Hope sounds different to Tim Lantz these days — sometimes, it sounds like the voice of his 14-year-old daughter, Cassidy. The Maysville eighth grader has spent two weeks in intensive care since a stroke on October 20, and she is now feeding herself at times, taking short assisted walks and, every once in a while, speaking again, her father told the Zanesville Times Recorder.
Cassidy grabbed her head in a hallway at school on October 20, collapsed, and was rushed to Genesis Hospital, the Zanesville Times Recorder reported. Emergency personnel noticed her slurred speech and some paralysis on the right side of her face, and doctors discovered a blood clot on the left side of her brain, which caused the stroke.
She was transported to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, where she underwent emergency surgery to remove the clot, the Times Recorder reported. A few days later, doctors performed a decompressive craniectomy, removing a piece of her skull to relieve pressure around her brain.
“She’s doing better,” Tim Lantz told the Zanesville Times Recorder. “We knew this couldn’t be it. This is just a bump in the road. This is Cassidy. This is building her testimony of how she’s going to make it through this and help others who could have another situation similar to this.”
The progress since has come in small, hard-won steps, the Times Recorder reported. There is still some paralysis on her right side and she has been mostly nonverbal, but she has been able to feed herself at times and is back to eating regular food. She has played cards with a therapist, sat on the edge of the bed, and taken a short walk with some assistance. And sometimes, rarely, her voice comes back. “It wasn’t a death sentence, and we weren’t taking it as one either,” her father told the Times Recorder. “She’s going to make it through and be just as good as she was before.”
Her mother, Cindy, stays at the hospital most of the time, and Tim — a lieutenant with the South Zanesville Fire Department — has recently returned to work and travels back and forth, the Times Recorder reported. Her brother Ian has also supported her. Cassidy, 14, is a soccer player for Maysville and a dancer with Marjorie and Butch’s School in downtown Zanesville.
“We’re staying hopeful. We are, through lots of prayers from us and the community and our church. Our faith is strong so that’s what keeping us through this,” Tim Lantz told the Zanesville Times Recorder. “We’re so thankful for the community. The school has been great. They’ve stayed in contact, asking how she’s doing. Her friends and her friends’ families. They’ve sent cards. She hasn’t been able to respond. So, she’s now reading them and we’re reading them to her. She’s thankful for all the gifts she’s been sent.”
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed, through her father’s account to the Zanesville Times Recorder, is the arc so far: an October 20 stroke caused by a blood clot, emergency surgery and a craniectomy at Nationwide Children’s, two weeks of intensive care, and measurable recovery — eating, cards, sitting up, short walks, occasional speech. What is not yet known is the cause of the blood clot, which her father told the Times Recorder is still unclear. Families across Muskingum County have been following her progress alongside their neighbors in South Zanesville and the wider Zanesville community.
What happens next is rehab. Cassidy will soon be moved to a new floor to start therapy and rehabilitation, with at least three weeks of that work ahead, her father told the Times Recorder, and it will be approximately three months before doctors can replace the piece of her skull, allowing time for swelling levels to settle.
Her father’s fire department is helping carry the family through it. The South Zanesville Fire Department held a meat raffle on November 7 and has two more fundraisers planned, the Times Recorder reported: a chicken barbecue at 11 a.m. on November 15 at the South Zanesville Fire Department — 1,500 carryout meals at $15 each, with a half chicken, applesauce, coleslaw and a roll — and a benefit from 3 to 8 p.m. on November 20 at VFW Post 1058, 1318 Putnam Ave., with music, food, raffles and a dessert auction.
Photo: David Brossard, CC BY-SA