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Great Graduates: Clyde Harvey, Central Catholic High School

SAN ANTONIO – Life has a way of taking unexpected turns. 

For Clyde Harvey, he was thrown an unimaginable obstacle.

Without a previous sign of medical issues, Harvey suffered a stroke at the age of 15. 

But he isn't letting that slow him down.

"I had to believe in myself first and foremost," Harvey said.

The last three years for the Central Catholic High School senior haven't been easy.

There have been challenges day-in and day-out since 2015, when a simple evening at the dinner table turned into nightmare for the Harvey family.

"Water was dripping out of his mouth on one side, and I said, 'You OK?" said Clyde's father. "I looked at my wife and said, 'Lets go. There was no time for waiting.'"

Clyde, a seemingly healthy teenager, had a stroke. The doctors call it arterial venus malformation.

"It's an unusual connection between the arteries and the veins that can happen in the brain and spine," Harvey said.

He was put in a coma, and then spent the next two weeks in the hospital.

"Basketball, football, that died. The new normal I have to get used to, my hand like this. Will I get it back? I don't know," Harvey said.

Harvey returned to school, but it wasn't easy.
 
"Clyde had a seizure in geometry, and since then, I had worked one-on-one with his mom," said Millicent Marcha, of Central Catholic.

After the seizure, the school helped organize a hybrid system so Harvey can still graduate on time with his classmates.

"He comes once a week, twice a week, finishes his class, gets his assignments, works on Google classroom. He has textbooks at home, he has what he needs at home," Marcha said.

It's all part of his new normal.

"Adapt, because no one is gonna do it for you, no one is doing it for me, I got to do it," Harvey said.

After Harvey graduates, he plans to attend college at the University of the Incarnate Word to study osteopathic medicine or pharmaceutical science.


About the Author
Max Massey headshot

Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.

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