18

Hi my name is Ronnie and I had a cerebellar stroke on October 27th2017 at age 32.  I didn’t know what a stroke was until I had one. I didn’t know what a cerebellar was either.  I was a normal young healthy guy driving to the expo station in Mid-City Los Angeles, on my way to work when I felt my heart beating so hard it wanted to escape my chest.  I thought it was a heart attack and I would for sure die on this sketchy-looking street. I didn’t recognize at the time, but I was on Smiley street

December

2018

17

Most people I encounter have no idea I’m walking around perpetually confused. Sometimes when people speak to me, I just can’t understand what they’re saying and have to ask them to repeat themselves so many times it becomes awkward. And usually by the end of the day, my neuro-fatigue is so bad that I feel like my brain is buzzing and all I can do is go to sleep. But nobody else sees that. My family sees the mom who awakens early to cook breakfast (because my brain wakes me up in a panic around

December

2018

17

My name is Tara Ennen.  It's been 20 years since I had two major strokes.  In October of 1998, I had a fetal demise and lost my daughter. I had been diagnosed with Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome during my pregnancy with her. No one knew much about this disease back then. They called it sticky blood disease, because that's what it is. My blood clots for no reason basically.  No one knows why I have it, if it's genetic or just some secondary disease to my Lupus.  Two weeks after what I

December

2018

17

I was living overseas and about to see my family on a shared holiday to Bali, when the unthinkable happened, I was 27 at the time and this is my story. I thought it was a migraine at first, I recall a headache the first day in Bali, but grew worried over the next day, when I couldn’t drink a sip of water, my speech slurred, and my face drooped. Before I go any further, I need to let you know this is a story of impatience. To this day I’m still impatient. Impatient to live. To experience all

December

2018

12

I had my stroke on August 22, 2012 when I was 25. About five months earlier I had moved back to my home state of Minnesota from New Orleans where I had moved to after I graduated from college in 2009 and worked for a section of the PGA of America as their junior golf director. In May I had started a new job at the Target Corporation. On August 22nd I was at work like every other day and developed a massive headache later in the day which wasn't unusual. That evening I was supposed to have

December

2018