Journey
Rebuilding a new life takes more time and courage than I could have imagined
Thriving After Surviving: What Does a Thriving Life Actually Look Like?
After surviving cardiac arrest, I was in a medically induced coma for days. My life was turned upside down. I had no idea getting back to normal was not in the cards. Yet, I’d wake up every day and tell myself, “Today is the day I’m going to crush it.” Except I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I Had No Idea I Was Having a Heart Attack. So I Kept Running.
On January 11, 2018, I went for my run, frustrated that I kept having to walk to catch my breath. I’d learn after the fact that I was having a heart attack during that run. I had no chest pain, and no indication that I should be concerned. It was no different from the previous 100 runs. If you had told me I was having a heart attack, I wouldn’t have believed it. I felt fine.
Rewire Your Brain Series: Break Doom Loops
Doom loops aren’t a willpower problem or a weakness. They are caused by a brain trying to close a loop it can’t close. Try this five-second trick that actually breaks a negative thought spiral fast.
Rewire Your Brain Series: Write it Out, On Paper
My speech therapist gave me a strange assignment after brain injury: keep a written log of my day. I didn’t know it would become the thing that rewired how I process my emotions. There’s a saying and principle in the worlds of neurology and psychology: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Writing makes things in our brain fire together. It can change your brain, and change your life. It’s not an overstatement.
Rewire Your Brain Series: Speak Different Words
My neurologists gave me one piece of advice that sounded like fluff until he explained the neuroscience behind it — the words I speak after I fail are literally rewiring my brain, for better or worse.
Rewire Your Brain Series: Endless Possibilities
This is first in a series on rewiring your brain. My neurologist told me that some “roads” my brain previously took to help me function were now closed. They would never reopen. That was bad news. The good news, however difficult to hear, was that I could build new roads, or neural pathways.
The Only Time Average Can Be Heroic
Life can be frustrating for a person who has a brain injury. Living with someone who does isn’t easy, either. I can’t eliminate those situations, I can only try to manage them consistently.
GPS. Apple Pay. Brain Delay.
Life can be frustrating for a person who has a brain injury. Living with someone who does isn’t easy, either. I can’t eliminate those situations, I can only try to manage them consistently.
Anxiety and Depression: 2 Stages of the Same Struggle
If you’ve ever cared about everything and nothing at the same time, you already know what anxiety and depression feel like. Here’s what nobody tells you.
Anoxic Brain Injury is Like an F5 Tornado
Anoxic brain injury is like an F5 tornado. Imagine yourself standing in a pile of rubble.
Imagine someone picking up a piece of wood from the rubble, and asking if you know where it belongs. It’s nearly impossible.
The Gift of Unexpected Compassion
The friendly young man behind the counter asked if I wanted my tuna to be on a wheat, tomato, or a spinach wrap. That’s when things turned south for me.
Who doesn’t understand a wheat wrap? At that moment, I didn’t.
“I apologize. I had a brain injury, and I don’t understand any of this.”
I Believe It. I Need You to Believe It.
I explained to my neurologist how a previous doctor told me I reached my cognitive limit. There could be no more improvement.
My neurologist looked at me and said, “That’s a terrible diagnosis. You’re going to get better.”
He said words that have stuck with me since: “I believe it. I need you to believe it. When you believe it, your brain will put itself in a position to heal, and it will begin to heal.”
Invisible Illness: How I Look Doesn’t Reflect How I Feel
So many people suffer from serious health conditions that doctors call invisible illness. Invisible does not mean a patient is fabricating a health issue. It means that the condition is not observable by others. It’s logical. Yet, most people falsely believe if they can’t see a clear indication of illness, then whoever they are looking at must be healthy. This is very common with neurological disorders.
Being Grateful and Angry at the Same Time
Conflicting emotions aren’t rare or odd. They are part of life. What’s rare is to ever have a single emotion without another one nearby pushing its way into your mind.
I’ve learned that I can be grateful to be alive, and frustrated that I’ve fallen up the steps… again.
The Slow Crawl of Healing, Recovery and Growth
Whatever growth you’ve had, it never feels like enough. All of life works that way. Healing from sickness, recovery, and growth in anything are so slow. It’s so slow, it can be discouraging, frustrating, even infuriating. It’s human nature: we want the progress to be fast, and fast enough to notice it.
The Relief and Grief of a Medical Diagnosis
After two years, I finally had an answer for my symptoms. That answer meant I had another medical condition. There is both relief and grief when you get a medical diagnosis. I felt relief because there was an explanation for my symptoms. I felt grief because that meant having yet another medical condition to manage that will likely never go away.
Secret Advice from Dozens of My Doctors and Nurses — Word for Word
I’ve been asked about my lifestyle numerous times by doctors and nurses. After sharing all the details, they said it’s shocking that I had cardiac arrest.
What led up to that day is equally shocking. What happened after is beyond words. Across America, more people have become aware of how health insurance companies routinely deny coverage for their policyholders. These aren’t rare instances, it’s part of their system to put profit over patients.
Health Issues aren’t My Identity. They are My Reality.
It can be challenging to live what people consider a normal life when you get reminders every day, throughout the day, that you live with numerous health conditions.
As someone who has seen over 45 doctors and medical providers in just over eight years, I can say from experience—it’s hard to escape thoughts of your health.