Reclaim My Life

Description

Sometimes the Universe speaks softly and we pay attention. Other times we ignore the message and continue on the treadmill of life, rinsing and repeating the daily grind to pay the bills, simply existing but not thriving. This happened to me when the Universe spoke softly to get my attention in a wake boarding accident in which I tore my MCL on the last day of my four-week vacation. One might think that isn’t a subtle message from the Universe but compared to what came less than five months later, the torn MCL was not a loud enough message for me to heed.

A spontaneous, soul-searching trip to London with my torn MCL still in recovery, I began to get “back on track” with my purpose in life—something I had squelched for many years. Upon my return from London, the realities of life and the habitual but definitely not alluring activities of the treadmill veered me off course once again until January 5, 2017. This is the day that changed my life forever.

The early ski season was incredible with regular snowfall and I was on vacation enjoying life in Colorado. I was on a roll. My college friend and her family had just come to visit and we skied and rang in the New Year together. A friend in Atlanta asked me if I would “chaperone” his teenage daughter and take her skiing and extend her Christmas break. Aside from not having met his daughter, the idea of skiing a few more days and staying at the Wyndam Resort in Avon, CO was all I needed to accept the challenge. The third charm was meeting a potential love interest who wanted to meet me in Beaver Creek to ski after my ski protégé returned home and so the ski marathon continued. I skied 13/16 days in a row and I was in heaven.

The powder was deep, light, and fluffy. We skied hard the first day together keeping up with each other with ease. From trees to moguls, we laughed and skied hard. On the second day,  another storm hit overnight delivering fresh powder but it was sticky and heavy. My intuition told me to skip the tree runs that morning but I did not receive a message to skip skiing although the snow was proving to be a little challenging. On my favorite run, Yarrow at Beaver Creek on a frigid morning, the Universe intervened once again and from that day forward totally altered my life. This no-fall ski accident resulted in two successive blows to the right side of my head. After the second blow, I hung in a perfect fulcrum in a forward fold at the waist—my bell completely rung to the point where stars and blackness filled me for a spell. My ski companion was nowhere in sight and I was the lone skier on the run. I slowly started to “come to” and scoped out my surroundings and options. I knew I was hurt and I remembered I was meeting my companion at the bottom of the run. With no one to help me, I skied the rest of the moguls and made it to the bottom. There was no form—I was all business to get to the bottom.

A few days later I was diagnosed with Post Concussion Syndrome when I could no longer walk, talk, or get out of bed. With what felt like a vice gripping my head at full power, the pressure in my head was excruciating. My vestibular system was severely out of whack. My short-term memory was that of someone with advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s. I had no energy. I was in a catatonic state. My friends rallied and took care of me for three months and longer as I went through the worst of my recovery.

Fortunately, I had excellent medical care and my team was thrilled to have such a model patient. One day I told my neurologist/concussion specialist, I was going to reclaim my life and that became my mantra. I was dedicated to reclaiming my life and it powered me to find strength and determination even on the worst days when PCS depression threatened my resolve to#ReclaimMyLife.

#ReclaimMyLife is about the freak no-fall ski accident that changed my life and got me back on track with my life purpose. As a high-functioning TBI survivor still affected by symptoms on a daily basis, I’m sharing my recovery story to help educate non-family members what it’s like with a TBI and to inspire other survivors to adapt my mantra #ReclaimMyLife to do the same for themselves. #ReclaimMyLife is also about how staying true to your life purpose is important and inspiring others to get back on track before the Universe speaks too loudly.