On January 25, 2017 I was taken to the hospital because I was dizzy, sick and acting strangely — turns out I was having a series of seizures and it was discovered that these were because I had had another stroke.
My first stroke was three years and twenty-four days before this one.
Although, physically I am much better off than the first time this one has taken a bigger toll on me emotionally.
Perhaps, it’s because I was actually convinced this time that I wasn’t going to make it through — I actually wrote letters to my family to thank them, tell them goodbye and how much I love them (to my teenaged daughter I wrote a series of notes for her to open at different times if she needed mommy advice).
Today I don’t think I’m going to die, but post stroke depression is real and I’m struggling to stay positive, getting out of bed has been hard — I’ve got to plow through this though because I have far too much to do this week!
5sentences2happy 
Wow. I haven’t heard much of this unlike after having baby or after a loved one dies. Thanks for opening up my world a little bit more.
Did you tell them or give them the notes you wrote? Do you feel that you didn’t regret anything when you thought you were leaving for good?
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Wow Great questions!
After the real crisis had passed, I needed to tell my husband just how convinced I was that I was going to die, so he knows about the notes. I never told anyone else (until now). I still have them I don’t think I will give them to the people I wrote them for. But I think I’ll be sure to tell people how much I love them and how very proud I am of them.
I didn’t, surprisingly, find I had regrets while writing the letters. I found a lot of it was simply saying I love you, thank you and live and love freely because life can change so quickly. I think there was a wee bit of a pity party going on in my letters but I expressed it as encouragement to just live life to the fullest. (So I guess there was so regret after all — I should have not been so scared, so anxious, so depressed, so shy in life)
All that said…I have been given a third chance so I’ve been trying to express my love to my friends and family more. As soon as I’m on my feet I want to do something big, life changing and leave my mark in a small way on the world. I’ll post about it when I find out exactly what that looks like.
Thank you so much for your questions! I had to really think about the answers.
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