Cirquel

Hi everyone,

I will probably make a longer post than need be, but would really like answer to one question which I will bold at the bottom of this post.

About an hour and a half ago, my grandfather collapsed (onto his bottom) on the way down a step to his living room (I live with him and my grandmother and my parents). After maybe 30 minutes of deliberation and all of us sitting with him, I decided to call Telehealth Ontario. I've never called 911 before and was hesitant to call if it wasn't "too major." My grandfather really didn't want to go, either--but that's not unusual.

Both of my grandparents have collapsed before, but only out of temporary weakness. They both have heart problems now. My grandfather has fairly recently started taking medication for high blood pressure. This seemed to be a very unusual case for my grandfather, however, as he could not stand up when my father lifted him up and helped him sit down on his chair. He also seemed to be "not quite with it," in such a way as it seemed to me it wasn't usual "old man slowness." I knew that this was definitely a better safe than sorry situation. I called Telehealth; my mom ended up talking to the nurse for a time and we were then transferred to 911.

Paramedics came and took him to the hospital. It's been about half an hour since. My dad headed out there now, as well, to bring my grandfather's clothes (he ended up having a bowel movement, so we ended up cleaning him up).

What caused initial confusion was my grandfather's relative level of incoherence. He wasn't actually THAT bad. He would answer correctly, if asked questions. He would sometimes be slow to answer, and sometimes not at all; I was trying, for the first little while, to figure out whether he wasn't answering out of defiance. He was also nauseous and vomited twice, so I thought he might not have been answering because he was feeling so yucky that he was sick of answering my family's questions. But what was unusual was that normally, if he doesn't answer, he at least indicates that he's "fed up" with you asking questions. Instead, he was responding by just... not responding at all. He seemed a bit spaced, which was what led to my call.

But what I'd really like to know is the following: For the whole hour since his initial collapse, my grandfather literally could not stand up. He also couldn't lift his arms all the way to his head; was generally EXTREMELY weak. Is this a symptom of stroke? If not, what could it be a symptom of? I know that temporary weakness / loss of strength is definitely a symptom of stroke, but what about continued weakness?