James Finnerty, a 15-year-old rugby player from Parma Heights, Ohio, woke up with a piercing pain in his head one morning last April and, barely able to walk, stumbled to the bathroom vomiting.
The emergency room doctors where James sought treatment assumed he had a severe migraine and delayed treatment for 25 hours before his mother insisted he be transferred to Cleveland Clinic where they discovered he had suffered a stroke.
The swelling in his brain was so intense that part of his skull was removed to relieve the pressure and, in a second stroke, he lost the use of speech and his limbs.
Almost a year later, after months of physical therapy, James, now 16, is on the road to recovery, but his experience is a shocking reminder that strokes can strike even the young.
"I am practically 100 percent," said James, who has now returned to school. "I am very, very lucky."
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About 3,000 children a year will suffer a stroke -- one of the top 10 causes of death among children, according to Dr. Neil Friedman, a pediatric neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Pediatric Neurology, where James was treated. The majority of these children will live, but will face lingering neurological or cognitive impairment.
"The big difference in pediatric stroke is that there is an almost 100 percent recovery because of the ability of children to adapt and accommodate far better than adults," said Friedman. "When they do survive, they can have six or seven decades of disability."
James still has some deficits in his comprehension and balance problems, and even though a recent MRI showed his artery has no blockage, he is still at risk for future strokes.
"People tend not to realize that two thirds of children have some residual deficits from stroke and the recurrence rate is 20 percent," said Friedman.
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Ohio Teen Told He Had Migraine, But Was Dying of Stroke