Testify!

A person's testimony I think is almost certainly THE most important story they can tell. A testimony is more than a life story, it is the story of how you got to where you are now. Mine is broken up into many pieces. But my main testimony, THE main story that has sculpted my life, is the story of the first time I almost died. I will set the scene.

It's November. It is unusually cold, even for winter in the U. K. My friends and I were set to meet another group of friends in 'BERT's' cafe down the lane. -East Street. The friends in question were not in the cafe. We decide to grab something to eat and take a stroll down the old Kent Road, to the house in Walworth road, where one of these friends lived.

At the counter, I pay for a bag of open chips and the man serving passes them over the counter, I take them in my hand and they fall ALL over the floor.

I am mortified.

My arm has stopped working. I am SO embarrassed by my faux-pas. I don't even begin to worry about what caused it. My friend helps me gather the chips - or what was left in the bag, and apologising profusely, we exit the shop and begin the long walk from East Street to Walworth road.

As I walk, my leg starts to drag and for a split second, I look up as a wave of fear washes over me. My exact thoughts? "It's my brain. I'm gonna die"!

I continue walking, not even talking to my friend and the thought leaves and I start to wonder where the friends, who were supposed to meet us, are.

We get to his house.His brother informs us, he has no idea where they are, so we begin to walk back toward the old Kent Road. We reach a step in front of a night-club on the corner and I sit down on a step. -just for a minute, you understand, I want to get my breath back.

My friend is very understanding and we discuss what to do next. We decide to move on. I tried to push myself up, using my left hand and fall sideward.

I can't move.

And yet still I am not frightened, just irritated. NOT as irritated as my friend."Stop messing around, Andrea"!

Poor, poor, Sara. For the first time in my life, I was NOT messing around.

Tears pour down my cheeks as I inform her of this and lots happened at this point that I'm not fully aware of, slipping in and out of consciousness as I was.

At some point, she went to the friends house to ring my dad and left me with a stranger; who, in all probability thought a young teenager collapsed in front of a club was possibly unable to handle her alcohol. Oh, if only that had been the case. Alcohol was the furthest thing from the cause. The cause being a congenital heart defect, no-one knew I had.

I remember very little, but one thing I do remember. I remember being convinced I was dying and being totally ready for it. I felt no real fear. I thought I was about to meet God. That my time on Earth was over, but it was cool, me and God were best buds.

Now, in the present, my lack of fear is something I find compelling. Why was it so glaringly absent? Maybe it was because I had lived for but a short time, and I was basically a pretty good kid, -at least I TRIED to be a pretty good kid? Or... maybe it was because I truly, absolutely positively, believed, me and God WERE best buds and I could actually feel angels all around me and whatever the outcome, I was safe.

Either way, I'm pretty sure, I would not be so fearless now! I have not exactly been a "good girl" since then if you get my meaning? - another story! Also a testimony.

So, what HAD happened to me?

I had a stroke. I was 15 years old and unbeknownst to me, I had been born with that congenital heart defect. Co-artation of the aorta.

In basic terms? The main artery off my heart had not grown from birth.

So at 15? I had the main artery of a new-born baby. This caused me to have high blood pressure, which not only caused my stroke, but also caused many weaknesses in the blood vessels in my brain. So I ALSO had MANY, aneurisms, which needed to be clipped. (side-note; at the time the Australian television series called 'Home & Away' had run a storyline, involving a main character's son who had an aneurism and had died, my fear at that point had become palpable, if, be-it fleetingly – it convinced me I was dying)

At one point, I asked hospital staff to amputate my arm, because it got in the way and I was dying anyway, it wasn't like I'd need it much longer. This said, believe it or not, without an ounce of fear, just glaring acceptance. ( I had completely forgotten, just how through-out this entire period, I just thought death was inevitable and as my parents wept and feared, I felt no fear at all- How did I not feel frightened? Wow!)

And so, not only was I paralysed down my left side, I had to endure two major surgeries, but they couldn't decide which to do first. If they corrected the co-artation? It could cause my blood pressure to rise and my brain to go BOOM! IF they clipped the aneurisms? My blood pressure could rise and BOOM bye-bye brain.

So for what seemed like forever, I was stuck in a limbo. During this limbo.- which in reality lasted a couple of months, but that is an awful long time for a teenager. I could do nothing but physiotherapy and laying in my bed, dream. It is THIS dreaming which shaped me. I learned to live in my head.

What choice did I have? I can assure you my reality was more than sucky at the time and so I dreamed. Dreams that took me beyond the four walls of the Maudsley neurological unit. Dreams that took me on the road of my favourite pop group (Bros incidentally) dreams where I COULD walk down Commercial Way and endure. Endure what? Endure the walk. Endure the staying awake for longer than a few hours of doing something without feeling the need for a LONG nap.

The night before my brain surgery, I made the nurses unlock the chapel and I prayed strength on those who would mourn my loss – I just remembered that, I think I might have been amazingly brave or a tad nuts.

I was worried about them, more than me. I ended my prayer with,

"so if the surgery don't go well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

Wow, what a girl! - but of course this was a moment, I turned into a hell-cat after, but that is another testimony.

I had a diary and I wrote. I wrote how many days it would take for me to recover and I counted those days. So, I'd lay in that hospital bed and day-dream. And I hurried my recovery, never realising that my hurry to recover would dictate I never would. I would just live in my head.

forever.

I'd never really experience life, because my head was always in the clouds. I tried to go back to school, I REALLY tried. I went to college briefly, but it didn't stick, it was too tiring. I did manage to exit school with one grade. A 'C' based on coursework, in - fortuitously, English. -I'd missed the exam, due to being in hospital. Inevitably, because of an insane desire to be independent, I ended up a mother only a few short years after and subsequently had 3 children. The world building seemingly went on pause.

Then I began to write again, my grandfather gave me a typewriter and it would be all I did (hyperfocus, ADHD) I forgot I was a miracle and felt like a failure. I was a single mother on benefits who struggled with basic tasks. I endured hardships, battling with education authorities over how they failed my children. Education was important to me, mine had been wiped from my mind, due to the stroke. I was diagnosed with adult ADHD.

– my desire for a speedy recovery, revealed.

I was medicated. My circumstances changed and as NaNoWriMo 2014 approached, I searched the web and educated myself on story structure/world building/etc, I'm afraid punctuation is STILL beyond me in speaking, let alone writing, but I learned that is what an editor is for –yay me!

And through a company of wolves who used to be men. I learned that living in my head can pay dividened's and I reclaimed the 15 year old walking miracle who was at heart, basically a decent loving person, with an INCREDIBLY VAST amount of faith in God's plan for her life.

#testimony #writing #words #NaNoWriMo #stroke #AdultADHD #Faith #November1989