Thank you. From the bottom of my heart (from the four of us), thank you so much for raising us. You didn’t just let us grow up, you raised us. You invested into us, loved us, corrected us, and redirected us. You allowed us each the space to be exactly who we are, but also set a foundation of core values that have sustained us and are more apparent to me now that I’m older and grasping just how different people are.
I have been thinking a lot these past few weeks on society, lack of morality and values, and the differences between people who grow up and people who are raised. Truthfully, the general public has made me question a lot and I made the connection that it all starts at home. I have said it in my mind so many times, but the dissolution of family is an atrocity. I believe that wholeheartedly. Family can look differently, but it’s very important to have a parent (or parents) who really do nourish their child(ren). Now more than ever in a society that seems to have its moral fibers barely stitched together by a thread, it is vital to make sure you’re parenting well.
It’s one thing to tell a person what to do, but an entirely different thing to shape them into who they are. Of course it’s up to the person to do what he/she wants to do, but when you build them into someone, they tend to carry that identity wherever they go.
You both did your part in weaving our moral fibers and now we are so well stitched together that it carries over into every aspect of our lives. Mom, you made sure that we were in church from the time we were very little and that opened our young eyes and hearts to the faith that has carried me several times. Thank you! Dad, you may not have taken us to church, but you have instilled plenty of wisdom through your one-liners that still echo in my head and I’m nearly 27! Haha. I will never forget them! Thank you!
“Stand for something, or fall for anything.”
“Don’t do wrong and expect things to work out right.” “Make good choices.” “Don’t start it, don’t take it.” “Watch what’s going on around you.” “Stand for something, even if you stand alone.”
You are both of different temperaments, but you also have both somehow passed on the “feeler” gene. I don’t even know how to put it into words, but it’s that gut feeling that is so strong in all four of us. Highly intuitive, I guess. We “just know.” We are all four different personalities and beings as your children, but we all “just know,” and it’s usually accurate. It’s so weird, but I love it and I love knowing that I can go to my parents and siblings with something or someone and they too can be honest with their thoughts/feelings on a situation so that I know it’s not just me jumping to a premature conclusion. This feeling has saved me from several situations that could have gone terribly wrong and every time I have doubted it, I have paid for it. I have learned now to just trust the feeling in my spirit because it’s there for a reason.
I know that it wasn’t always easy to raise two boys and two girls, I know I had plenty of medical issues as a child (and even as I’ve grown up) that would stress y’all out, I know we weren’t always the most well-behaved or that we didn’t always give you the respect you deserve, but I definitely know that I am so grateful for your parenting skills. So grateful, so blessed to have parents who really do care, really do invest, and still look out for our well-being and best interests although we’re all young adults now. I’m by no means saying we are perfect people, because we are all flawed, but you each gave us a pretty good start on how to live a good life just by being a good person overall.
Thank you for allowing each of us to develop our individual selves but also making sure we stay true to who we are, who we were raised to be, who we are called to be, and who we can become. I have watched too many people try to be too many people (because they don’t know who they are) and they lose grasp and sight of who they truly are. That’s a surefire way to end up compromising yourself for a pseudo existence. I don’t want that, and I’m glad you never encouraged that. We were raised in a house that was very persistent on knowing who you are and not apologizing for being true to ourselves. That matters. A lot. You taught us to love well and accept all people, but not to depend on them for validation or definition of self. Who I am is not dependent on who’s around me, where I am, but what’s within me. Thank you!!! Emotional security is more important now than ever as I’m still recovering, still fighting my neurological battle, still learning this “new normal.” As a young woman in this world and time where everything seems to be constantly morphing, it means everything to me to have a core that is well-developed so that even though everything I know, thought I knew, lost, gained, I am secure enough to know who I am and not change. I have you both to thank for that!
We did not have a perfect childhood or perfect family, but we do have love, authenticity, honesty, faith, laughter, a solid foundation, and that is something that I wish to pass on to my own family, should I be blessed with my own someday. Our home was filled with an interesting blend and balance of honesty and sensitivity. We may not have always seemed like we were listening, but we were absorbing everything and much of it has influenced who I am today.
