6-Year-Old Diagnosed with a Stroke After Mom Noticed Her Eye 'Rolling Around Freely'

• A 6-year-old girl was diagnosed with a stroke after her mother noticed her eyes were pointing in different directions and not "working in unison"

• Ottilie Atkins said she felt "dizzy" after "bouncing around" with her sister at an indoor play center

• Doctors told her mother Holly that the stroke was triggered by inflammation after a chickenpox infection

A 6-year-old girl was diagnosed with a stroke after she complained of dizziness and her mother noticed her eyes were pointing in different directions.

Ottilie Atkins had spent the afternoon “bouncing around” with her sister at an indoor play center in October when she became “very pale and was saying, ‘I feel really dizzy,’ ” her mother Holly, 34, told Kennedy News and Media via The Daily Mail. “She had a clammy feeling to her like she was sweaty and cold,” her mother says.

At first, the Watford, England, mom says she thought Ottilie was 'running around too much, maybe she'd exhausted herself, and just got a bit hot because it's inside,” she explained, saying that after her daughter sat down to eat, “her color started to come back but she kept saying she felt very dizzy.”

Related: Ohio Girl, 4, Dies After ‘Common Cold’ Causes Stroke

Holly said that when she began walking home with Ottilie, “her balance was off.”

At home, Ottilie settled in to watch a movie, but her mother told the outlet that she complained she was “seeing things twice.”

That’s when her mother noticed that “her eyes weren't working in unison.”

“She was looking forward with one eye and it looked like the other eye was almost rolling around freely. It was really horrible to see,” said Holly, who rushed her daughter to the hospital where she underwent multiple tests, including two MRI scans and a CT scan.

It was then that the doctor told Holly her daughter had suffered a stroke.

“I couldn't really quite take in what she was saying,” she said. “All I heard was the word stroke and I thought I misheard. I said, ‘Sorry can I just clarify, did you say she had a stroke?’ I couldn't believe what she was saying.”

Related: 11-Month-Old Suffers Stroke After Chickenpox — Shining a Light on the Importance of Vaccines

“She was lucky that the severity hasn't been as bad as it could have been,” Holly said, adding that doctors told her the stroke was brought on by a chickenpox infection 18 months prior. Apparently the infection caused Ottilie’s brain to swell — which triggered the stroke.

Although strokes are rare in children,  The National Library of Medicine says the risk of a stroke is quadrupled in children who have chickenpox.

As John Hopkins Medicine says, immediate intervention is essential for recovery from a pediatric stroke — but adds, “a child’s growing brain has a better chance of recovering from stroke than an adult’s brain.”

That’s been the case for Ottilie, who was given medication and spent three weeks in the hospital recovering. She is now home, Hollie says.

“Doctors said children's brains can just sort of rewire, which is how she's made a really amazing improvement in a matter of weeks. If it was an adult it wouldn't quite be the same,” she said, adding that her daughter's eyesight is still impacted.

“It's gradually made improvements but we've never known at what point it could potentially stop improving or if it will fully improve,” Holly says. “She's still got double vision when she looks out to the right. Now she copes by moving her head a lot more to counteract it.”

Holly urges parents to “follow your gut" when something seems wrong at home.

“As parents we always want to help our children but sometimes life is busy,” she said. “Never let that deter you. The doctors are the professionals, seek their help.”

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