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?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
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!
After that I couldn't show my face outside. I lost my identity and balance. I was still living with my parents, and they were my only friends. For so many people, this thing with the nurse was confirmation that I must be mad or mentally ill.
When I think back to my childhood, it's with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I was always forgetting things. My mum called me scatty because I could never sit still. But there was no sense I was suffering from a medical condition as such.
Many people say that recovery from an aneurysm is like having a layer of skin ripped off - your experience of life is more intense.
I was paralyzed from the chest down when I was 19, so I kind of put my head together about dying, and I think I've come to terms with it.
I was 21, and rehearsing a play, took a fall and was in a coma for a few days. And when I recovered, I'd lost my sense of smell completely.
It was part of the reason I almost didn't go public with my diagnosis - I was embarrassed. I felt, 'Oh, I've always talked about exercising. And I got cancer.' And then I realized it's a great example of showing that cancer can hit anyone at any time.
My mother had Alzheimer's, and it's a desperately, desperately cruel thing to witness.
When I got heartbroken at 20, it just felt like someone had spiraled a football right into my skull. At 40, it feels like someone had driven a 757 right through me.
When I was at school studying biology, I wanted to be a medical researcher. I did work experience at St Mary's Hospital in London, and I begged them to let me see the post mortems. So the first time I saw a naked male was at 15, when I saw an 89 year old man who had died of a brain hemorrhage.