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Topics: Celebrity, Aubrey Plaza, Health
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Celebrity, Aubrey Plaza, Health
Aubrey Plaza once suffered a terrifying stroke when she was just 20-years-old.
It came as a total shock for the actor, who was still studying in college when it happened, and had no known medical issues whatsoever.
Now nearly two decades later, the White Lotus star has since opened up about the experience and how she's been faring ever since.
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The star, who was a film student at New York University at the time, said that the day her stroke happened was no different than any other.
Speaking to NPR Fresh Air back in 2017, Plaza recalled: "I was going to my friend's apartment for lunch.
"It's really kind of a very typical stroke story where it just happened mid-sentence out of nowhere. I don't think I had even taken my jacket off."
The 38-year-old actor continued: "I walked into the apartment. I was telling my two friends about a Hilary Duff concert that I had taken my younger sister to the night before."
Her two friends, however, were totally baffled when Plaza first began showing warning signs of the serious medical condition.
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"They thought I was making a joke," she revealed, "I was always doing something stupid, but then after a couple of minutes, you know, they kept saying, 'Do you want us to call an ambulance?'."
Luckily, the Park and Recreation star was 'aware enough' to nod.
"I kept just shaking my head yes because I knew something was really, really wrong," she said.
Plaza remembered how 'scary' it was when she 'kind of blacked out for a second', before adding: "And then I remember there was just like a really loud kind of sound happening.
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"I couldn't talk because the blood clot was in the language center of my brain. So I had expressive aphasia instantly, which means that if you're talking to me, I could understand what you're saying in my mind and understand how to respond.
"But I couldn't actually get it out. I couldn't actually talk," she recalled.
Her stroke lasted a matter of minutes and, when paramedics arrived at the scene, they, at first, 'didn't assume' that she had just endured the huge medical emergency because she was 'so young'.
"They were thinking that I was dehydrated. And I really think they thought I was on drugs because they kept asking me if I'd taken drugs, and I hadn't. I hadn't really put anything into my body that day except for birth control, which ended up being maybe the cause of the stroke," she continued.
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After being rushed to the hospital, Plaza was examined by a doctor who then asked her to place her right hand on her left knee.
"I couldn't do it. I was confused about right and left. And I think that's when everyone realized, oh, like, she had a stroke," she recalled
Looking back, Plaza believes her young age was the reason why she was able to recover so quickly.
"I think I was lucky. I was so young that my brain… healed itself really fast. So I was talking after a couple of days," she said.
The actor added that, although it 'sounds cheesy to say', the experience made her aware of how 'precious life is'.
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"I try to remember that every day." she concluded.