This Single Mom’s ‘Selfie’ Ended Up Saving Her Life

With modern smartphones and social media, the art of the selfie is something we all know well. While taking a selfie on our phones can be a fun pastime, sometimes a simple selfie of yourself can be invaluable in saving your life. For a single mother from Enniscorthy, Ireland, her morning routine was disrupted when something strange happened. In a moment of desperation, she managed to take a selfie that would drastically change her day and her life. Her morning routine. Early morning on the 23rd of August 2019, Farnon woke up and started her morning routine. She tried to follow this routine as much as she could since it helped her stay in control of her life and take care of her young son, Oscar. Oscar was excited to start elementary school and Farnon was incredibly proud of him. She helped Oscar get ready like every morning and then started getting ready herself so they could start their day, making sure they were both ready. Just before Farnon left the house, she decided to take a selfie of herself. Something urged her to take the picture of herself, so she decided to do it. She was almost running late, so it was time to go. Because she was a single mom, Farnon had a lot of help from her mother and father, Helen and Frank. Their help meant the world to her, allowing her to have some time at work to take care of herself. And it also was great for Oscar's bonding with his grandparents. They got to spend a lot of time together, which was something very important to the family. Taking a Selfie Because Farnon had to arrive at work much earlier than Oscar needed to be dropped off, she planned to drop him off at his grandparents' house and they would take him to school later in the morning. Farnon worked as a mental health unit multitasker, which meant she needed to be on her A-game for most of the day. For both Farnon and her parents, this routine seemed to work perfectly well for a while, and that morning shouldn't be any different. But as soon as Farnon took her selfie, she completely changed the course of her morning, her week, and the following years. The Power of Technology Technology has really come a long way, allowing people to have access to the most amazing things. While the use of cell phones and the result that social media has had in people's lives could be debatable, there are certainly some pretty awesome things that have come from it. For example, the simple act of being able to snap a selfie anywhere and anytime is incredible. Back in the days, we would have to walk around with a huge camera if we wanted to capture the moment. But today, we're lucky enough to have built-in cameras into our phones, so we can literally do it as we please. They became concerned. While her parents were waiting for her to arrive with her son Oscar that morning, Farnon failed to arrive at the time that they had agreed. Like any parent, they became concerned and called her continuously. Since they found no response, her father decided to show up at her place, finding her unconscious. Frank wasn't ready for what he was about to discover. When he arrived at his daughter's house, he went in and couldn't hear any noise coming from the house. He called for Farnon but had no response. Suddenly, he entered her bedroom and found her completely unconscious on the floor. Oscar was still asleep and had no idea what was happening to his mom. Farnon's brother, who had also been on the way to her house, found them there and was completely taken off-guard. Putting the pieces together, they both instantly started attempting to understand what could have happened. Sean Farnon, her brother, began piecing every detail he could find prior to what had happened. He started looking through her phone, trying to find what was the last activity she had done there. While scrolling through it, he found something very important. Before it hit 8 a.m. that morning, his sister had sent a text to one her good friends. The selfie. In addition to the text message, Farnon had taken a selfie of herself at around 8.21 a.m., just a couple of minutes before her father arrived at the house. The image showed Farnon had one of her eyes completely shut while the other eye was open, but looking tired and reddish. Both Oscar and Farnon's father freaked out and understood that something bad was definitely happening. After Farnon was rushed to the hospital, Oscar showed the important picture to the doctor for evidence. She had a stroke. The doctors ran a number of tests, wondering if whatever she was suffering from was potentially life-threatening. What if she hadn't been found shortly after her father and her brother? Statistics show that only a very small percentage of people make it through something so severe, especially because, to some people, it happens while they're alone. Time is an essential factor when someone collapses like this, and it can literally save a life. An important piece of evidence. Going through her phone was a brilliant idea that Oscar had had. His quick thinking allowed doctors to analyze the whole picture, possibly preventing a more serious result. The hospital's medical staff were able to piece together the course of events, mapping out the best way they could treat the 28-year-old mother. Farnon's doctor wondered what had happened to her as he was waiting for the test results to come back. His first reaction was to medicate her with anti-clotting medication, as he had an idea of what the problem could be. But what if he was wrong? Not out of the woods. Farnon had to have surgery, and the doctors were careful to explain everything that could happen to her, but all she and her family could do was hope for the best. But everything went well, and the operation had gone through