When Lexi Eddy sent snapchats to his friends earlier this year, they instantly known that something was wrong.
She had just collapsed from her chair to her job after school in a nursing home in Atwater, Ohio, and did not understand what was going on.
The face of the 18 -year -old woman fell on one side, her words were scrambled and her left hand hung Mous – but no one knew she was in the middle of a deadly stroke.
“What’s wrong with your face?” His friends sent a message frantically. “It seems that you have a blow. Are you good?
The colleagues helped her sit, but at that time she could no longer move her left hand. The water dribbed with his mouth. Each sentence was charabia.
When her friend said it could have been a stroke, she was taken by emergency services to the local hospital, where doctors determined that she needed more advanced care.
It was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic in Akron, where the doctors made the shocking diagnosis: a blocked artery had cut the blood flow to her brain.
Dr. Yousef Mohammad, the neurologist who treated Lexi, stressed that a rapid intervention was essential to dissolve the clot and restore blood flow to his brain or cope with irreversible brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation.
Lexi Eddy, 18, has undergone a stroke on the right side of his brain, which made his body
He said: We use the term “time is the brain” because an early intervention is essential. Each minute passing without opening the blocked ship, a million neurons cells will die.
“This is why we act very quickly to try to open the ship and restore the blood flow to the brain.
Eddy has completely lost control on the left side of his body, indicating that the stroke had occurred in the right hemisphere of his brain.
Her mother Melissa, who met her daughter to the local hospital before being transferred to the Cleveland Clinic, “said:” As they have come out, I do my own little assessment.
“I could clearly see his face. I asked him to shake my hand and there was nothing there. So in my head, I just said to myself: “Crap, it’s a blow.” »»
Once at the Cleveland Clinic, Melissa said: “It looked like 90 minutes of pure madness.”
With time to work against them – the treatment within three hours of stroke offers the best possible results – doctors quickly administered a Dose IV of a TNK -TPA (Técectplase) to dissolve blood clots in the blocked blood vessel.
Eddy said: ‘(right now), I can’t understand all of this and I just start to sob.
“There are people who say:” Push the medication! ” Push the medication now! When I started to sob, that’s when everything really struck me.
The doctor warned that the medication had failed to dissolve the clot, Lexi would require brain surgery, but a follow -up scanner confirmed that the treatment was working.
Eddy had just collapsed from his chair to his job after school in a nursing home in Atwater, Ohio. The colleagues helped her sit, but at that time she could no longer move her left hand. A colleague called the emergency services to take him to the local hospital
In about an hour after receiving the medication, she began to find feeling, movement and speech.
Eddy said, “The second I got out of CT scans, a nurse came and shook my hand. Before that, my father had held my hand, and I hadn’t felt anything.
“But this time, I said,” Oh, wait, I can feel it now. “The feeling was not yet 100%, but it was much better than before.
In the four days spent in the hospital, Eddy almost completely recovered the movement in his left side, with his disappearance of the face, his disappearance of the face, his disappearance of shutters and headache.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mohammad’s team launched an intensive assessment to determine what caused their stroke in the first place.
A battery of tests has excluded tumors, an irregular heart rate, blood deficiencies and other factors.
But they found that Eddy had an oval patent foramen (PFO), a small flap -shaped hole between the superior rooms of the heart (Attia) which did not succeed after birth.
About 25% of Americans have the condition and it is generally harmless.
With time to work against them – processing a stroke within three hours of stroke offers the best possible results. They administered a medication IV to break the blood clot in Eddy’s brain, which has succeeded
In some cases, however, like that of Eddy, the flap which has not merged can allow blood clots to bypass the lungs and reach the brain, causing a stroke.
“Because a PFO is so common, we have to eliminate all other possible causes,” said Dr. Mohammad. “Once we have done this, we end up with PFO and then decide if there is a relationship between the PFO and the stroke.”
To confirm, the Eddy medical team administered the rope test, which measures if a PFO has probably triggered a clot causing a stroke. For Eddy, the score was a high probability of 88% that the little hole of his heart was the hidden culprit.
In the United States, around 795,000 people experience a stroke each year.
Advanced age is a leading risk factor, with about half of all strokes occurring in people over 75 and a third in those over 85.
But around 10 to 15% of brain vascular accidents occur in children and adults under the age of 45, and this number increases due to a confluence of lifestyle factors such as food and obesity, the increase in underlying chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes and unheeded heart disease.
Only a few weeks after obtaining his graduate diploma – and before starting his teaching diploma in Kent State – Eddy will undergo a mini -invasive procedure at the Cleveland Clinic to seal the little hole in his heart.
Only a few weeks after having graduated from secondary school – and before starting his teaching diploma in Kent State – Eddy will undergo a mini -invasive procedure at the Cleveland Clinic to seal the little hole in his heart
According to Dr. Mohammad, this will lead to his risk of undergoing another stroke to zero.
Eddy, on the other hand, considers experience as an opportunity to make the most of his life.
“Before my stroke, I was wasting my time and energy on things that I shouldn’t be. I was not happy.
“After my blow, I realized that you could not take what you have for granted.”
“Life is going to be both hard and good,” she added. “And I want to do everything for the greatest good. All that brings joy to others is what I want to do.
