21

Two weeks after my 30th birthday On April 23, 2014 I walked into Crossfit PDX for a routine workout after having finished a day's work as an Early Intervention Speech Language Pathologist. We started the workout with a set of dead-lifts followed by overhead stretches. The weight I was lifting was challenging but not extreme. I completed my set of dead-lifts, during which I started getting a bulging headache and went to do my set of overhead stretches. I lifted my right arm overhead but my left

April

2019

13

My fellow Stromies Sarah and Angie are two of the most positive, faith-filled women I know. I love that about them. And I know that as a trio, we try to exude a positive vibe to encourage stroke survivors all over the world. But I also know that for some survivors, it’s not so easy to be positive. And if you’ve ever read a survivor’s story where they say something along the lines of how glad they are that they had the stroke and how it made their life better, and reading it made you want to

April

2019

13

Life was going very well for me the day that clot mobilized up to my brain. I was making a good living as a Director of Nursing at a small surgery center. I was 37years old, in peak physical health from working out 5 days a week. It was a very stressful day at my job, as we were being re-accredited as a surgery center. I had a slight headache as I followed the auditor around my office, answering his questions. No big deal. I later experienced a slight change in visual acuity in one eye. That's

April

2019

13

I've suffered a brain injury and I have brain damage. That's something that I still can't get over saying; for me, brain damage and brain injuries were caused by things, things like accidents and traumas, actual traumas, the kind that hurt, that you feel and that are worse than the aftermath but that's not the case with strokes. Strokes are sly, they sneak up on you, get you and within minutes of causing often pain-fee havoc, they leave you traumatized and injured. The real damage that strokes

April

2019

04

I don’t feel very smart after my strokes. I graduated 5th in my high school class and I graduated college with a 3.94 GPA. I am a college-educated woman, damn it. Now as a stroke survivor I forget things constantly, I can’t come up with the right words, and I can’t write or type very well. Was all that education for nothing? Is it still in there somewhere? Could I have skipped college altogether? Would I have ended up the same either way? Your guess is as good as mine. You know what it did

April

2019