The Sun Always Comes Out

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Part of life is weathering the inevitable storms that come our way. The measure of our success is how we go through these storms. We can either lie on the ground and wallow in self pity, or get up, dust ourselves off, and make the decision to start living again.

On September 20th, I had a Subarachnoid Brain Hemorrhage, I went to bed that night feeling fine and without warning I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like someone had hit me in the back of the head with a hammer. A terrifying experience that could have ended my life or caused me to be permanently disabled. The last two months of recovering from the hemorrhage have been hell to put it lightly. I suffered some serious nerve damage throughout my body as well as some brain damage in my language center.

Up until last week I was waking up each morning with my entire body screaming in pain due to the nerve damage and the pain stayed that way until I went to bed. The only relief from the pain was when I was able to sleep. I was also unable to hear music due to the damage in the language center of my brain. I could hear the sound of the music, but there was no melody. It sounded to me like a bunch of banging ruckus in a tin can; nothing at all like music. I was also dealing with not being able to speak clearly and I was (and still am) mixing up words as well as having difficulty understanding what people are saying to me. Much of the time people open their mouths to speak and all it sounds like is strange and incoherent gibberish.

The experience I’ve had over the last couple of months threw me into a very deep depression. Experiencing that intensity of pain at a constant level seriously affected my ability to feel happy. Actually it affected my ability to feel anything other than darkness.

That coupled with a devastating heartbreaking personal loss during my recovery from the hemorrhage put me into a very dark place mentally and emotionally. The doctors told me it would take at least three months to start feeling better again however, when you are in the middle of a hell-ride like that, it didn’t feel like I was ever going to go back to being my happy smiling self ever again. I thought I was gone forever. Except the doctors ‘forgot’ to tell me how long it will take to heal my broken heart, that is still mending. I’m sure my heart will take quite a long time to fully recover.

Fortunately, two months from the day from when I had the brain bleed, I can absolutely say without a doubt that the sun once again feels today like it is beginning to come out. Most of the pain is gone now which is a good indication that my nerves are healing and though I may have to see a speech therapist to help me once again speak without mixing my words up. The fun part of that is that I have made up some completely new words never heard before in the English language that have come falling out of my mouth. My kids have been a great support, and rather than get scared that their mother hasn’t been talking right, they have taken it upon themselves to help me to stay upbeat and whenever I talk funny we all have a good laugh at it. It is actually quite funny when I do things like talk about their ‘Grandpa Jim’ and instead I call him ‘Gamma Germ’ hahaha. I am the luckiest mother on the planet to have the amazing kids I have.

I wasn’t the only one who went through the incredibly traumatic experience of having a brain hemorrhage, my kids also went through a lot of serious trauma because they could have lost their momma and it was beyond terrifying for them to see me hauled away in an ambulance on that fateful night.

Today is the first time since that horrible evening on September 20/2019 that I feel fully confident for the first time that I will make a full recovery. The sun isn’t all the way out from behind the clouds yet, but I actually feel somewhat like myself today for the first time in two months. The light at the end of the tunnel is actually in sight.

The silver lining in this dark cloud is that I have a renewed appreciation for life and how precious it is as well as a renewed appreciation for the support of my amazing family. This experience has been the largest test of my faith and fortitude that I have ever had in my 45 years on this earth, and though I am sure it will not be the last storm I will weather, like future storms that are sure to come my way, this one too shall pass.

Prairie Sky Wellness