Selfies are great for many things. Capturing your cute makeup look, having a silly selfie sesh with your boo, and even...saving your life? 

That's how it worked out for one Michigan woman, Juanita Branch. She was taking a bunch of selfies one day and started to notice that half of her face was getting droopier with each pic. 

That's when she realized she was experiencing symptoms of a stroke. She rushed to the hospital and and was treated immediately.

Doctors were amazed she caught it that fast, otherwise things would have gotten way worse if she waited any longer.

Speaking of fast, that's one thing to remember when it comes to a stoke: F.A.S.T.  - Face, Arm, Speech, Time. The faster you catch the symptoms, the less likely you'll suffer from of the side effects, such as not being able to speak or walk correctly.

source: KCRA

I have my own stroke story. Or rather, my mom's story. 

Last year my mom had a stoke, but luckily we caught it just in time and she was not affected after she got out of the hospital. 

Here's how it started. She had been complaining that her jaw/face was hurting all day, blaming an tooth ache that she needed to get looked at, but no droopy face. She decided to sleep off the pain. After a while of sleeping, my mom started to feel really weird and wanted to get up and tell someone what was going on, but when she got up, she fell and hit her head and was having a stoke.

We took her to a free standing ER as soon as we could and once we were there, the team was able to administer treatment. 

Later, doctors told us they wouldn't be able to sustain her at their facility and she needed to be rushed to an actual hospital for specific treatment for her stroke. She was in the hospital and had all sorts of tubes and such in and out of her brain (yuck). 

16 days later my mom was released. Miraculously, her arms, legs, face, and brain were all fully functioning. 

Strokes are very scary, but if you can catch them before they develop into something way worse, you'll be able to save someone's life.