The Lion's Pride Lion's Pride Volume 12 (Spring 2019) | Page 8

experience and developing pneumonia. When you get hit in the left side
of your brain, all kinds of things begin to happen, including organs
shutting down, delusions, and other kinds of complications. A damaged
liver didn’t help my situation. They weren’t sure if I would make it
through the first seven days, and, if I did, if I would regain my cognitive
thinking. I had also lost the vision in my left eye. The worst part was that
my body wasn’t cooperating. I wasn’t capable of talking and walking
normally, and my words came out slowly. It is one of the most helpless
feelings a person can experience. You’re trapped in your own body. By
the third week, they let me walk with a walker. My mind was resisting
everything that was happening. I just wanted all my abilities to come
back to normal. Once it was confirmed that my cognitive thinking and
hand-eye coordination had returned, I was discharged with my walker.
With a little practice, I quickly switched to a cane.
My grandmother used to say, “Never be afraid of a little bit of work,”
which became my mantra. The word “work” can mean many types of
work, and I had a ton of work to do. I spent the next six months healing
and fighting vertigo, walking with a cane and relearning how to
function. After being laid up for three weeks, the resulting muscle
atrophy was debilitating. I had lost seventy pounds and was left with no
muscle mass. At this point, I was thinking, it sucks to be human. I
looked awful in the mirror.