Fans were worried after Hailey Bieber, 25 was sent to the hospital in early March after suffering from stroke-like symptoms while having breakfast with her husband Justin, 28. The model first told her Instagram followers about the incident 2 days later on March 12th, and last week, she opened up more about her experience in a video that she shared on social media.
The Rhode Beauty founder spoke directly to her 43.7 million followers and explained that she wanted to tell her story “in her own words,” and detailed what she dubbed the “scariest moment” of her life. She described what felt like a normal day for her and Justin when she felt a numbness in her fingers and pain shooting down her arm. When Justin asked if she was okay, Hailey recounted that she “couldn’t speak,” adding that “the right side of my face started drooping, I couldn’t get a sentence out.”
While she was unable to communicate in the moment, she said she remembered feeling terrified while being certain she was having a stroke. “I had so many things running through my head, number one being, ‘I’m having a stroke. I’m really scared, I don’t know why this is happening, am I going to have permanent issues from this?’”
View this post on Instagram
Thankfully, Justin immediately called for a doctor and Hailey was used to the hospital where she learned that she wasn’t suffering from an official stroke, but rather, experiencing pain from a small blood clot in her brain, a.k.a. Transient Ischemic Attack (commonly deemed a ‘mini-stroke’).“It definitely feels like having a stroke, except my body was able to resolve it pretty quickly and then I didn’t have any more issues for the whole rest of the day and the whole rest of the time that I was in the hospital.”
Hailey then shared that she was once again able to speak when she reached the emergency room, where doctors diagnosed her with a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a small opening in the heart that usually closes after birth, but not in her case. “They found that I had a grade-five PFO, which is the highest grade that you can have. Mine was fairly large,” she said. “My blood clot escaped through the flap, or the hole, in my heart and traveled to my brain, and that was why I had my TIA.” Hailey also noted that she was stressed by a “perfect storm” of factors that played a part in her blood clot forming, including birth-control pills, having COVID and a recent flight.
View this post on Instagram
Bieber was able to undergo a procedure to have the hole closed that apparently “went smoothly” and has since been recovering at home, taking a mix of aspirin and blood thinners. “The biggest thing I feel, honestly, is I just feel really relieved that we were able to figure everything out, that we were able to get it closed, that I will be able to just move on from this really scary situation and just live my life.”
