So Wednesday around 0500 my patient calls me to her room to tell me just doesn’t feel right, she tells me her right eye just feels droopy and the right side of her face feels numb.

So I have her get back into bed, run her through the test for suspected stroke and she tests fine. Her smile was fine, she could lift both arms fine, both eyes blink at the same time, etc.

So I go and talk to my other nurses about it and they just brush it off, saying she says things like that sometimes. But I just couldn’t let it go.

I call the NP covering the floor, he comes up checks her out, says the same thing as me that she isn’t actively having a stroke. I tell him that she had an extensive medical history and we probably shouldn’t blow it off.

So he orders a head and neck CT and Angiogram. Low and behold the angiogram comes back with a suspected right sided 90% carotid stenosis.

She kept saying her face felt numb to other staff as soon as she woke up in the morning and was feeling lightheaded when first getting up in the morning. She sleeps sitting up with her head tilted to her right shoulder, putting pressure on her carotid.

So because I didn’t just blow her off like many had done before, she ended up with a vascular consult and some aspirin for prophylactic purposes.

So a little bit of critical thinking and refusing to ignore my patient may have prevented a rather dire outcome.

Self High Five!