TORONTO — Stacey Yepes, 49, was watching TV when all of a sudden she lost feeling in her entire left side and her speech became slurred for about 10 minutes.
She decided to go to the ER, but after a round of tests doctors told her the symptoms were a result of stress. Three hours later she felt the numbness coming back.
When it happened again while she was driving home after work, she grabbed her smartphone and shot a video selfie, the Chronicle Herald reports.
The footage shows Yepes describing her symptoms as the left side of her face droops, her speech becomes slurred and she cannot move her left arm or leg. She then got herself to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, where an ER doctor said he believed she was experiencing transient ischemic attacks — small but serious strokes. Tests at a stroke unit confirmed the diagnosis.
Yepes said she’s not sure how she remained cool-headed enough to record her own symptoms as they happened.
“I think it was just to show somebody, because I knew it was not stress related,” she said. “And I thought if I could show somebody what was happening, they would have a better understanding.”