Slurring words when she tried talking to her dogs, Blue and Fionah, helped Kathy Campbell realize she was having a stroke and needed to call 911.
‘TIME
IS OF THE ESSENCE’ HOW QUICK ACTION AND TELEMEDICINE STOPPED A WOMAN’S STROKE IN ITS TRACKS
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K
athy Campbell gives credit to her two chihuahuas—and 20 years of experience working as a medical assistant in a doctor’s office—for helping her realize she was having a stroke. She woke the morning of September 28, 2021, with an unusually fast heartbeat and a fluttering feeling DAKSHESH PATEL, MD in her chest. At
first, she thought she was experiencing symptoms of cardiac arrhythmia, a heart condition she’d had for years and had recently begun treating. But when she sat down to take her pulse, she couldn’t feel her left hand. “That’s when it dawned on me, ‘Oh my goodness, something else is wrong here,’” says the 60-year-old Toms River retiree. Her chihuahuas came into the picture when Campbell tried to speak to them. She noticed she slurred her words—a common symptom of stroke, or loss of blood flow to the brain, often due to a blood clot. One glance in the bathroom mirror confirmed another symptom: The left side of her face was drooping. When the symptoms didn’t pass after several minutes, Campbell dashed off a text to her cousin, who lives with her and works as a nurse. “All of a sudden, I see her flying by the front windows of
Summer 2022
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