Thank you for not giving us everything we wanted, but much of it. Thank you for giving us the things that we need, and something that actually lasts an entire lifetime, by giving us a good foundation. Thank you for both being in our lives, day in and day out, in the same household. You taught us to be kind but be honest, use manners, treat people the way you want to be treated, work hard but know when to rest, gain knowledge, be sensitive but strong, love well. We learned by watching you, thank you for the examples.
Thank you so much, dad and mom. You are both awesome people and I love you both so much!!!
When you enter this world, you are given a name, and when you leave this world, you take your name with you. I hope we all carry our names as well as you have trained us to. I love you, thank you.
This past Tuesday I had my follow up with my neurosurgeon in Dallas. My mom, sister and I went to Dallas around 11:30 and got there just in time (a couple of minutes late, actually) for what turned out to be my last neurosurgeon appointment for 10 years!!! Aghhh!! Haha it’s really hard to put into words how I feel, exactly. Of course I’m grateful that I’m recovering so well, and I’m thrilled that I have come out of this with very minor deficits given what could have been. But I can’t lie, I also have been left with many questions.
For instance, “what?” is a question I still ask and will probably ask for years to come, as I find out more and more about what really happened to me. I asked Dr. White to see the aneurysm, and he pulled up some images from the computer. He said it was really tiny and I wouldn’t be able to see it. It was kind of cool, though, to see the vessels in my brain. I asked him “So there was nothing else in my brain? I mean, the matter that should be there is there, right?” Hahaha we both laughed and he said “Yes, you definitely have a brain.” That’s nice to know, considering how completely common sense-less I can be, sometimes. I’m one of those “I don’t understand this because it’s simple to understand, but if it’s complicated I’ll grasp it and break it down right away” types of people. Anyway, he told me that my aneurysm was tiny… As in 2 mm tiny! To give y’all some perspective, the thickness of a dime is 1.35 mm thick, so this aneurysm was less than the thickness of two dimes stacked together. What? So how did something so small cause so much damage? He said that had the aneurysm been found before the rupture, and had he been my surgeon pre-rupture, they wouldn’t have even operated on it. I would have been one of the “watch and wait” cases, as an aneurysm that small would have a 1-2% chance overall of even rupturing to begin with. What? So then why did it rupture? Answer is, nobody knows!!! It’s so crazy, y’all! I don’t even know what to think of it, honestly. The rupture rates for an aneurysm my size are less than 0.05% per year… So that means I could have lived with this little thing for many, many, many years with no rupture and no problems. So why? Why did it rupture? Why did it land me with a grade 4-5 rupture subarachnoid hemorrhage on the Hunt and Hess scale? Why did something so ridiculously small cause such damage? Why? Why? Why? What? Is this really my life? That’s seriously how I feel everyday. I just can’t believe that this is my reality. I wonder if these types of feelings are common of survivors of strokes (subarachnoid hemorrhage is a type of stroke, called a hemorrhagic stroke), ruptured brain aneurysms, other life threatening conditions? Especially for me to be so young and not meet hardly any of the statistics for an aneurysm or rupture. Like… What? Haha. Is this for real? It just seems like a dream sometimes, like I’m going to wake up and someone’s going to say “Hey, just kidding, you just got punk’d!!!” Except I definitely would not laugh at all. It’s been a long year, my friends.
