3 things I wouldn’t have done (if I wasn’t faced with death)
/Today (5th November 2022) is 12 years since I suffered a near fatal brain trauma. While 12 years is certainly a long time, the feelings that flood back today are still somewhat fresh. I’m sad, empty and depleted but also proud and emancipated.
I tend to use this anniversary of sorts to reflect on what I’ve achieved and how far I’ve come since that horrible day - it’s a cathartic but painful reminder. Over the years I’ve immersed myself in the pain to make sure I don’t forget what happened - I look at the first brain scans that show the bleed, read the emails of despair my parents sent to family and friends, flicked through the mountain of cards I received while unconscious… it isn’t nostalgic, it’s painful.
I’m often reminded that since my ruptured aneurysm I have achieved so much, and I absolutely have - I’m immensely proud. But it took a lot to get here. Well… “a lot'“ is an understatement that’s for sure.
I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if none of this had happened. If I had gone to work that Friday in 2010 and come home as normal. I do feel that going through a life-changing trauma in my 20’s afforded me some unsolicited wisdom and perspective that I wouldn’t have gotten any other way.
Leola’s husband (merv) helping her learn to walk again - dec 2010
3 things I wouldn’t have done (if I wasn’t faced with death):
#1 Quit my job without a safety net
You know since 2010, I’ve had quite an interesting career. Not even sure if “career” is the right word as I’ve jumped around and tried a few different things over the past 12 years. Prior to my brain trauma I’d say that I was just working to earn money - and in my opinion there’s nothing wrong with that, so to think that I would ever quit my job without something to go to - is quite absurd.
Yet here we are in 2022 and I’ve done that exact thing 3 times in the last 12 years. Does that make me flaky, unable to commit? I dunno… I think it makes me decisive if anything. I decided that the role wasn’t working for me, and I left. That’s it.
One thing that facing death taught me is that life is short. I know that we’ve all heard that term thrown around - but the fact is that I was a 28 year old fit woman, at work, and I collapsed DEAD. Not a metaphor… I collapsed without a pulse… clinically DEAD. So yeah… life is short.
What I learnt from that is that tomorrow isn’t promised. I don’t have time to wait for things to get better, for people to change, for circumstances to improve… I just have to change them myself. So that’s what I did, and it’s been incredibly empowering.
Don’t get me wrong - it didn’t work out every time. It’s not all happy endings. But like anything, it takes hard work. It takes guts, mistakes and relentlessness to get up and keep trying over and over again.
But for whatever reason, eventually it always works out.
#2 Tattooed my hands
I’ve had tattoos since I was 15 years old. My first was done in Fiji with my cousins as we randomly walked past a tattoo shop as teenagers, and we thought we’d mark the occasion. As I got older, it never really stopped.
I remember in my early 20s when I would be working and thinking of my next tattoo and where to put it. I would always strategically choose places that could be covered at work, or in public generally. It was never about showing others, but at the same time I never wanted to be judged - so I proactively hid them.
When I was in Intensive Care I was bed-ridden for 3 weeks. I didn’t move from that small room, and I lost the ability to walk. I remember lying in bed, literally contemplating my upcoming death and I thought …”See dad, my tattoos don’t really matter after all”.
I realised in that moment that my tattoos have nothing to do with anyone else but me, so why was I so worried about what other people thought.
“But people won’t hire you with visible tattoos”
“You’ll look like a thug”
I stopped caring and decided that I would tattoo my hands, I’ve always liked the look and they were my hands anyway! Anyone that had an issue, or didn’t want to hire me because of my tattoos was not for me anyway - it would be a good way of showing who “my” people are.
#3 Stopped drinking
I doubt that I would have stopped drinking if I hadn’t suffered a life-changing trauma. However, it’s not for the reasons it should be.
In 2018 (following years of battling multiple mental health issues following the trauma) I developed a nasty prescription drug and alcohol addiction. I was a high functioning high performer, so while I didn’t drink at work, I would be downing 2 to 3 bottles of wine (topped up with vodka) to myself at night and chasing it with opioids if I had them.
The COVID pandemic accelerated my addiction rapidly. All of a sudden I found myself faced with well… myself… and because I didn’t like that person much, I would literally drown and hide myself in substance abuse. Basically escaping reality at every chance.
Not surprisingly, there’s only so much that one man can take and by mid 2020 my husband had reached the end of the line. If I didn’t clean up my act, he would leave me. Ultimately I was faced with a choice. It obviously sounds like a simple choice to make, but at the time it was super hard.
Facing myself and delving into my demons and trauma was daunting, but at the end of the day I decided that I would rather continue life with him in it. So In May 2020 I quit my job (with nothing to go to) and checked myself into a 28 day Rehab facility.
Those 28 days form part of the hardest times I’ve ever experienced. To truly open up about your mistakes and be vulnerable with strangers is intensely uncomfortable. But I got there.
So here we are… 12 years on. Still kickin’, still grateful and excited about what’s to come.