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| Leslie Living After Stroke |
- ----> Welcome to My Nightmare
- Water Will Fix Me
- My Brain is Broken
- Ignorance is Bliss
- Hell’s Hallway
- Insanity Reigns
- Learning to Live Again
Welcome to My Nightmare
Where to begin……………..
This has been the hardest choice I’ve had to make. It has prevented me from making this blog public. I can play all day with layout and function. I write like crazy in my journal. Actually entering my first post leaves me speechless. Well not really speechless. As you’ll soon discover, I actually have too much to say. :-) I’m just very private and scared to put myself out there for the world to see.
The water‘s never going to be the perfect. I’ll never feel comfortable exposing myself. With May being Stroke Awareness Month in the U.S., now seems like the ideal time to just dive in……………………………………….Once upon a time, in a world light-years away, lived an ordinary 46-year-old woman who had no idea that the world she was so familiar and comfortable with would vanish in an instant. The world she knew was replaced with a world she never could have imagined existed, even in her wildest dreams.
Hi, I’m Leslie, welcome to my Nightmare.
Never-Ending Nightmare is a series of posts that summarizes the phases of my life during the first 18 months after having a massive thalamic hemorrhagic stroke.
Sunday October 7, 2012 at approximately 8 pm, was the end of life as I’ve always known it and the beginning of the most challenging journey I’ll ever take. I had a massive thalamic
hemorrhagic stroke. (i.e. hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain breaks and leaks blood into the brain. AKA: a Bleed)
It took me many many months to realize the true scope of this nightmare I am trapped in.
It seems only fitting that I offer some backstory before jumping into random stroke related posts. Over the past 31 months, I’ve had what I would consider 6 distinct phases of my post-stroke life, 5 of which really didn’t consist of living. On many days, I’m not sure I consider the 6th (current phase) living either, but it’s a start.
Summarizing the first 5 phases (18 months) was not as simple on paper as it was in my mind. I decided a series of summary posts would be better than hitting you with everything at once in one unbelievably long book length post.
A glimpse of the remaining 6 parts of this series:
Part 2 (Phase 1): I’ll Be Fine if You Give Me Water
The night my life changed forever. In the blink of an eye, my world permanently changed to something completely unrecognizable. A 46-year-old adult when the day began, an infant when it ended.
Part 3 (Phase 2): My Brain is Broken
In the hospital for 10 days, clueless, in excruciating pain and very near death. No one told me how serious it was.
Part 4 (Phase 3): Ignorance is Bliss
Months living in rehab, I’m more alert but still pretty clueless. I’m surrounded by extremely positive and optimistic people, leading me to believe the stroke was just a bump in the road.
Part 5 (Phase 4): Hell’s Hallway
What I like to call “Camp” much to our therapists’ dismay. The 4 months I spent in an intensive outpatient program. Too busy to realize how much time has passed and how far gone I really am.
Part 6 (Phase 5): Insanity Reigns
I’m 8 months post stroke and home full-time. I’m just beginning to realize the scope of my nightmare. Life will never be anywhere close to the same again. Yeah, I’m a slow learner.Part 7 (Phase 6): Learning to Live Again
There is life after stroke. It just takes time, hard work and a lot of searching to discover it. 18 months have passed and I’m on a constant journey down a nonexistent path that must be recreated daily.
The past 31 months have been an interesting journey to say the least. This series is just a glimpse of life during my initial post-stroke phases.
I look forward to getting to know you and your story!
See the original article:
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