Strokes do not check IDs.
By Butch Maier / Photos Courtesy of Christina Hicks-Bailey
They do not care what age you are. Some people think only old people get strokes. When Christina Saldivar had one, she was 26 years old. Now Christina Hicks-Bailey and 32, she reflected on her ordeal to raise awareness for others, as May is American Stroke Month.
In February 2020, Hicks-Bailey was a music teacher at An Achievable Dream Academy in Newport News. After teaching two morning classes, “I just got a really bad headache,” she said. She went to the restroom between classes and called the student teacher to pick up her class. Then Hicks-Bailey passed out. A few minutes later, she came to and saw the nurse over her.
“My memory is a little blotchy after this,” Hicks-Bailey said. “I do remember waking up, and then the principal came in. I call it ‘The Worst Headache of My Life,’ but some people call it a ‘thunderclap headache.’” Hicks-Bailey lost consciousness again. “I didn’t feel really dizzy,” she said, “but I felt weak.”
Hicks-Bailey was put in an ambulance. She said that she, her mother Catherine Saldivar, her sister Bridgett Saldivar, and her then-boyfriend—now husband, Brean Hicks-Bailey—sat in the waiting room of a Newport News emergency room for hours. Christina was blacking out, and Brean “got a little heated because they weren’t doing anything” to help her, Christina said. “I don’t remember any of this,” she said. “This is from what they told me. And they told him he had to go cool off for a bit.” After her boyfriend went outside, she was taken in to get scanned…and immediately rushed in for surgery. Her boyfriend’s concerns were warranted, and he was allowed back in.
Christina Hicks-Bailey had suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm, causing a hemorrhagic stroke—where blood leaks into the space between the brain and skull. She was treated with a procedure called “coiling,” in which tiny platinum coils are inserted through the groin to block blood flow into the aneurysm, inducing clotting.
“It really was a lot to process when I came home,” she said. Hicks-Bailey only remembers bits and pieces of the ensuing months. “I wasn’t able to really look up much,” she said. For the first two months, she could not physically tolerate looking at her phone or the television.
At a follow-up doctor’s appointment, Hicks-Bailey discovered the aneurysm that burst was 8 millimeters…and she is living with another aneurysm that is 2.4 millimeters. Treatment is not recommended until an aneurysm reaches 5.5 millimeters. She gets it checked once a year.
She was cleared to go back to work in June 2020. To this day, she works for Newport News Public Schools. Brean and Christina got married in 2025. They have two children, 4 and 2. Christina, who now takes medication for high blood pressure, feels fortunate to be around for them as her stroke happened right before COVID-19 shut down the world. Her advice?
“Know the bad signs,” she said. “With my specific stroke, it’s a little different. You may not have the face drooping, eyes drooping. It’s really that worst headache of your life—a thunderclap headache. That’s really the big thing to look for….And make sure you have a circle of people that will advocate for you at the hospital.”
Butch Maier
