More than a month since she was hospitalized after suffering a brain-related medical emergency, Hailey Bieber is opening up about her health scare.
In a video posted to her YouTube channel on Wednesday, the 25-year-old model shared more details about her hospitalization, revealing that she underwent heart surgery after suffering a “mini-stroke” in March.
Bieber explained that she was having breakfast with husband Justin Bieber when she began having trouble speaking and was experiencing numbness in her fingertips.
“Definitely the scariest moment of my life,” Hailey recalled. “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?’”
After getting rushed to the hospital, Hailey underwent tests at UCLA, where doctors discovered that she had not suffered a stroke but rather a blood clot to her brain that they categorized as a Transient Ischemic Attack, also called a mini-stroke.
“[Doctors] were able to see that I had suffered a small blood clot in my brain, which they labeled and categorized as something called a TIA [Transient Ischemic Attack], basically it’s like having a mini-stroke,” Bieber explained. “It definitely feels like having a stoke, 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.”
After undergoing more tests, doctors discovered that she had a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a small opening in the heart.
Ultimately, Hailey underwent a procedure to close the small hole in her heart, and has since been taking a daily dose of blood thinners and aspirin. Fortunately, Bieber’s symptoms have not returned.
“It went very smoothly,” she said. “I’m recovering really well really fast. I feel great. 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.”
You can watch Hailey Bieber’s full video up top.
