Noah Goldstein is a 17-year-old senior at Boys Latin. Right now, he’s getting excited for prom and anxiously waiting for his college acceptance letters. A place he didn’t think he’d get to a year ago.
Noah suffered three strokes as a teenager. The first was when he was just 14. He was playing lacrosse with his dad and brother in front of their Baltimore County home when Noah had to be rushed to the hospital.
“It was a long night. We didn’t know if he was gonna pull through. When he woke up, he couldn’t move his right side of his body,” said Scot Goldstein, Noah’s dad.
Noah couldn’t move his right arm or his right leg, had slurred speech, and had double vision after the first stroke. Cognitively he struggled too. He couldn’t answer a simple math question or list three animals off the top of his head when doctors asked. This was telling to Noah’s parents since he skipped a grade because of his learning level and was on the Boys Latin robotics team! He's one smart kid.
He spent months getting his brain back to where it was and learning how to walk again. Then 19 months later, he suffered from a second stroke. Luckily, there weren’t many complications with this one but a month after that, he had a third stroke with the same issues as the first.
“We didn’t know if I was gonna pull through that one,” said Noah. He added, “it was really hard at that point. I’ve already gone through two and there’s the third and I was like when is this gonna end? “
His dad said, “the worst part for me was the third stroke when he said dad if I close my eyes I don’t know I’m ever gonna wake up again and I really don’t wanna go to sleep. I don’t wanna die tonight. I was like dude I got you but the whole time I was like do I got you?”
So he had to spend several more months doing physical and mental rehab.
“It’s very surreal to see what I took for granted but now, now I appreciate the small little things in life like waking up each morning going for like a light jog. I understand how amazing it is to walk,” said Noah.
He can’t play contact sports anymore but still found ways to do the things he loves. He coaches six and seven-year-old soccer players and helps the Boys Latin lacrosse team. He still maintains a positive attitude even after everything he’s been through.
“Noah’s positivity nature never wained. Looked at an opportunity to get better he became a big fan of the sunrise because he knew that meant he made it all. The way through the night without passing away. It was pretty intense,” said Scot.
Right now, Noah may not know where he wants to go to college but he knows he wants to study medicine to help people who are going through what he went through.
He believes Johns Hopkins is the reason he’s alive today.
“I had a radiologist who I believe saved my life on two occasions because he made the exact right call to not do a surgery or do a surgery and let medicine do its work,” said Noah.
He was encouraging people to donate to Johns Hopkins Children's Center for the 33rd Annual Mix 106.5 Radiothon on Thursday, 2/24 and Friday, 2/25.
He said, “people should call in because I’m a miracle. I’m a living miracle and you can help to facilitate miracles by donating to Johns Hopkins Children's Center.” This year, they raised $1.3 million for pediatric patients!
No matter what you’re going through. Noah says you can handle it.
“If you basically tell yourself you can do anything it’s really quite crazy you can literally do anything. I told myself at the first stroke I wanted to get myself out of this situated and I wanted to get back to normal and that’s what I’ve done. If you believe, truly you can do anything it’s going to happen.”