Try to imagine yourself at 26 years old; working, partying, traveling (etc.) long story short- (be prepared you will be eventually getting the whole story- can't say I didn't warn you)... And on a semi-predictable night with your current project (a.k.a. friend in need of guidance); only something's not right. There's a echo you are currently trying to ignore telling you that you should have stayed home. You take your second baby hit (insert assumption about a 'hit of what' here) decide that getting wasted is not on the agenda and decide to pass, now you're trying to figure out if you wanna go home or... when you get a pinpoint blast of INTENSE pain and instantly hear your most courageous self murmur "FUUUUUUUCK! Should have listened to that gut feeling, this shit's not right." Your last man on defense, your ace in the hole is now panicking. The Macguyver part of your psyche has been beaten. But with no health insurance, a highly ranked PO for a father, a relationship still mending with your mother, and having just started back to school again you instinctively know that from this moment nothing will ever be the same....
Fearing high hospital bills you wait to go to the hospital trying to tell yourself that this is nothing serious. You've had migraines since you were seven and while you know that's not what this is you justify the cavalier facade because you are no stranger to excruciating head pains. You now notice (belatedly) that you've been in pain for about a half hour and are now DRIPPING sweat as though you went running through the Sahara for your life while being 50 lbs overweight. But you're not, you are sitting in a climate controlled environment trying to convince yourself that you are fine, head hurting so bad it's bringing tears to your eyes and you are now drenched in your own unearned sweat.
As the hours go by you loose all sense of your left side without realizing it. Attempting to cap a water bottle while holding the cap in one hand and bottle in the other proves to be life's greatest mystery; you know that they go together that it SHOULD be a no brainer but you are now just sitting staring at the objects in each hand. In the time you were trying to figure out how to cap the bottle you lost the knowledge of what you were trying to do and why, now you sit staring at the cap and bottle and are not quite sure why you can't remember what they are, what they do, and how to get rid of them. You look up to explain your quandary only to find that you have to comically over enunciate ev-er-y-th-in-g in order to make somewhat recognizable sounds or grumlings. The cap has now falllen out of your left hand but you can't feel it, see it or process that there is anything there. You know that you should get up and try to shake off whatever 'this' is but now standing is life's ultimate wonder. However did you do that before? Now it hits, this is serious you need help.
Thinking you may just be lucky enough to sleep it better I took a nap and when I (miraculously-according to medical professionals) woke up attempted to stand up and fell face first "TIMMMBEERRR"epic fall and crack the upper right side of my head on the corner of the coffee table. At this point my friends weren't fucking around listening to me anymore, they carried me to the car, held me up when the put me in and buckled me up. Not conscious by the time we go.....
I got to the hospital to find that I had been suffering a stroke for the past eight to nine hours, and now could possibly die from it. It took two days for me to stabilize enough for brain surgery in which they drained 200ml of blood and repaired surface damage to my brain, not being able to get to the ruptured blood vessel (it was so far in,attempting to stop it would've caused more damage than leaving it active).
A malformed blood vessel in the right hemisphere of my brain had burst and in a blink of an eye I had become a 26 year old stroke survivor. It turns out that I had always had a weak blood vessel in my brain that we never knew about and after a lifetime of 'poking the bear', it bit back. While there was not enough toxin in my system to have realistically caused the stroke it definitely did not help, and now my life and myself have been irrevocably changed and this is my journey....
