A 49-year-old Canadian woman took a selfie video while experiencing a ministroke to help doctors diagnose her illness in April, Yahoo News reported. While driving on April 2, Stacey Yepes of Thornhill, Ontario, felt a familiar wave of numbness on the left side of her body. She immediately pulled over and began recording her reactions to the stroke.
Prior to the event, doctors diagnosed her numbness in the face and difficulty speaking as stress-related, after symptoms subsided and tests to determine stroke as the cause came up negative, the CBC reports.
The video shows Yepes in her car, telling the camera that she can't feel the left side of her face. "The sensation is happening again. ... It's all tingling on left side," she says. Yepes then tries, unsuccessfully, to smile and lift her hand.
"I don't know why this is happening to me," she says.
After recording her symptoms, Yepes went to the emergency room at the Mount Sinai Hospital in downtown Toronto and was referred to the stroke unit at Toronto Western Hospital, where she was told she was having a mini-stroke.
"We've never had a patient do this before," Dr. Cheryl Jaigobin, a stroke neurologist the hospital's Krembil Neuroscience Centre, told Canada's National Post in reference to Yepes' video.
"And I guess for a patient who wanted someone to believe her symptoms were real, it was absolutely incredible," Jaigobin said. "When we saw Stacey's videotape, we were all touched by it and absolutely convinced that her deficits were clearly because of a mini stroke."
Doctors were able to diagnose the episode as a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or ministroke. Further tests revealed the strokes were caused by atherosclerosis - a buildup of plaque in her arteries. Doctors believe Yepes' episode was likely brought on by blood clots,
Sheis now being treated for the condition and is expected to make a full recovery.
Toronto's University Health Network posted Yepes' recording to YouTube on June 10, as a way to raise awareness and highlight the importance of spotting stroke warning signs, Huffington Post reported.
