Kim Zolciak-Biermann still feels the effects of her stroke.
On Sept. 22, the "Don't Be Tardy" star took to Instagram to reflect on her heath incident, which happened six years ago while she was appearing on "Dancing With the Stars."
"6 yrs ago today I had a stroke. I'll never forget how I felt. I think about it almost daily still to this day. I take blood thinner daily & probably always will," she wrote. "I have no physical limitations but at times I can't find the 'right' word, or I completely lose my train of thought."
With the benefit of hindsight, Kim said there were signs that a stroke was imminent, but she didn't think too much about them in real time.
"Looking back it was so obvious something was wrong. I woke up 9/21/2015 (I just landed in LA the night before) & my head was pounding. Like a terrible terrible migraine. I suffered from migraines regularly so I just assumed that's what it was BUT it was the WORST HEADACHE I have ever had," she said. "I popped Excedrin migraine like usual & hopped in the car to head to DWTS studio for rehearsal."
While en route to the studio, the driver got lost.
"I was so car sick (typical for me) by the time I arrived to the studio I was feeling like crap! Horrible migraine & car sick as hell. I did my first dance & remember looking at my hairdresser @nikipressley & saying, 'Niki I'm so car sick' she replied, 'Kim it's been 2 hrs since you got out of the car,'" Kim recalls. "It was wayyyy more than car sickness now looking back …. It was almost like I was on a boat everything was rocking back & forth."
Kim took more medicine a few hours later and performed on "Dancing With the Stars."
Once the show finished, she and her daughter Brielle headed back to Atlanta on a red-eye flight. Things took a turn for the worse when they made it home: Kim's hands went numb as she bent down to hug her son, who was in the driveway waiting for her.
"My fingers went numb (I thought to myself, OMG Kim get over to the car and hold on to something.) I felt like I was going to collapse & there was no way I was going to do that in front of my kids," she said.
Kim remembers holding onto her car and wanting to tell Brielle's then-boyfriend Slade Osborne she needed helped. "But when I went to speak I couldn't," she said.
Slade realized something wasn't right and immediately called Kim's husband, Kroy Biermann, who at the time was playing for the Atlanta Falcons and was at practice.
"I remember Kroy's exact words, 'GET KIM TO THE HOSPITAL AS FAST AS YOU CAN, EVERY MINUTE COUNTS' & it does," Kim said.
At the hospital, Kim found out that her stroke was caused by a blood clot, and that she had a hole in her heart, which has since been repaired.
Kim ended her message by thanking everyone involved in her recovery.
"So thankful for my kids, my hubby @kroybiermann and [her 'Dancing With the Stars' partner] @tonydovolani you guys rock!!" she wrote.