Anyway, Dr. White also informed me that the chances of this ever happening to me again are near 0% which is a blessing. At the time of my angiogram, there were no other aneurysms. The only things I have to do are watch my stress levels, make sure that I’m taking good care of myself, aka EATING and resting when I need to, watch my blood pressure, and basically just make sure I’m living a healthy, clean lifestyle. Sounds easy enough. I don’t drink and when I did, I didn’t drink much anyway, so that’s not an issue. I have asthma, so I definitely don’t smoke, and I think they put something back together the wrong way (haha, JK) because I hardly ever crave the junk food I always wanted pre-surgery! It’s really weird hahah. I could honestly eat vegetables, fruit, and grilled chicken everyday, easy. I love water, green tea, any kind of tea, actually, and rarely ever drink coffee or soda anymore. I am at a higher risk of future strokes because of this one, and I think I can deal with that, as long as I am taking good care of myself, I should be alright. I just turned 25 almost two weeks ago, Sunday, and I’ve got a long life to live. I can easily see myself becoming that gym rat, health junkie next year! It won’t just be a new year’s resolution, either. No, no, no… Surviving something as catastrophic as I have this year calls for an entire lifestyle change. No problem. I want nothing more than to take care of myself so that I can share my story with others, and share just how awesome God is for the work He’s doing/has done in my life this year!! :) Dr. White then told me that I didn’t need to make an appointment to see him again for 5-10 years, but that if anything changes at all (more intense/uncontrollable headaches, seizures, TIA or any other kind of stroke…) to call him to get an appointment as soon as possible. Next time I see him, I’ll have a CTA done (which you can read about by clicking the CTA and scroll almost to the end of that page) just to make sure everything is okay with the clipped aneurysm, and detect anything else that may be abnormal. I’m pretty excited that I don’t have to have all kinds of angiograms done. I have absolutely no memory of my angiogram pre-surgery, nor do I want to remember, but I’ve heard that they are not the most pleasant experience. It’s all just really crazy, what these little “bubbles” can do, and all that you have to do after experiencing one rupture, if you survive it. I’m so thankful to be alive, though. I also got a little identification card that I keep in my wallet, now that explains the clips I have in my head and gives instructions to anyone who might order an MRI for me. It’s pretty neat, but I’d much rather have a photograph in its place haha. But whatever, you never know haha… It’s a good thing to have my little card. I haven’t even looked up the images of the clips, either.
I’m not entirely ready to face this reality, which is why I’m handling this recovery in bits and pieces. It’s also why I haven’t ordered my medical records, yet. That’ll be a huge deal for me, and I don’t know if I have the emotional strength right now to read through it all, and get “memories” of what I don’t remember. I’ve faced my mortality, obviously, but I don’t know that I’m ready to face it in its detail, too. That’s a bit too graphic for me, right now. Dr. White suggested just forgetting it ever happened. Haha, I wish I was the type to be able to gloss over something like this. However, that is not a possibility in the slightest. First, it was a major, major, major spiritual wakeup call and now that I’m right with God, I’m definitely not going back! Second, I’ve learned so much about my life, about the lives of people intertwined into mine, about the lives of survivors of other brain injuries… I can’t just “forget” about it, even if I am doing wonderfully well. It helps to laugh, though.
Anyway, what made this day another best day ever was the fact that my brain buddy, T, met up with me! Remember, she is the lady who was in the room next to me in ICU who had her rupture on the same day, then had the clipping craniotomy the same day, by the same neurosurgeon as me! Once again, a “why, what, really?” moment! Like… What are the odds of that, seriously? What are the odds that each of our mother’s would lose the contact information they exchanged, but then T would find me through a website and then find my blog, and we’d reconnect? Haven’t figured out the significance of this, yet, but my dad has repeatedly said it, and I believe “there’s something special there.” It’s just too odd. I don’t believe in accidents or coincidences, anyway. Everything is a God thing! He is seriously always up to something and we often don’t see it until we’re far removed from the situation, or He decides to reveal it to us in His perfect timing. I honestly don’t know, and my little mind can’t even come up with enough possibilities that might remotely make any of this make sense. Perhaps, though, that’s His lesson in this for me. Besides make it right with and live for Him, to just let Him work as He works, and to just trust that He has it under control. I’ve already grasped the concept that control is an illusion to make us feel safe. When you think that God is the only One truly in control, you are insignificant in the matter. He chooses what happens and what does not happen, period. So what are you in control of, again? Besides yourself. You always have self control. Some people just don’t have very developed senses of self control. Haha that isn’t me, though. Disciplined should be my middle name. :)
Anyway! T, her mom, her aunt, my mom, my sister, and I all spent the day in Dallas. First we had to make a stop by ICU to visit Abdul, one of my favorite (but least liked at the time–haha) nurses! I was so happy to see him! Gave lots of hugs and lots of smiles, that’s for sure. We got some pictures, too! I also met up with a couple of other nurses I vaguely remember. I know Dr. White said I don’t have to see him again for 5-10 years unless I need to, but I will have to make a trip to see the nurses every once in a while. I adore them. It’s kind of strange, but sometimes (and especially when I first came home) I miss them! We got close in those 10 days I was in ICU. I even made buddies with my friends on the 5th floor when I moved up there for my last day and a half admitted in the hospital. Haha. I remember their names, too. I wish that Gil and Kim had been at work while I was visiting. But I guess I will just have to make a little trip back down there to visit. :) I’m glad that T and they were co workers so that she can play messenger for me, and who knows? Maybe we could all get together for dinner in Dallas, one night? It’d be an adventure. Patients/survivors and the nurses who helped them survive. What a special bond. I know that if I were a nurse, I’d love seeing my patients (especially if I were an ICU nurse–as a lot of those patients don’t ever leave the hospital alive) doing well and coming back just to say hey. It was a great time at the hospital. :) I would post the pictures here, but I’m not entirely sure how comfortable they’d feel about that, so I’ll refrain for now. Suffice it to say, it was a beautiful visit with beautiful people. Even the lady in the gift shop remembered me and was happy to see me doing so well. Such an awesome day, and I thank God for sweet memories such as these.
