Tiffany Rubenkoenig’s ride to the Garth Brooks concert turned out to be the longest and most eventful ride of her life.
Tiffany, her husband Ryan, and other couples had rented a car and driver to take them to AT&T Stadium for the concert on July 30, 2022.
“When I was in the car, I asked if someone would switch seats with me because I was really hot,” she remembers. “My husband looked back and clearly something was up. We got the other couples to the concert and he asked if I wanted to go. I said, no, I want to go home.
“He looked at the driver and said we need to go to Arlington Memorial,” Rubenkoenig said. “He called 911 and we got to Arlington Memorial really quick.”
Rubenkoenig, 42, was having a stroke. The medical staff at Arlington Memorial recognized the signs and quickly administered a clot buster.
“I got the injection and I was fine,” said the Fort Worth resident. “Ten minutes later I had cardiac arrest.”
While the clot buster medication was dissolving the clot in Rubenkoenig’s brain, her body had a reaction to the medication, said Dr. Matthew Fiesta, an interventional neuroradiologist at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.
“She had a very unique reaction,” Fiesta said. “It’s very rare. The drug caused her to go into cardiopulmonary arrest. They had to use CPR on her and give her oxygen.”Once stabilized, Rubenkoenig was airlifted to Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth, the only advanced comprehensive stroke center in Tarrant County, where Dr. Matthew Fiesta was waiting for her. Rubenkoenig had an injured vessel in her neck, Dr. Fiesta explained.
“I’m thinking, this poor girl,” Dr. Fiesta said. “Her brain is blocked by a clot and then her heart stopped.”
When Rubenkoenig arrived at Texas Health, Dr. Fiesta ordered another angiogram.
“I didn’t’ know if she had any more clots,” he said. “The (blood) flow was going slower than normal. She had an injured artery. Most people have two arteries going to the brain stem. The two vessels come together and form a major artery.
“In Tiffany’s case, she was born without the two arteries coming together,” Dr. Fiesta said. “She had injured the artery somehow. So she had one vessel injured and one vessel that didn’t join that.
“The angiogram showed the clot was dissolving,” he said. “The body will heal itself over time. She was put on anti-platelets like aspirin to let the vessel start to heal.”
Neither Dr. Fiesta nor Rubenkoenig know how she injured the blood vessel in her head.
“It can happen from high blood pressure, if you get a stomach bug, retching can tear it,” Sr. Fiesta said. “You can paint your ceiling and hold your neck a certain way, cough really hard or go to the chiropractor.”
Rubenkoenig said the only thing she did in the days before the concert was to get her hair done.
“She is predisposed to having more delicate systems and having her vessels be injured,” Dr. Fiesta said. “She’s lucky to be alive for many reasons. She listened to her body. She knew something wasn’t right, so she went to the hospital. When they saw she was having these symptoms, they gave her the medicine as soon as they could.”
All of those things likely saved Rubenkoenig’s life, he said. But she still had a long recovery ahead of her. She spent 2 ½ weeks at Texas Health, then transferred to Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth for another six to eight weeks of therapy. At Baylor, she was finally able to spend time with her three sons – Reid, 12, Dean, 11, and Drew, 5 – who had been missing their mom.
“I was a small part of the picture,” Dr. Fiesta said. “I diagnosed the problem. She had the great care of the ICU team and Tiffany herself. She had injury to the brain itself. I had hope for her. Tiffany was obviously a fighter. Then there’s the team at Arlington Memorial that gave her CPR. That was just amazing. The clot buster they gave her worked. If they hadn’t she would have suffered more damage. And there’s the neurologists and the physical therapy teams.”
Rubenkoenig has been through a lot of therapy including physical therapist, speech therapy, cognitive skills, occupational therapy, vision therapy and counseling. She is still doing cognitive therapy and vision therapy, she said.
“I have always worn contacts, but I have a harder time seeing up close,” Rubenkoenig said. “It’s hard for me to see numbers in a row. It’s funny because I work in accounting. That’s not something they want you to return to.”
“Her progress is amazing,” Dr. Fiesta said.
“The prognosis at the time would be that she had no chance,” Dr. Fiesta said. “Now it’s good. She’s young, give it time. Now she’s walking around and driving a car. She had the brain stem injured. You can tell that she had a stroke. She has really come a long way. She’s a miracle. I think with time she will continue to get better.”
When asked why she thinks she made such a miraculous recovery, Rubenkoenig gives credit to God.
“I was president of the Junior League in Fort Worth, I was working full time, I’m a mom, I was moving and grooving,” she said. “I needed to slow down and spend time with the people I love, my family, my friends.
“It doesn’t matter how great your resume is if you don’t take time to spend time with people you love. What are you doing this for?”
Ruebenkoenig was admitted to UT Southwestern Medical Center in April 2023 for brain surgery on a clot that showed signs of turning into an aneurysm, she said.
“I’m taking the medicine, really trying to live my life,” she said. “I’m working out, really just making sure I stay healthy.”
“I do think it’s a miracle,” Rubenkoenig said. “ I cannot give enough credit to Texas Health and all the people that prayed for me. I think that God has plans for me. I am trying in whatever way I can to serve other people.”
The Rubenkoenigs never did get to see Garth Brooks.
“My husband’s birthday is in April and his friends said we should go see Garth in Las Vegas,” she said.