B.C. woman credits this acronym with saving her life after a stroke
Quick thinking saved the life of Melissa Wing, a 29-year-old grad student in Victoria, B.C. She credits her knowledge of stroke symptoms for her swift action.
In July 2023, while chatting with friends at a goodbye party on a beach, Wing suddenly felt her face droop on the right side as she turned to look at her partner.
She remembers saying, “I don’t feel good, I think I am having a stroke.”
They immediately went to the hospital. Wing’s stroke symptoms progressed rapidly. While her initial presentation was facial drooping, she said within half an hour she also lost mobility in her right arm and hand, with worsening facial droop, and eventually lost her ability to speak.
“I was in the ER, saw a doctor within 20 minutes, was within an MRI machine within an hour, and was given the medication I needed within the critical four-hour mark,” Wing told Global News.
In Canada, a stroke occurs once every five minutes, a troubling trend that is on the rise not only among older Canadians but also among young people, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
To mark Stroke Month in June, the foundation released statistics on Tuesday, showing there are more than 108,000 stroke cases every year in the country. The latest numbers also reveal nearly one million individuals in Canada are currently grappling with the aftermath of a stroke and it is the primary contributor to adult disability.
The number of strokes continues to rise at a concerning rate each year, according to experts.
“It’s increasing, the actual total number of strokes occurring in Canada and in most of the Western world,” said Dr. Michael Hill, a neurologist based in Calgary, in an interview with Global News.
“Stroke can occur at any age. The highest peak is about in
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