My ‘Flu’ Symptoms Turned Out to Be Early Signs of a Stroke

Julia Ries
·9 min read

Mary Peterson, 33, had a stroke last year. The symptoms came out of nowhere—ringing in her ears, convulsions, and loss of feeling on the right side of her body. At the emergency room, she was diagnosed with a tear in a neck artery potentially caused by a mild car accident a few years before, which likely triggered the stroke. She’s now detailing her experience on TikTok. Here’s her story, as told to writer Julia Ries.

On December 11, 2023, I woke up with what felt like the flu. I went to work at my friend’s vintage shop in Providence and just tried to make it through my shift as my fever kept getting worse.

After work, I was achy and had a mild headache. I took a bubble bath, and when I got out, I felt extremely overheated. I figured I took too hot of a bath and it made my fever spike. I got into bed to watch reels on TikTok around 9 p.m. I was lying on my right side when I got an intense ringing in my right ear. I flipped over to my other side—I thought maybe that would make it go away—but it persisted. My right arm and leg started convulsing, which lasted for a few minutes. Then my vision went out—I couldn’t really see anything out of either eye. I quickly lost all feeling along the right side of my body.

I wanted to call a friend who could come over and help me, but I had just moved to Providence from Brooklyn, and I only knew a couple of people in the area. I tried to call 911 but was unable to—I couldn’t see or use my right hand to dial. For whatever reason, I didn’t even think about using my left hand. I ended up saying “call mom” to Siri. The phone rang and my mom, who lives in Northern California, picked up. I don’t remember this, but she says she could barely make out what I was saying. Apparently, I was slurring, “Something happened, something happened.” My mom was really freaked out—she knew I had been sick earlier in the day and could tell something was very off.

Coincidentally, about a week before, my dad asked for Dana’s phone number just in case of an emergency. My parents got a hold of her and she immediately came over to my apartment. I couldn’t walk or stand up because the right side of my body was completely numb, but I was able to crawl on my left side to the front door to let her in. She helped walk me to her car and drove me to the emergency room.

At the ER, I had my vitals taken, which were normal. The nurses pressed on my hands and legs to see which limbs were giving me trouble. I was transported to another part of the hospital, where I was given an IV. (I don’t remember of what, or how long it was administered.)

As I sat with Dana, waiting to be seen, my brain was playing a slideshow of my life—old, happy memories cycled through my mind. It was like I was watching myself from above. (I was so out of it.) At the same time, I was really worried about my face looking different—I didn’t have any drooping, but my mouth was completely numb. I thought maybe I’d had a seizure from having a really high fever and started to worry I might die. Stroke was not on my mind at all.

I had an EKG and did X-rays and a bunch of blood work. The nurses told me I needed to get an MRI of my head and neck, but I had to wait until the machine was available. I was given anti-anxiety medications to help me relax, since I was pretty freaked out at this point, and I told Dana she could leave since it was the middle of the night. A little later, I got the MRI—the only thing I remember is being asked if I wanted to listen to music during the procedure (I requested Taylor Swift)—and after I was taken to my own room.

While all this was happening, I still felt so sick—I had a bad fever and the chills. My headache was also getting worse. I hadn’t regained feeling in the right side of my body, but it was slightly improving. My face was still numb and I couldn’t use my hand, but by leaning on the wall I could put pressure on my right leg and walk to the bathroom.

After I woke up from napping for a few hours, I got super upset—I’d started to come to and realize what happened. It also concerned me that I had been at the ER for so long, and no one had told me anything about what was wrong. I called my friend Ashley, who lives in New York City, and told her what I experienced. I got really emotional, and felt so scared and alone. She hopped in her car and started driving up to Providence to be with me.

Around 10 a.m. a new doctor came in. I called my mom to listen in because I knew I wouldn’t be able to remember everything. He reviewed my test results and said he consulted with the overnight doctors, who wanted to send me home. To them, all of my test results appeared relatively normal. They didn't know what happened, and since I was so young, they thought I’d most likely had a panic attack. But this new doctor said something wasn’t adding up. He identified a small injury in the artery in my neck, along with a tiny abnormality in my brain in the MRI scans.

He asked if I’d recently experienced any head trauma. I told him was involved in a very minor car accident six months ago, and another one in 2018, when I was rear-ended in traffic. At the time, the nurse I was treated by believed I had whiplash and a mild concussion but that, overall, I was okay. Based on the imaging results and the two car accidents, my doctor suspected I had a vertebral artery dissection (VAD) in the back of my neck—basically, an artery in the back of my neck had a tear—and that caused a blood clot that traveled to my brain and caused a stroke. VAD is one of the main causes of strokes in younger people—especially athletes who are more prone to injuring their head or neck. He gave me low-dose aspirin and told me to take that daily until a follow-up appointment with a neurologist in six weeks. That felt like a really long time to me, but it’s standard protocol for monitoring stroke survivors.

I was discharged, and Ashley arrived about an hour later. I’m glad she did, because the next few weeks were rough. A few days after I got home, I tried to make coffee and spilled everything and broke a bunch of glasses. I was so upset: I was accustomed to living independently and found it so difficult to accept help. I definitely pushed myself too hard too soon. My headache was so intense I could barely sit up, and my vision was pretty blurry in my right eye. I was also still sick from whatever flu-like symptoms I had, which, according to the doctors, had nothing to do with the stroke. I was exhausted and felt like, no matter what, I could not get enough sleep. And I didn’t have full feeling back in the right side of my body. I began to feel really depressed—and terrified. There was so much I didn’t understand about what happened.

I spent three weeks not working, resting, and trying to function again. I went back to my regular job as a server at a restaurant after that, which was sooner than I should have. But I didn’t have a choice: I didn’t have any money or anything to fall back on.

I had my first follow-up appointment in February of 2024. I brought a list of questions, because I’d tried to Google information about having a stroke in my 30s but couldn't find very much information. What I did find was horrifying: I read somewhere that I had a high risk of dying within five years. I wanted to know what I could and couldn’t do, and if the feeling would ever come back in my hand and foot. My neurologist told me that if the feeling didn’t come back in six months, it probably never would. I learned that, to prevent this from happening again, I need to avoid any trauma or hyperextension to the neck, since that’s what caused the blood clot to travel to my brain. I had another MRI on March 28 that confirmed that I had a stroke. The brain MRI looked good, but I’ll need to continue getting neck MRIs to monitor the tear in my artery.

To this day, the right side of my body still feels off—it’s like I have pins and needles in my face, arm, and leg all the time. I get tired really easily and have trouble remembering things. I often forget words that I’m sure I know, and I have to write everything down so I don’t forget. There are random things I can’t do—I can’t ski or paint a ceiling, because it might mess with my neck. It’s hard to pick things up off the floor. Little tasks feel incredibly frustrating. I now work full-time in social media management, but I can’t use a computer for eight hours straight because my hand hurts so badly. I try to take a handful of little breaks to cope with the pain. I’m terrified this could happen again—I’m constantly thinking about not moving my body in a way that might trigger another stroke.

The one gift of this experience is that it completely shifted my perspective. Before my stroke, I let work stress me out so much. I constantly worried about going above and beyond to do the best possible job I could. Now, I care less about hustling and grinding—which I physically can no longer do, anyway—and more about making enough money to live so I can spend time with the people I love. I try to be fully present in my life so I can enjoy it. The emails can wait.

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Originally Appeared on SELF