successfully, and they finally knew what had happened to her. What happened was scary. The doctors sat down with the family and explained what had happened, but it was hard for the family to hear and certainly not something they expected from their healthy daughter. When she regained consciousness, the Irish mom started trying to make sense of what had happened to her. She couldn't remember taking the selfie, or anything else that she had done that morning. All she remembered was waking up with a pain in her head. A healthy future ahead. Her right-eye vision had been a struggle since then, forcing her to wear a patch. She also needs a walking stick to get around, and is due to have heart surgery soon. Despite it all, she had tons of support from her family and her community. She was just grateful to finally know what was wrong with her. When the results came back, they understood that Farnon had in fact suffered from a stroke. The surgery was called angiocele procedure, which had the purpose of stopping and taking care of the internal bleeding that was caused by her stroke. Contraceptive patch. Unbelievably enough, Farnon had a hole in her heart, and in addition to the fact that she wore a contraceptive patch, resulted in a reaction that caused a stroke. She is thankful for her son Oscar, who encourages her every day to keep going. She now has the continued support of her parents, and because her job did not pay her for sick leave, she has opened a GoFundMe account to help for her future. A selfie at work. Nowadays, we're able to easily share our moments and updates with friends and family members just by posting it on our social media accounts. Selfies, in particular, are a favorite to a lot of people across the globe. Sadly though, there are also many downsides to this new technology. For example, a sad story emerged in February of 2016, when a woman named Nadine Rash took a selfie at work. Nadine lived in Kent, England, and worked at an optometrist's office. She worked as a retinal screener. At the time, she took the unpopular selfie. The eye was giving problems. Since Rash knew what she was doing, she made the decision to use one of the retinal cameras instead of the usual camera on herself. She was curious to see what her eyes really looked like, so she took a picture. Her left eye was giving her some problems at that time, so she thought that maybe she could find something helpful with the selfie. Once she took it, she couldn't believe the results in front of her. For Farnon, the case was about to get much more severe. She knew her job. Rash's selfie was about to potentially save her whole life. As she analyzed the photograph, she noticed that something in her optic disc wasn't looking normal. The disc was really swollen with inflamed hemorrhages and was fairly undefined. In her experience, this wasn't great. She had analyzed many eyes before, but it was her job, so she was just used to finding unusual things. But because this time the eyes belonged to her, she was terrified. A life-threatening disease. Rash already had a rough idea of what was happening. She self-diagnosed herself and realized that her optic nerves, swollen that they were, could be papildema. Papildema is a serious disease that, if not found, can be potentially life-threatening. As for Dash, she rushed to a colleague of hers who had specialized in this field to confirm whether or not she was right. He looked at it and confirmed the diagnosis and its severity. Taking care of herself. It was clear that her diagnosis was papildema. They also understood, though, that one of the best things that can happen in a situation like this is to find it as soon as possible. They agreed that periodic examinations are important because they can pick up this kind of thing. Even though Rash's selfie wasn't an exam, because of their knowledge, it was enough to make conclusions and to understand what she needed to take care of. Going to the hospital. Rash was lucky enough to find it before it had become something even more serious, which is what she hoped on her way to the hospital. When she got to the hospital, she started doing tests right away. The comprehensive tests would hopefully be able to show clearly what the root and cause of the problem was and what was causing the swelling. After examining her, Rash felt relieved with the explanation they gave her. Idiopathic intracranial hypertension. The doctors ruled out right away the possibility of her having a brain tumor or a brain bleed, which was one of the worst possible diagnoses. Still, what she had was pretty serious, and she needed to take care of it right away. The condition she had was called idiopathic intracranial hypertension, the name given to pressure that was built up around the brain. This is common in situations like a stroke, a really severe head injury, or brain access. Spending the evening there. Besides affecting the body and particularly the eyes in different ways, it can also last for a long time. It's a persistent disease that can come suddenly and stay for a while, becoming chronic. If doctors examine the patient and don't manage to figure out the root of the cause, they simply diagnose it as idiopathic IH, due to everything that was happening and Rash had to spend the evening in the hospital, planning to return home the next day. It all came from a selfie. It was incredible for everyone that everything had come from a simple selfie. Doctors agreed that because it was detected early, Rash had been extremely lucky. They say the eyes are the window to the soul. But the thing is that the eyes can be the window to our whole body. We just need to look closer and pay attention. Lucky for Rash, her story has a happy ending, and she was completely fine after treatment.