Claudia Trujillo - Celebrating Life
Claudia Trujillo is a stroke survivor who had a hemorrhagic stroke in 2018. She writes about her journey of stroke recovery as we near National Rehabilitation Awareness Week.
Today as every single day after my stroke I am celebrating life. I had a hemorrhagic stroke back in August 2018 and now I can say I am happy and thankful to be alive. I am a fortunate and lucky stroke survivor, here is a little bit of my story.
It was on a Thursday, August 23rd around 11:00 a.m. I was at work when all sudden I had a big headache, I went deaf for a moment on my left side and I lost part of my vision on my right eye. I could not continue working and a coworker took me home. I went directly to bed because of the strong headache. I took different painkillers but nothing worked. I did throw up all day long and by midnight, I asked my husband to take me to the ER. They treated me for a migraine, never scanned my head even though I explained my symptoms to the nurses and to the ER doctor. We came back home after a couple of hours in the ER. I was in so much pain Friday and Saturday and on Sunday, I decided to go to the women’s hospital ER. They scanned my head and found I had a hemorrhagic stroke. Then I was transferred to the main hospital ICU. I was there for a couple of days. After being in the ICU, I was transferred to the main floor for nine days then transferred to a rehab hospital for another nine days.
I had a wonderful time at the hospitals, especially at the rehab hospital. I had around six or seven therapy sessions every day (occupational, speech, physical and vision therapy) after I was dismissed from the inpatient rehabilitation hospital, I did three months of outpatient therapy that helped me a lot. I do believe in therapy 100% and also I am a 100% God believer. My faith and positive attitude were a strong part of my fast recovery.
I could not work or drive for three months. I started working back part-time in December 2018 for four hours, in January moved to six hours and now I am working full time. ❤️ 🧠
As I have always said, God knows what he does. I did not have any medical history that caused me to have a stroke. My stroke “just happened.” Now, I can tell that I am a 48-year old woman, very thankful that I am alive and that I did not have any weakness in my body - that I fought hard and I overcame. I am struggling with aphasia and my loss of vision. I am not the same but I can tell that faith, strength, and patience have been No. 1 in this journey. It has been only one year out from my stroke and I feel stronger every day ❤️🧠👍🏻.
#thankful #fortunate #alive #lucky #strokesurvivor #stronger #braindamage #hemorrhagicstroke
