Jennifer Saake

Tomorrow will be the anniversary, my "re-birthday" when life stated over from square one. Thirteen years ago I heard the word "hypermobile" for the first time. I was 39 years old and a chiropractor had just rotated my neck and commented on my extreme flexibility. That first side of my neck adjusted upon first attempt, but the other side just wouldn't realign. After multiple attempts , my vertebral artery was ruptured in the back of my neck and I instantly experience two catastrophic (either should have been fatal) brain bleeds (strokes) there on the treatment table, initially triggering a seizure, blindness, slurred speech, and a rapid progression to loss of consciousness. I was in the hospital for nearly 2 months, shocking doctors that I even survived the first night. I had to relearn how to breathe without a machine, swallow, see, hear (we eventually discovered I had lost 70-90% of my hearing), sit up without two adults holding me, bladder control, and everyt...

I'm told that, due to copyright issues, I legally must tell a story that includes a recipe, rathan than being able to directly publish My Family's Very Favorite Banana Bread recipe. So here is my story... Tears are close to the surface today. It doesn't take much for them to spring into my eyes.  A kind word. A well wish. A verse of the Bible...  October 25, 2011. This was our "before and after moment," the single event that defines our family's history. My life has never been the same since. Nor my husband's life. Nor our children's... Yesterday was hard, reliving countless hospital memories I don't care to revisit, time paralyzed in the memories (some of being literally, physically locked in the confines of a mind unable to communicate movement signals to my body). Yes, diagnosed PTSD. The early hours of this morning I tossed and turned, desperately wanting to sleep through this whole da...

 I turned 39 less than 3 months before my  strokes .  This month I'll turn 49. I wasn't supposed to live. Not alive to the hospital. Not through the first night. Not through the first three days. Not through the first week... Surviving an entire decade makes no sense, medically speaking. I am (now) beyond grateful. (Oh boy, was I mad I had survived at first though!) I've gotten to raise two kids into adulthood and another is starting his second year of high school next month. (My initial worry that I would never get to raise them, was for totally different reasons !) I did not leave my husband a widower. I am re-learning many skills and making an impact in lives, because of the strokes, living a platform I didn't want,. I feel thoughtful today, I can't quite wrap my head around nearly a decade.  I am very thankful. Overwhelmingly grateful. Happy. Joyful. Awe-filled Also a little sad. Melancholy. Disoriented. Confused. Bewildered. Many memories of this past decade ar...