CVA causes drowsiness?

Some one can correct me if I am wrong but from my own personal experience it comes afterwards. My CVA patients that had drowsiness usually seem to sleep mostly for 2-3 days then seem to start coming around more. The TPA pt's don't seem to have it as much.

On Wedesday, I noticed an older lady on our floor was a little drowsy after getting a blood transfusion. It is hard to wake her up, but when she wakes up, she is A&Ox3. She smiles and talks just fine, and showed no s/s of unilateral weakness. The charge nurse thinks that the drowsiness is caused by iv benadryl.

Today it is very hard to wake her up, an MRI of the brain shows a moderate CVA on right temperal lobe. today she did show some left side weakness.

When we talk about s/s of CVA, we talk about slurred speech, weakness on one side of the body, however, is drowsiness an early sign of CVA? maybe we could have caught the CVA a little bit earlier?

I think it would have been difficult picking up on it sooner for this patient because of the IV benadryl.

I've recently had a patient with extreme drowsyness / lethargy post CVA, I honestly don't know the cause. He's also BIG TIME weak on the right side, talking flaccid paralysis here.