attentiveness, their caring, their knowledge. They felt like cousins.”

Making Healthier Choices

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 795,000 Americans have strokes each year. Although the risk increases as people age, 38% of strokes occur in people under 65. And about 1 in 4 strokes occur in people who previously had a stroke.

Six months post-stroke, J.P. remains determined to become healthier. He’s made lifestyle changes to cut down on his risk factors for stroke.

Although he previously enjoyed smoking an occasional cigar, J.P. no longer smokes. He reduced his alcohol consumption and cut down on sugary carbonated drinks. He also greatly reduced his consumption of fried foods and unhealthy snacks.

“A lot of my diet (before the stroke) consisted of a lot of fried foods,” he says. “I’ve waned away from the fried foods. There are a lot of salads, a lot of tuna sandwiches. I’ve gone from fried chicken to tuna.”

After his stroke, J.P. had to get recertified to drive a tractor-trailer. He took about six weeks off to recover and get recertified, and now he’s back to driving.

Although driving long hours can make it difficult to make healthy food choices, J.P. is sticking to his new diet.

“This is not something that’s happened overnight,” he says. “It’s been a conscious approach where I’ve been at the counter or the table reading the menu, and in my mind, thinking, ‘Man, that filet looks good with those mashed potatoes, but the salmon over here with the broccoli and the asparagus, that’s heart-healthier.’”

J.P.’s efforts are having an effect. He says he’s lost 45 pounds in the six months since his stroke, after previously weighing about 300. He’s had to buy two new belts to accommodate his slimmer waist.

His next step is to increase his exercise through walking.

“I’m fortunate to have the mighty Susquehanna River in my region, and I’m able to take walks along there,” he says.

Before his stroke, J.P. says he always thought of strokes as debilitating. He knows friends and family members who have had severe strokes.

He now knows that not all strokes are the same and not all of them present with the typical warning signs. He now advocates for stroke awareness and encourages people to stay mindful of their health.

“We only have one body, and our body is our temple,” he says. “We have to look at it as such.

“You have to know the individual in the mirror because they know your truth. You can lie to everyone but that person in the mirror, and you know what you’re doing as an individual to sustain yourself, to keep yourself upright, to keep yourself healthy.”

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on August 20, 2025, and was last reviewed on October 22, 2025.