But then the best part happened! Haha we had to go eat at Babe’s Chicken. Wow, it was delicious! If you’re in the DFW area and haven’t eaten at Babe’s, shame on you!! I will drive 2 1/2 hours just to eat at Babe’s again! Hahaha. We ladies had a great time.
Ladies outside of Babe’s!
We took that before going inside to eat. T’s mom took the picture, and her aunt was about to meet up with us for dinner. From L-R is my mom, me, T, and my sister, Kayla. :) Lots of good times! We had shopped around a bit in that area (Carrollton) while we were waiting for the restaurant to re-open for dinner. Cutest little area and shops down there. I loved it. :) Dinner was so delicious, seriously. Amazing chicken and fixin’s. Aka mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, biscuits. And some of the best sweet tea you’ve ever had!! Sorry, Chicken Express and Taco Casa, Babe’s might have ya beat!! After dinner, we were hugging off our goodbyes when my mom reminded me of “the picture” which just so happens to be a canvas painting I did for T with “our” verse on it! Since she first found me, she has shared Romans 1:12 with me and it has become our staple, I guess you could say. The foundation of our friendship and this experience, for sure. :) I painted a burgundy ribbon (brain aneurysm awareness ribbon color!) that my sister outlined in gold, Romans 1:12 up in right hand corner, and the verse underneath the ribbon in black with gold accents. I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but I did not! Haha. That’s okay, though. T really loved it and I’m glad that she gave me some inspiration (the verse) for me to paint! I had fun making it, and I know I would have loved it had she done that for me. :) We have a unique friendship, haha sisterhood as we refer to each other as “sister-friend” and I call her “sis.” :) I love it, a lot! It’s neat that we can bond over something so detrimental and come out with a good support system through it all. I’ve learned this year, more than ever, that support matters. A lot. For anyone going through anything tough in life, you’ve got to have that support! You’ve got to keep God at the center of your life, and you’ve got to use the supports He gives you on these journeys in life. That’s what friends and family are for. Seriously.
So, my friends, I’ve had a pretty awesome week, and I’m so happy to have pictures with the people who were instruments in saving my life, I was thrilled to be able to thank them for their work, dedication, and effort. I was able to thank them for helping me to see my 25th birthday, and I was able to see T and her sweet family, as well as enjoy time with my own. Beautiful, beautiful day! I worked unexpectedly (but thankfully) yesterday, so I didn’t get to spend the day resting up like I had intended, but that’s okay. I also went to a Christmas party/dinner at Chili’s with my table group from church. That was fun. I’m very quiet compared to those girls, but I like them all. They make me laugh! Stacie got my gift of nail polish and I got a Starbucks (which I needed because that place is expensive haha) gift card. :) Today I laid around for a long time until my best, Rachel, called and asked me to have lunch with her. She and I had lunch then went around town looking at possible wedding venues. Someone’s getting marrieeeeedddd!!!! :) Not me! Yet, anyway! Haha first I need a groom… Hahahah. But my sweet best friend will be saying “I do” next November, more than likely. :) We are trying to get some possibilities together for that. It takes a lot to plan a wedding, and the ceremony is the result people see, but there is a lot of planning that goes on behind the scenes. Me being me, I like to have details in cement to assure that everything is going to plan and will work out. Gotta start ASAP. Now I’m home in my fuzzy socks, I’ve drank a mug of hot apple cider with cinnamon, I’m listening to Marvin Gaye on Pandora, and I’ve clearly typed out a rather long blog with lots of information for y’all. Hahah. It’s almost at 3,000 words! Why is this not an essay for school? Hmm… That’s another blog, though. I definitely want to look into getting back into school to finish a degree I started, maybe next fall? I don’t want to “waste” any life.
