Stacey Yepes was on her way to work when the entire left side of her body went numb. Thinking fast, she pulled her car over, grabbed her smartphone and took a video selfie so she would later be able to show doctors exactly what she was experiencing.
She had good reason for wanting to record the sudden loss of feeling. Two days prior, 49-year-old Yepes had gone to the local emergency room in Thornhill, Ontario, when her left side lost all feeling and she couldn't lift her arms or legs.
Her roommate called as it was happening and immediately noticed that she was slurring her speech. Ten minutes later, everything was back to normal, but she was frightened by the experience and wondered if it might have been a stroke. The local ER doctors performed a round of tests, but determined that Yepes, a divorced legal secretary, was suffering from excessive stress. They recommended she work on lowering stress levels and taught her some breathing exercises to help. Three hours later, the numbness returned while she was leaving the hospital. She suspected that something much bigger than stress was going on, but decided to trust her doctors.
No doubt feeling equal parts terrified and vindicated, two days later Yepes selfied her symptoms. In the video, she describes her symptoms to the camera with slurred speech, and it can clearly be seen that one side of her face is frozen and drooping.
"The sensation is happening again," she says in the dramatic video. "It's all tingling on left side. I don't know why this is happening to me."
"I think it was just to show somebody because I knew it was not stress-related," Yepes later recalled. "And I thought if I could show somebody what was happening, they would have a better understanding."
When she arrived at work, she showed the selfie to her coworkers, who told her to get herself to a different hospital for a second opinion. This time, Yepes went to a larger hospital in downtown Toronto, where she showed the video to an ER doctor. After watching, the doctor believed Yepes had been experiencing TIAs -- transient ischemic attacks, or mini strokes, which can be very serious. She was referred to the stroke unit at Toronto Western Hospital, where an MRI confirmed the diagnosis.
"In all my years treating stroke patients, we've never seen anyone tape themselves before," said Dr. Cheryl Jaigobin, Toronto Western's stroke neurologist. "Her symptoms were compelling, and the fact she stopped and found a way to portray them in such a visual fashion, we were all touched by it."
Transient ischemic attacks are caused by plaque buildup in the arteries. Toronto Western's doctors prescribed medicine that lowers cholesterol, as well as a blood thinner. Since then, she's had no further incidents, and doctors believe that her video selfie probably saved her life.
