Exclusive | I had a stroke at 22 the symptoms Im glad I didnt ignore and what may have increased my risk

It all began with a mysterious ringing in her ears. Aubrey Hasley, 23, was a normal graduate student studying occupational therapy at Elmhurst University in Illinois when she woke up one morning to a strange noise she’d never heard before. “It sounded like when you have a microphone too close to the speaker — it was just very loud in my head,” she told The Post.“Honestly, it scared me a lot.”The ringing only lasted a few seconds, but quickly developed into a headache — which was less alarming, since she had a history of migraines.She decided to cancel her plans and try to nap off the migraine, but the symptoms started getting worse. “I was super dizzy — my headache was getting worse,” she said.

“The room was spinning.”At first, she thought it might be vertigo.But, as someone who works part-time at a hospital, she also recognized she was experiencing some classic stroke symptoms.Still, she didn’t want to rush to the ER.“I didn’t realize that it could happen to young people and I didn’t wanna be dramatic,” she said.Her brother handed her a glass of water, which she instantly spilled all over herself because, at that point, she was “pretty uncoordinated.”Once her mother came home, she drove her to Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital, where, thankfully, the staff took her seriously. “Luckily, when I got to the hospital, they didn’t just give me meds and send me home for it,” she said. This is especially true because her symptoms just kept getting more severe — her face became droopy and she began slurring her speech, among other things.  “I had my eyes closed for most of the day because if I opened them I just got so nauseous,” she said, adding that she also had “right sided weakness and double vision.”She was at the point where she couldn’t even walk when she was diagnosed.“They had me reading and doing different things with my hands and feet, which I couldn’t do at that point,” she said.

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