Alas, I’m grateful, I feel comfortable, and I feel like even if my life isn’t going any way I would have ever planned, it is going the way that it needs to go. I trust that God has this in control, and He just wants me to be a good steward of the life He’s given me. It’s gotten better, and it will continue to get better. I have hope, always. I’ll always be the optimistic person who finds that flicker of light even in the darkest of nights. That’s just who I am. :) I hope that all of y’all readers are doing well, and remaining blessed wherever you are! Remember, tomorrow is a privilege, not a promise. Make it right today! Live easy, love hard, and keep the faith, keep the fight. Blessings to you. :)
Well hey, y’all! I am still alive! Haha. I just didn’t really get a chance to come back here and edit that last entry I posted. That’s okay, though. :)
To bring y’all up to speed on my birthday, I had a wonderful day. I’m still celebrating it, and probably will for the rest of December! Haha that seems to be a tradition for me, and I really don’t think anyone will object to my month long celebration this year, for certain. It’s just that my friends/family and I are spread out, life gets busy with the holidays, work, finals (college!), and… Life, that I don’t always get to celebrate the way I want to, so we just always spread it out! On Sunday, I went to church and then was treated to birthday lunch (and yummy dessert!) by Rachel’s mom. She, Rachel, my mom, my sister Kayla, and friend Aimi were all there. It was nice and sweet. Then Rachel and I went to run a couple of errands and take our Sunday nap. It’s pretty much a necessity haha. We went to a Christmas concert that evening, which is something I wanted to do. I love shows, and I love live music. I’m also 100% alcohol free, so having a celebratory drink was out of the question… Why not go and see a concert? It’s a show and live music all in one! So we went to that, and it was pretty chill. All in all, my birthday was simple and sweet, which is just how I like it. I’m not a very loud, showy, party crazy, “in your face” kind of person. At all. Haha. I’m more serious, shy, reserved, and mellow than anything, so that type of birthday celebration just suits me. Friends have been taking me out to lunch and I will go to dinner with another on Friday night. I’m excited, and I like it this way. I’m also really glad that I was able to enjoy the concert, aside from the occasional bright flashes of light reflecting off of the disco ball haha. The sound didn’t bother me, and I was able to focus. It was nice. I can’t say that would have been the case a few months ago, to be certain.
Then, yesterday, I reached the 10 month annie-versary of “the day I died.” Also known as, the night the aneurysm ruptured. That means that tomorrow is the 10 months annie-versary of the brain surgery that took place to save my life! Praise God! I’m not going to lie, I’ve been emotional about it and have cried a few times. This is just a big week for me. I’m alive, I turned 25, I’m in mostly good health besides the yucky winter kind of colds and frequent headaches I get, I’m reaching the 10 month mark and if you had told me 10 months ago I’d be here, I wouldn’t have believed you. My… I just can’t believe it. Today, I treated myself to a deep tissue (and I may be regretting that now as I’m very sore haha) massage, and a pedicure. A spa day! It was nice and relaxing. Then I came home because I guess the fatigue has decided to stick around. I didn’t realize it, but I am getting really tired easily, again. Almost like it was in the beginning. It’s okay, though, because I listen to my body and rest when I feel like I could just fall over from exhaustion. This time last year, I would have pushed myself to just “get past it” but no more. I need my rest, and it’s okay that I take the time to rest!!!
Next week, I will celebrate with a follow up with my neurosurgeon, a day in Dallas with my mom and sister, and time spent with my brain buddy, T. We will also make a trek back to ICU to visit some of the nurses who took care of me (and well, us, since T was in the room next to me) which I am very excited about! I just really want to hug them all, and tell them “thank you” in their part of helping me to see 25!! It makes me tear up just thinking about it, and I really cannot wait. :) This will happen next Tuesday, and we’re just going to make a day of it. I have an afternoon appointment this time, so I think we are going to head to Dallas in the morning, have breakfast with T and her mom, just spend some time with them. Then I will go to my doctor’s appointment, then we will meet up with T again to go back to her old stomping grounds as an ex ICU nurse in that same hospital. I really cannot wait.
