Leslie’s Story

My story is about what seems to be an ordinary life and when disaster strikes, how you can, through work and perseverance tackle and concur all obstacles placed in front of you. My doctor called it ‘Tenacity”. You can definitely “Boom-a-rang” from any of life’s obstacles that are placed in your way.

My life began as the first child of a total of three children…and I was definitely ‘daddy’s girl’. My dad was a superb athlete while he was growing up and my little brother did not come along for another 5 years. Eek! So, my young life started with basketballs, baseballs and footballs and a couple of Barbie’s. Playing hotbox, horse, and football drills were literally an everyday event. I loved it! I also took piano lesson from age 5 to 13 from my grandmother and was scheduled to perform as a Jr. Symphony pianist. Of course at age 13 I had attitude and ‘knew” that I knew more than my parents did on what was right for me. Ha!

As life went on the ‘daddy’s girl’ kept on rolling. On holiday’s my mom and sister would be in the kitchen cooking while my Dad, younger brother and I watched football games. Needless to say, not spending time in the kitchen raised its ugly head when I got married. I had no clue how to make my favorite…egg salad sandwiches (and we are talking about boiling an egg!)

I ended up being a competitive swimmer, gymnast and tennis player. Guess what my major was in College? I was a Physical Education/Health major and an Art/Music minor. Obviously, I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Lol!

My life was progressing nicely including a good husband and a lovely baby girl named Jennifer. Things didn’t work out for my husband and I so we divorced when Jennifer was a baby. We have definitely remained good friends for over 35 years. We obviously were better friends than husband and wife.

Fast-forward 17 years. At age 53 my life was about to change dramatically! I was experiencing a lower neck ache for about 2 weeks which my Admin. Asst. and I thought was because of the angle/level of my computer.

Wednesday night around 11:00 pm when I was getting ready for bed something happened…all of a sudden it felt like someone grabbed a 2 x 4 and slammed me in the head. I was dizzy and deaf in my left ear asking my boyfriend to get me to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital a few minutes later and the nurse took me to my assigned room and it was within a minute ‘it was all she wrote…I was out cold’! I guess they transferred me to the Trauma 1 hospital where surgery was performed. I had a brain bleed due to a Brain Aneurism! What!? While in surgery I had two more aneurisms burst, which they clipped and cleaned up. I guess on Friday the Doctors did their rounds and gave me a 5-10% chance of survival. When they came back on Monday they were shocked I was alive and that I was struggling and able to answer their routine questions. My Neurosurgeon later told me I was the most ‘tenacious’ patient he had ever treated. I only spent two weeks in intensive care and I then I was discharged to my home where my aunt took care of me for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, at that point-in-time I did not know (or refused to accept) my deficits/opportunities

My family also came to find out from my Neurosurgeon that Brain Aneurisms are hereditary. My dad’s sister died in her sleep at age 54 and my dad had a non-ruptured aneurysm. My brother, sister and daughter had tests done to see if they had any signs of an aneurism. By brother is being watched due to an abnormal site being found at the base of his neck.

I have had a very blessed life (and still do)! But, now I was facing new obstacles and challenges such as short-term memory loss, not able to control what sentence was in my brain and make it come out of my mouth the same way, and exhaustion hitting me within three to four hours of starting to do something. The word ‘thingy’ became an everyday word, as I have times where I do not know the correct word attached to something. Lol!

I have found out that finding the new you and leaving the old you behind is a never-ending process. I had 2 years of Speech Therapy, had a complete test from a Neuro-Psychiatrist, a Brain Trauma Physiologist, and through 6 years of meeting with my Brain Trauma Psychologist I have found out what my challenges are and I have diligently worked on them to overcome my weaknesses (opportunities) to discover who the new Leslie is becoming.

My daughter Jennifer also has played a huge role in my recovery. She, along with my grandchildren, have loved and supported me to the ‘moon and back’ with my challenges and growth.

My message is to never give up when you have difficulties or challenges to face. You can always ‘Boom-a-Rang’ back from them if you are willing to work on it and laugh at the crazy things you do or experience. After all, ‘laughter is the best medicine’!

Final note…I am definitely enjoying the growing and developing results of the new Leslie!