Alive-aversary: Four Years Since the Day My Life Changed Forever

May 30, 2021 — the day my AVM ruptured, the day I had a stroke, and the day I became a survivor.

It’s hard to put into words what it means to look back on May 30, 2021, to look at that date and understand it now as both a moment of near-death and a moment of birth. Not the kind of birth marked by celebration and balloons, but the kind that comes after everything has fallen apart and somehow… you’re still here. You’re still breathing. You’re still you, even if you’re not the same.

I knew I had an AVM. I had symptoms. I knew something wasn’t right in my brain. But I didn’t know I was going to have a stroke. I didn’t know that one moment I’d be living my life, teaching a week-long Blood Pattern Analysis course for Libra Forensic Consulting, doing work I was passionate about, and the next, I’d be unconscious, in cardiac arrest, and in the middle of the worst medical crisis of my life.

When the AVM ruptured, it took everything from me — my ability to speak, to move, to know my own name. It felt like the world went black, and when I came to, I was on the other side of something I hadn’t prepared for: brain injury, stroke recovery, and the long, uncertain process of piecing my life back together.

The early days were terrifying. I didn’t recognize myself, inside or out. I had to relearn how to walk. How to talk. How to be. Aphasia made communication a daily challenge, and my brain felt like it had been cracked open and rewired in ways I couldn’t explain. For a long time, I wasn’t sure what kind of life I’d be able to live again.

But slowly, painfully, I began to return to myself. Not the same self, that version of me was gone, but a new one. One shaped by survival. One forced to rebuild from nothing. One who could still find meaning, even through the fog of trauma and fatigue.

Now, four years later, I’m still here.

I walk. I talk. I laugh. I cry. I create. I help others who are going through what I went through. I carry aphasia with me, but it no longer defines me. I have bad days — days when the weight of this experience still sits heavy on my chest, but I also have incredible ones, filled with moments I never thought I’d get to see.

This Alive-aversary isn’t just about marking time. It’s about honoring the fight it took to stay here. It’s about grieving what I lost and celebrating what I’ve built since. It’s about recognizing how fragile life is — how everything can change in one heartbeat, one rupture, one moment, and how sacred every day is after that.

Me now!

To those of you reading this who are still in the thick of it, recovering from a brain injury, facing your own AVM diagnosis, or living with aphasia - I want you to know: I see you. I was you. And I am still walking beside you in spirit. Recovery is hard. It’s slow. It’s not linear. But it is possible. And it is worth it.

To my people — the friends, family, medical staff, and quiet supporters who showed up when I couldn’t show up for myself — thank you. You helped me survive in more ways than you know.

To my body — this battered, healing, brilliant body — thank you for not giving up on me when I didn’t know if I could go on.

And to myself — the version of me who fought, who clawed her way back into the light, who refused to stay silent — thank you for being the strongest version of me I’ve ever known.

Four years ago, I almost died.

Today, I live with purpose, with gratitude, and with so much more love for life than I ever had before.

Here’s to year five. I’m ready for it.

Still standing.

Still surviving.

Still here.

#AliveDay #AliveAversary #AVMAwareness #StrokeSurvivor #BrainInjuryRecovery #AphasiaAwareness #Grateful #LifeAfterStroke #StillHere