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Everyone I tell that I had an aneurysm always says, 'Oh, my cousin died from that.' Well, I didn't, so I'm amazed. I was in a wheelchair, and I had to go to rehab. And now I'm walking!

I hid the fact that I had an aneurysm for a very long time. I was embarrassed, and I just felt like no one needed to know because it made me look weak. Who would of thought someone my age, at 23, had a brain aneurysm?

Whenever you're coming off a serious injury, it takes time to heal.

In common with many who have a brain injury, I initially lost my confidence and felt very vulnerable, as if a protective layer of skin had been stripped away.

It's always hard to deal with injuries mentally, but I like to think about it as a new beginning. I can't change what happened, so the focus needs to go toward healing and coming back stronger than before.

Survival is nothing more than recovery.

Any psychologist will tell you that healing comes from honest confrontation with our injury or with our past. Whatever that thing is that has hurt us or traumatized us, until we face it head on, we will have issues moving forward in a healthy way.

Just as the body goes into shock after a physical trauma, so does the human psyche go into shock after the impact of a major loss.

Even when I was hurt with triple ACL reconstructive surgeries, there was a target on my back. I had to come back and fight through it.