HORROR ORDEAL Woman, 24, says brain ‘exploded’ after change to eyelashes was warning sign of stroke

Ria Newman

Published: 7:15 ET, Jul 1 2023 | Updated: 7:15 ET, Jul 1 2023

A WOMAN has shared the bizarre warning symptoms she experienced before a devastating stroke that left her unable to walk or talk.

Morgan Bailey was just 22 and working at a school when she started experiencing worrying symptoms – including what she called an excruciating headache and numbness along the right side of her body.

Morgan Bailey suffered a stroke at age 22. Bailey's severe medical episode left her unable to walk or talk. While hospitalized in the ICU, Bailey was paralyzed on her right side.

Perhaps most bizarrely, for a few months, she had noticed a change to her eyelashes, which appeared very straight on her right eye – something that hasn't been medically linked but that Bailey believes was a warning sign.

On the day of the stroke, as the headache worsened, she quickly contacted her friend to say she wasn’t feeling well before having the sensation that her “brain exploded.”

It was the last thing she would remember for a month.

Bailey was rushed to the hospital and remained there for seven weeks in the intensive care unit while she recovered.

When she woke up, she was paralyzed on her right side and had to learn how to walk, speak, and write again.

“My life has completely flipped upside down,” Bailey, now 24, told The U.S. Sun.

“My health was perfect before – I never had any issues."

“I had no idea what this was before it happened."

“If you would have asked me: ‘Can someone have a stroke aged 22?’ I would have said: ‘No way.’

“I had to re-learn everything. I had to re-learn how to walk. I had to re-learn how to speak properly. I had to re-learn how to write with my left hand."

“I can’t use my right hand, so I’m very thankful for technology, and I voice-type.”

Bailey, originally from New Jersey but now living in Arizona, had been diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) at the age of 18 after falling and hitting her head at school one day.

AVMs are abnormal tangles of blood vessels that can cause irregular connections between the arteries and veins – which often develop in the spinal cord and brain.

In some cases, the blood vessels that form AVMs can burst, causing a stroke. However, it is unclear if Bailey's AVM caused her stroke.

When she woke up the following day with paralysis on her right side and struggling to walk properly, she went to the hospital and was later told she had an AVM and had suffered three brain aneurysms.

Bailey said she was not given any medication or treatment, with doctors “too scared to touch it” because it is in her thalamus, the part of the brain that largely helps process consciousness and deals with sleep, learning, and the formation of memories.

She added: “They told me to go home and live life, and that’s what I did for five years.”

In the four years that followed, Bailey was able to lead a normal life with few worries about her condition – until the day of the stroke.

She underwent brain surgery after the stroke (a craniotomy) to remove 75 percent of the AVM and had intense physical and speech therapy following the stroke.

However, she remains paralyzed on her right side – which will be a permanent effect of what she went through.

Bailey said: “Mentally, I think I did phenomenally."

“More than half of people who have a traumatic brain injury face depression, anxiety, or stress, but I was super positive."

“Of course, there were days when I was sad, but the next day, I was positive. I just had to get out of my funk.”

But for the young woman, life will never be the same.

She said: “My life has completely flipped upside down."

“I now don't want to do anything I was planning on doing with my degree."

“I know that I want to help people – people who are in a tough spot, who have had strokes, who have AVMs, and more."

“I'm outside hiking, I'm volunteering at the Sedona Heritage Museum, I'm doing yoga, and more."

“I am happy that my life changed after the stroke."

“Life is much simpler now."

“It's not all this hustle and bustle, this go-go-go that I was chasing.”

In the future, she hopes to start her own non-profit to help people with AVMs.

Bailey added: “People can come and relax, have meditation sessions, and have healing treatments."

“I think it will be extraordinary.”

But for now, she has a message for everyone – whether they are suffering a health issue or not.

She said: “We need to live life, and we need to live it to the fullest.