Canadian woman turned away from ER, video records her own stroke

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video of one’s stroke symptoms can be priceless as one woman demonstrated this week.

by John Tyburski

Copyright © Daily Digest News, KPR Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

First published at Daily Digest News on June 18, 2014

Stroke, defined as an abnormal decrease or loss of blood flow to a brain region, is the leading cause of disability in the United States. Stroke causes disability when the compromised blood flow lasts more than a few minutes, resulting in the death of brain cells from being starved of the crucial oxygen, nutrients, and energy carried and delivered by the blood. A non-fatal stroke can leave a patient disabled because of the loss of brain cells important in motor function.

This week a 49-year-old Toronto woman learned first-hand how dangerous stroke can be. She experienced symptoms that motivated her to seek medical attention. However, doctors simply gave her some stress-management advice and sent her on her way. A few days later, Stacey Yepes’s symptoms returned, and she documented herself having a mild stroke by video recording.

“The sensation is happening again,” Stacey Yepes tells the camera of her smartphone. “It’s all tingling on left side.”

“I don’t know why this is happening to me.”

When the symptoms began again, Yepes was driving. She pulled over and recorded what was happening with her phone’s camera. She showed the video to physicians at Toronto Western Hospital the next day.

Two days prior, emergency room doctors dismissed her after tests for stroke came back negative. Regardless, Yepes went on to suffer two additional mini strokes.

“I think it was just to show somebody, because I knew it was not stress-related,” Yepes said inan interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “And I thought if I could show somebody what was happening, they would have a better understanding.”

Yepes recorded her third mini stroke and showed it to coworkers who urged her to go to the hospital.

Stroke risk increases with age, and women are more likely to have a stroke than men. Other risk factors for stroke include smoking, overweight, hypertension, high cholesterol and, for women, oral contraception, and hormone replacement therapy.