\u201cStandup is like so addictive, and it\u2019s honestly probably good because the people that do get into standup otherwise would be maybe drug addicts,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She took her standup on the road starting in 2022 and performed in 30 states. On her way across the country, she begged clubs, bars and breweries to let her perform; on the way back, she was headlining.<\/p>\n
She moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 2025, and her travels inspired a short film, filmed Jan. 17 and 18. That weekend, her left thumb started to go numb. The next week, she went to Sundance Film Festival for one of her side gigs.<\/p>\n
The morning after she got home to Los Angeles, she took her dog, who\u2019s paralyzed and uses a wheelchair, outside, and Vincent stopped being able to walk. An MRI revealed a 7-millimeter lesion on her brain, and a spinal tap test confirmed her diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n
The day after she was discharged from the hospital, she joked about it onstage.<\/p>\n
![\"Kylie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/kylie-vincent-3-me-260723-2815ad.jpg\")
Kylie Vincent says she found standup to be “really cathartic, that I could just kind of bring myself to what I was making, and how I was making people laugh.” Andrew Max Levy \/ Courtesy Kylie Vincent<\/p>\n
****<\/p>\n
MS is a chronic neurological disease where the immune system breaks down myelin, the protective barrier covering nerve fibers, which can affect the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.<\/p>\n
In her standup performances and across her social media, Vincent calls it \u201cmega-slut disease.\u201d (Often followed by, \u201cAnd yeah, it\u2019s incurable.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Symptoms include vision loss, severe fatigue, balance issues, muscle spasms and numbness, like Vincent experienced. Looking back on when it started, she recalls a joke she kept repeating while making her short film.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time, I didn\u2019t have insurance. … I was like, \u2018If anything happens to me on set, do not resuscitate,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cOh my god, if we only knew what was going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n
She knew at the time the numb feeling was a problem, but she figured she could address it later. It spread from her thumb to her hand to her entire left side, but by then she was in Park City, Utah, for Sundance, so she thought it might just be the cold. When she got home, she thought, \u201cI\u2019m going to go to sleep, and hopefully when I wake up, this will be all over.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she couldn\u2019t walk the next day, a comic friend drove her to the emergency room, an anecdote that could serve as its own standup set, even though it features a misdiagnosis, a weeklong admittance and life-changing news.<\/p>\n
First, there was the matter of getting to the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy friend, who is also a broke-a– comic, was like, \u2018I\u2019ll take you to the ER … and I heard this thing that if I take you to a hospital that has \u2018saint\u2019 in it, it\u2019s a Christian hospital. They won\u2019t ding your credit. So I\u2019ll take you to a saint hospital,\u2019\u201d Vincent recalls. \u201cI was like, yeah, whatever, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they arrived at the hospital, it was about 1 p.m. <\/p>\n
\u201cI show up, they have no f—— wheelchairs left. I was like, \u2018OK, awesome, you\u2019re a hospital.\u2019 Do you need me to go home and get my dog\u2019s wheelchair? I can use that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
A nurse conducted an EKG on Vincent and complimented the young comedian\u2019s tattoos.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in the waiting room from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., which is totally fine. I had Temple Run on my phone, and my right side was working,\u201d Vincent says.<\/p>\n
Finally, she saw a doctor. He was male, and in a recent standup set that\u2019s growing more viral online, he\u2019s memorialized as, \u201cthe he\/him doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came in, just saw that I wasn\u2019t able to walk, did not ask me any other questions, nothing else, and was like, \u2018OK, I think I\u2019m going to send you home with antibiotics and just call it a UTI.\u2019 And that was crazy,\u201d Vincent says.<\/p>\n
Luckily, another doctor saw her case before she was discharged. <\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the neurologist of the hospital, thank god … was like, \u2018Nah, she needs to get a brain scan because it\u2019s giving stroke.\u2019 That\u2019s how they said it, they\u2019re like, \u2018It\u2019s giving,\u2019\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n