parts of my brain and my heart will always be in 2019, my last year of being ‘normal’ and able bodied. I’ll continue to grieve my past life

However, I am incredibly proud of the person I was pre-stroke: I married my best friend and childhood sweetheart – my first love, bonded and strong in our faith; I had a career I loved, established the most genuine relationships and a tribe so deep who helped us get through the most devastating time. I built myself to survive the worst; I hit many of my goals before the age of 31 which prepared me to be set for recovery in my home

I will always envy those who get to move on normally in life while I continue to struggle the rest of my days

Being disabled is harder than hard; and I”m not too sure yet why God decided this card for me. even as I type this blog post one-handed, I miss the ease of life I used to possess

and I don’t regret one second of the hard because it showed me the strength of our faith, love, and hope in what He can do for us, tested the love between my husband and I, showed us who our people are

I also wonder if this had not happened to me, would I have even inspired anyone at all?

If my story could be a source of strength to anyone struggling and my daughters that would be enough for me

It took me awhile to accept, but I do love the survivor that I am, the wife, and mother and friend that I am

In the spirit of this year coming to an end, I reflect on the leaps and bounds I have made this past year and I am so proud of myself and my little family for thriving under all the hardship, pressure and never giving up on each other, not crumbling through the difficult times, especially our resilient kids in their young age who have had to grow up faster in order to help their parents. I thank our God for giving us all the strength and everything we need and more. I look forward to continue to work towards even more recovery and God-willing, closer to a ‘normal’ life. I’ve completed all of my therapy appointments I had this year and am scheduled to continue through the end of January then will be discharged for a few months while my persistent physical therapist, Barb is working on getting me into vocational, transitional neuro rehab which is a 8 hours/day/5 days a week program who’s goal would be to get me back into the work force post brain-injury, even part-time or volunteer work. God-willing I’ll be in the program sometime next year as there is months waitlist, plus insurance issues. we are praying for this next step. Until then i’ll keep walking to strengthen my endurance. and I’ll trust in God’s plan for me and my family. if you’ve read this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.