"I was right next to her and all of a sudden I just fell forward towards her," said 47-year-old Richard Mendez who was at Oyster Bake with his wife when, all of a sudden, he had a stroke. Mendez told us, "I noticed that my hand was moving, but for some reason, my right side was numb or something. I just couldn't feel it anymore. I just couldn't do anything with it, and that's my stronger side."
EMS happened to be nearby, got to him within five minutes, and took him to University Hospital. "I told them what symptoms I was having, and they said more than likely I had experienced a stroke," Mendez said.
Dr. Christopher Topel, a University Hospital Neurologist and Assistant Professor at UT Health San Antonio, stresses the impact of treatment time during a stroke. "We don't have a lot of time to treat strokes. Unlike other illnesses we have a very short window of a few hours for treatment," Dr. Topel said.
Mendez added, "They had found a clot in the back of my brain somewhere." He says his high blood pressure could have been a factor. "What might've caused it is hypertension, high blood pressure, and I did have previous high blood pressure and was on medication," said Mendez.
Now that he knows his risk factors, Mendez has changed his lifestyle and continues his recovery. He told us, "To watch out for my diet, be careful about what I eat, and just keep up with exercising."
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