At Elise's Request, a PSA

[pameladean]

At the request of Elise, I strongly recommend that, if you are not familiar with the symptoms of a stroke, you read the information herein, or follow up in any other researchy way that pleases you.

Briefly, Elise had a stroke a few days ago, but because she described her symptoms to a friend who recognized them and called 911 at once, she was able to be given a drug that resulted in her suffering no damage. This is flatly amazing to me, and I am very grateful. Please fortify yourself with the information.

Edited to Add: read the comments to find an additional stroke symptom and an account of the use of endoscopic surgery to remove a clot in a patient who could not be given the miracle anti-clotting drug.

Pamela

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

One stroke symptom not explicitly mentioned in the article is, when you stick out your tongue, having it go to one side or the other.

[pameladean]

That makes sense; I wonder why it's not in the usual lists? I'm going to edit the entry so people will read comments.

P.

[mdlbear]

Thank you. I've had a couple of TIAs, so I'm at risk.

[gunthar.livejournal.com]

Some very good information behind the link, but not quite up to date.

My wife, Ginger, had a stroke several years ago. Fortunately, it happened while she was already in the hospital so the symptoms were identified almost at once. Unfortunately, the stroke occurred as Ginger recovering from major surgery.

Clot busters were out of the question.

According to your source the only thing left to do would have been to sit and wait to see if she would be able to open her own pudding cups or not.

Fortunately for us, the medical team at Fairview hospital in Minneapolis included one of the few surgeons in the US who had experience with removing clots from the brain using endoscopic tool. In essence, the doctor took a long tube with a little corkscrew on the end and threaded it up through an artery in her leg--all the way up into her brain.

Using x-ray imagery, the doctor used the corkscrew tool to harpoon the blood clot. Then tool and clot were pulled back out through her leg artery.

The surgery was started 5 hours after Ginger's symptoms began and took about an hour to complete.

Before the surgery, Ginger had not been able to speak or understand what was said to her. Her right side of her body was paralyzed and felt like it was being jabbed with hundreds of pin and needles. Shortly after that she was completely unresponsive to even having her hand squeezed. Everything she saw or heard was just noise and static to her.

An hour after the surgery she was sitting up and had full unrestrictive use of her arms and legs. When she saw me walk into her room in Intensive Care her face lit up. Seeing her smile at me with both sides of her mouth was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.

Language skills were a little harder. I sat there holding her hand and watched her reassimilate spoken English with the help of a speech therapist. In about an hour she went from "wa-ter, lem-on" to "Can we take a break so I can kiss my husband?"

If you have a history of stokes in your family, talk to your doctor about endoscopic surgery as an option if clot busters are a no go. It's only been a few years since my experience. There are probably still very few hospitals that could offer the same surgical option that cured my wife.

[pameladean]

I'm very glad your wife recovered so well. I'll edit the entry to point people at the comments.

P.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Elise had a common version of stroke. I've had two very rare strokes (the ER doctors couldn't even diagnose the last one and were planning to send me to the mental health unit) that don't have those kinds of symptoms. It's a good thing to call the EMTs any time something weird is happening.