There Are No Absolutes

Mar 6

I am here, years after a life-threatening trauma, mixing with you, laughing with my children and moving through my days because I’m not done yet! I believe we each have a choice to make – either we listen to the professionals and what they say is possible or we base our recovery on what is actually possible.

Four years ago, I survived a stroke from a carotid artery dissection while living with my family in Tokyo. When I awoke from a 10 hour surgery, I couldn’t walk, talk or feed myself. The doctors secretly told my husband that I would never write again, due to my severe aphasia.

How lucky for me that I didn’t know this. And how brave of my husband to keep it from me for years.

You see, on one hand, the doctors have seen many survivors come and go and assume that every survivor is like the others. That they will go through the same recovery. In fact, that’s why the doctors assumed that I would never write again. They discounted me and my absolute passion for writing.

I didn’t follow the simple path to recovery, but instead devised my own journey, by defining my own version of “better”. I’m not recovered – but I find it less important than I once did.

I believe that we all have a 2.0 in us. I’m not the same person that I was years ago, before my stroke, and I’ll bet that you aren’t either. But, here’s the thing, if we are ever going to break the vicious circle of lack of aspirations and lack of expectations that befalls us as survivors, we have to begin now.

So what are your aspirations and expectations for yourself? And how do you get there?

You have to dig in and do one thing today that pushes you closer to your dreams. And again tomorrow. And the day after that. Success breeds success… and with the right cocktail of villagers who support you, you can break the stereotypes and prove that stroke survivors can do anything they put their minds to.