A Stroke Survivor’s "no cowards allowed” Memoir

(al)ONE is my story of surviving the single unrelenting twelve months I have ever known, of the darkness and anguish that it provoked… yet my impetus for change.

I will be the first to admit that my life was a little bit more “spoiled expat wife” than sex, drugs & rock-n-roll.

That Wednesday morning, where one phase of my life ended and another, more complicated, tricky one, ended up taking its place, started out like any other day. Except it wasn’t.

I awoke with numbness in my lower right leg. The feeling of listlessness, inertia, was overtaking my being.

Here I was, a forty-six year old woman, in good health and, yet, I was about to have a stroke.

I would like to say that, in this moment, running through my mind were my kids or my husband but actually what goes through your mind when you're knee-deep in having a stroke is nothingness.

It is a state of bliss that takes your mind off of the here and now and redirects your thoughts to fairyland.

One minute I was staring at my phone, trying like mad to remember how the bloody thing worked…

A Stroke Survivor’s "no cowards allowed” Memoir

(al)ONE is my story of surviving the single unrelenting twelve months I have ever known, of the darkness and anguish that it provoked… yet my impetus for change.

I will be the first to admit that my life was a little bit more “spoiled expat wife” than sex, drugs & rock-n-roll.

Here I was, a forty-six year old woman, in good health and, yet, I was about to have a stroke.

And then there was nothing.

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