NEED TO KNOW
Kelsey Stoksted felt a persistent tingling in her arm, but the Wisconsin mom’s bloodwork came back normal
Her doctor thought it was anxiety and prescribed her a beta blocker — then, her symptoms continued until she had a grand mal seizure
The cause was a tumor on her brain, and she’s since undergone chemotherapy and radiation, as well as surgery, to treat it
A mom who felt a persistent tingling in her arm was told it was likely anxiety and prescribed a beta blocker — but after she collapsed, she was given a devastating diagnosis of a brain tumor.
Kelsey Stoksted, now 32, said her symptoms began in May of 2023. “It started at my fingertips, and it just went all the way up to my shoulder,” the Wisconsin mom of one said in a TikTok video. “It kind of felt like when you fall asleep on your arm … I literally just couldn’t move it, couldn’t control it.”
She thought it was a stroke, so she and her husband, Sean, called for an ambulance — but by the time she arrived at the hospital, “the symptoms had stopped.” Her bloodwork was fine, so she skipped the CT scan for financial reasons, and opted to follow up with her primary care physician.
“We had already called the ambulance, and we knew that was going to be expensive,” she explained.
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Kelsey Stoksted and her husband, Sean.
When she followed up with her doctor, she was told “it could be anxiety-related, manifesting physically.”
Stoksted was prescribed a beta blocker, a blood pressure medication that is often used to alleviate the physical symptoms of stress.
“Obviously, the beta blocker did not work,” she said.
That August, Stoksted was working at her mother’s boutique and began to feel the same symptoms. “I noticed it started going down to my left leg, which had never happened before, and really started getting nervous,” she recalled.
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She had called her husband, who told her to lie down on the floor and lock the door. Then, she explained in her TikTok, she “had a grand mal seizure, and was on the phone with my husband, not responding for, like, he says, five minutes.”
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Kelsey Stoksted recovers in the hospital after undergoing brain surgery.
“I then come to, confused, and, he was, like, screaming my name, and I FaceTimed him. I had … foam at the mouth. I was so disoriented,” Stoksted recalled. Her husband was already en route, and took her to the hospital, where doctors discovered a 4-cm tumor on her brain that was causing the seizures.
She underwent surgery to remove the tumor, which she said was “very accessible, right on top of my brain, so they were able to get it through surgery.”
“Initially, they told me my prognosis was three to five years, which was really hard,” she shared, per the Daily Mail. Stoksted underwent chemotherapy and radiation — and after doctors discovered she had a genetic mutation that made the cancer less aggressive, she was given better news.
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Kelsey Stoksted takes a selfie amid her ongoing cancer struggle.
“Due to the mutation, my prognosis was 12 to 15 years, and when they told us that we were so happy,” she said, per the outlet.
“This is all still really hard, but I am grateful to be here and hopeful in my journey,” she said. As she shared in a later TikTok, Stoksted is also thankful for her medical team: “Modern medicine is the reason I’m still here. Giving myself and my family a chance at living life together.”
PEOPLE has reached out to Stoksted for further comment.
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