I am a 57 year old woman, that owned a consulting business for 12 years, I specialized in motivational speaking and sales and service training for banks and credit unions. Prior to that I resigned from a job at a major bank as a Vice President to care for my husband, He passed away 11 years ago. I have one wonderful son, 2 dogs and a little cat.
13 August 2004
This strange and weird day was June 9, 2002, I was in the backyard gardening and my sister was over with her boyfriend. My 36 year old son was also visiting. They all left about 5:00pm and I decided to call my other sister in another state to chat. She was having a big BBQ with lots of people, and told me she would call me later. It was OK with me because I had developed a bad headache.
It was really hot outside, so I decided to go into the house, and I left my phone outside. As I went into the living room, I knew that something was really wrong! I started to get up from the sofa, and my head felt as if weighted 100 pounds, and the left side of my head felt as if was melting. As I got up, I fell back and crawled to my cell phone in my purse. I called 911 and had the sense of mind to open the front door for the paramedics. I then crawled down the hall to the bathroom because I felt sick. I was holding the cell phone all the while. The person on 911 told me it would be just a few minutes. I live about a block from the fire station. I could hear them coming as we spoke. I then hung up and called my son , and he was on his way back to my house to give me a video that he had gotten for me.
They took me to San Gabriel hospital, and I was in so much pain. I had my son call my sister to meet us there. She is a very take charge person and made them give me something for the pain. Another woman was in there at the same time, and she had the same problem... an aneurysm, and she died, and all of her family was there crying and she was a year younger than me. I was 55 at the time. The doctor came out after the test and told us that it was very serious, I had lot of blood on my brain, they put me into ICU for 10 days until the swelling went down.
I didn't know that I was in so much trouble, I wanted food to eat and a TV, the nurse told me that they didn't have TV's in intense care. I also wanted a pedicure because, I felt my feet didn't look their best, funny how these things are important. All my family came to visit, even cousins, that I had not seen for years!
The doctor gave me a 2% chance of making it out of the the surgery, and if I did make it, I would either, go into a coma or end up in a wheel chair.
Long story Short, I was in the hospital for a month, most of the time in ICU, I could not talk very well, and had a hard time walking, and had trouble with my short term memory.
My son sold his home to move in with me and care for me, he is quite a wonderful person! I had problems with severe depression. My whole life had been taken from me, couldn't drive, or work.
I started to take Prozac and that helped tremendously, I am no longer sad or depressed. I tried to work ( I was a motivational speaker) and I got in front of a class of banking managers and I forgot where I was, It was horrible! I am better now if I do thing for short periods of time.
I have just been approved for permanent disability, and have an income, so I don't have to depend on my family. I could not fill out the paperwork before, so I did get a years worth of back pay, and social worker is working on getting an additional year! God is good!
I am going to try and design a 2 hour course for people like us, to help get us through the tough spots, I want to offer it out at local hospitals...It will be called " IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN" What do you think?
Please write me, I would love to hear from all of you, please know that you are going to be on my prayer list!
Thanks for listening!
© Copyright 2004 Marita Reckner
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