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For Immediate Release
Midwest City Doctor Thanks Mercy for Full
Recovery after Stroke
Oklahoma City — For 78-year-old Felix Kay, a
Midwest City physician who has been practicing medicine for almost five
decades, the tables were turned when he recently suffered a stroke.
After getting up for a drink of water, he suddenly
couldn’t see. While making his way back to a chair to sit down, he
decided to call out to his wife in the next room, but he couldn’t speak.
Then when he tried to get up from his chair, he couldn’t move.
“I was trying to do something, but I couldn’t do
anything,” said Dr. Kay, who recalls the event with raw emotion. “It
felt like I was trapped in some underground tunnel. It was very
frightening. And although I knew Mercy had a stroke program, I never
dreamed I’d personally experience it. Thanks to Mercy, I have no after
effects from the stroke. I had the stroke on a Monday night and by
Friday, I was seeing patients in my office. I feel like I’m the luckiest
guy going.”
Over the past four years, physicians at Mercy
NeuroScience Institute have developed the only stroke treatment protocol
in the state—intra-arterial thrombolysis treatment—that provides stroke
patients help in the critical six hours after the first signs of stroke.
By inserting a catheter into a patient’s artery, interventional
radiologists can go directly to the clot in the brain with a
clot-dissolving drug. Although clot-dissolving drugs can also be
injected into a patient’s vein within a three-hour window after a
stroke, they are much less precise. While Mercy offers both stroke
treatments, most patients don’t get to the hospital within the
three-hour window. By providing a six-hour time period, more than six
times the number of patients are now able to be treated.
For the intra-arterial treatment, an arteriogram is
required (venous treatments don’t require arteriograms). The arteriogram
is vital because it shows whether or not there is even a clot causing
the problem. “If there’s a clot, we can guide the catheter to tiny
arteries in the brain and place the clot-busting drug directly on the
clot to break it up, but if we use the venous treatment, we just give it
and hope for the best, not knowing whether or not there’s a clot,” said
Dr. Vance McCollom, Mercy interventional radiologist.
For this family practice physician, the results from
Mercy’s stroke treatment were nothing short of amazing. “I was perfectly
fine after the procedure,” said Dr. Kay. “I didn’t need speech therapy
or physical therapy or anything else. I walked out the same as I’d
always been. It was like a miracle.”
Thanks to Dr. Kay’s wife Karen, who immediately
called 911, Dr. Kay was able to get to Mercy and have the procedure
within the six-hour window. But for many people, they wait too long.
“The problem is that most people start having signs of a stroke—sudden
confusion, disturbed vision, severe dizziness, paralysis or numbness —
but they wait, thinking it will pass. But what passes is critical time,”
said Dr. McCollom. “If we can get to a stroke patient quickly, we can
often return them to a normal life with reduced or minimal after effects
from the stroke. If we lose that time, stroke patients can be left with
devastating disabilities.”
Oklahoma ranks 12th in the nation for the number of
deaths due to stroke, according to the American Heart Association. About
80 percent of all strokes are caused by blood clots that cut off the
blood supply to the brain.
“It really takes the effort of a lot of people to
make sure a patient gets to us before it’s too late,” said Dr. McCollom.
“Because Mercy provided extensive training to the area medical community
about this treatment and the signs of stroke, ambulance drivers often
bring stroke victims directly to us to assess these patients. And
because we are committed to our stroke patients, a Mercy interventional
radiologist is on-call at all times. Brain cells die very quickly and
permanent damage occurs, such as paralysis or loss of speech, but
there’s that six-hour window when we can reverse or improve the effects
of a stroke.”
Studies show that the average person waits 13 hours
after experiencing the first symptoms of stroke before seeking medical
attention, and 42 percent of patients wait as long as 24 hours.
Nationally, interventional radiology is making great
headway because patients undergo less invasive procedures with better
results. Interventional radiology provides a shorter recovery, less pain
and the greater possibility of a full recovery.
The following are the most common symptoms of stroke
to watch for:
• Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm
and/or leg, especially on one side of the body • Sudden confusion,
trouble speaking or understanding speech • Sudden trouble seeing,
including double vision, blurred vision or partial blindness, in one or
both eyes • Trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden severe, headache with no known cause
If someone experiences any of the above symptoms,
they should seek immediate emergency attention. “Again, timing is
critical,” said Dr. McCollom. “The clock starts ticking the moment a
patient feels the first symptom. People must know the signs of a stroke
and get immediate care.”
Press Release dated: November 11,
2005
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