You know, life is pretty good. Even in the midst of readjusting to life, yucky headaches, being a human barometer, feeling “different,” being treated differently, and just trying to figure it all out. I truly remain blessed, and I am truly grateful!! :)
I’m thinking of working on a piece with my “brain buddies” in order to address some issues we in the brain injury community have. Raise awareness about brain injury, brain aneurysms, strokes, any brain disorder that would classify you as someone with a brain injury. There are just so many misconceptions, and quite frankly, I get tired of people reacting to me like I’m some kind of alien because they don’t “get it.” I want our voices to be heard. So be looking out for that hopefully within the next couple of weeks. I posted something about it on Facebook, but got very little feedback about what questions “they” have for “us.” They being non brain injured people, us being brain injured people. I got no feedback, so I may just have to flip the question and write it in the format of what “we” want “them” to know about “us.” We and us being brain injured people, them being non brain injured people. :) Just a thought!
Hope that y’all are all doing wonderful and staying blessed. :)
Every once in a while, life will present me with the opportunity to see the reason behind a saying. Today, I gained that knowledge because of a status a friend of mine posted on Facebook. You see, lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to have heart. Not have a heart, but to have heart in everything you do. You know, like a relentless quest that keeps pushing you to press past anything in your way. Determination, drive, a will to do, get, and be better. Here’s the perfect story that illustrates a real life example of what I’m trying to say:
“I go to the gym just about every morning at 8am or so. Every morning I have gone this semester there has been this kid who practices basketball all by himself
He is pretty overweight and wears glasses and you can tell he just plays for fun early when no one is there. All he really does is chunk the ball with one arm from half court the whole time for about an hour. He always misses the backboard
by at least a foot and you can tell that he gets really down on himself and thinks he isn’t any good. But this particular morning I was on the. treadmill and he had been down there missing for about 30 minutes. He was sweating heavily and looked like he was about to call it a day. when he went to half court for one last shot. He chunked it with one arm and it went straight in the net. He threw his hands up and started clapping over his head, trying to celebrate quietly to himself. I don’t know if I have ever been happier for someone I have never spoken to. My day, and possibly my entire week, has been made.”
I can’t lie, after I read this, I had a slight tear in my eye. It just made me so happy. I even commented on the status thanking my friend for sharing this story with us. It’s just a nice and simple reminder in today’s rushed, complicated world. I love the story. But most of all, I love that that kid has heart. That’s what life is all about.
It’s about being knocked down, but still getting up, dusting yourself off, and trying again anyway. It’s about the odds continuously being stacked against you, but you press on anyway. It’s about trying, even if you might fail. It’s about trying that 100th time, even if you missed the shot the first 99 times. Why? Because you never know. Life’s funny like that… You just never know which shots you’ll make, and which shots you’ll miss. Try, anyway. Life just might surprise you and you might end up making it by a long shot when everything/everyone around you says “you can’t.” Don’t you give up. Keep trying, keep going.
It’s important in life to have heart. It’s important to dedicate yourself to something other than yourself. It doesn’t have to be some glorious philanthropic project designed to win you accolades, either. Just find something that you can put your heart into, and pursue it. Sometimes that’s how we find ourselves. I know I find bits and pieces of myself in the things that I write. I will write something, and people that I don’t even know will acknowledge something I’ve written and they show me something new about myself. I appreciate that. Not because I’m narcissistic, but because it’s nice to be able to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. It’s a nice affirmation to validate yourself. It’s nice to place your hands above your head and silently cheer yourself on, just like that kid did today. :)
What this kid didn’t know, is that he was being watched and that his own perseverance would speak to many people. It reminds me, myself, to keep pressing towards the goal. I just want to encourage y’all to keep the faith, keep the fight. Just keep pressing towards whatever shot it is you’ve been trying to take, and maybe haven’t made yet. If you quit trying, you’ll never make it. That’s when you lose, is when you give up. So keep taking those steps to press on towards the goal. Don’t take your eye off the prize. Put your heart into it, and get after it. All the talent, education, skill, time, and money in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t have heart. You’ve got to have an unrelenting passion to go after whatever goal it is you’re shooting for. So find whatever it is that fuels you, and go. Be blessed!
Faith, by fire. 