This woman found out her Prosecco hangover was actually a stroke
How a young and healthy woman keen on kick-boxing and swimming became a stroke victim.
Imagine having had a little too much to drink and ending up in a hospital bed, fighting for your life?
This is exactly what happened to Mollie Docherty, from Dundee, Scotland. She woke up one morning in June 2017 feeling a little worse for wear after a Prosecco-fuelled dinner party with friends, but it turned out she'd had a stroke.
Docherty, 23, a sport-loving kick-boxer and swimmer isn't your typical stroke victim.
Thinking it might just be that she had had a little too much the night before, Docherty tried to sleep in off. Upon waking up she had lost her balance and could not speak properly. Her right side was paralysed, "like someone had flicked a switch", she told the Daily Record.
About five minutes later, she had become paralysed from the waist down and unable to walk. At this point she called her neighbour for help and was rushed to Dundee's Ninewells Hospital for examination.
While a CT scan showed nothing out of the ordinary, a consultant still decided to treat Docherty with thrombolysis. This emergency treatment is used in heart attacks and strokes. It prevents damage to tissues and organs by destroying blood clots that block the arteries nourishing the heart and brain. In Docherty's case, it probably saved her life.
After being treated, she remained paralysed all the way down her right side, but made a steady recovery after two months of intensive physiotherapy and occupational therapy in a brain rehabilitation unit.
Her mother, Sharon, turned into her full-time carer for five months after the incident, helping her with basic tasks like tying hair, shoe laces and getting her dressed. "It was like I was a baby again," Mollie explained.
The reasons behind the incident are still unclear, although she thinks it might have been triggered because of her contraceptive pill, which she had been taking for 6 years: "It was the only risk factor I had," she said.
Today, Docherty is still not fully recovered but is on the road to recovery. She still feels weak on her right side. However, she is back at work as an admin worker and has signed up to run in a 5k for the Stroke Association, in a race dubbed the 'Resolution Run', which will take place in Dundee on 25 February.
"I was lucky I got to hospital quickly but there was already a lot of damage done by then. A fast response is vital to surviving and not being left with a permanent disability," Docherty stated.
She now wants to raise awareness: "Young people need to be aware it can happen to them, not just to the old."
