just keep breathing…

“I feel like this headache is never going to go away”. When you live with migraines – six years now for me – and you have had hundreds of them, you become accustomed to walking with pain. But this headache was different. It had been triggered by a strong scent, and I’d been down for two days, barely functional.

My amazing husband (let’s call him AH) sent me outside to enjoy the lovely late summer afternoon in the garden. I took myself out to the deck and curled up on a chair. It was so quiet and warm, and it felt like summer for the first time in many days. I heard a siren from the fire hall in the distance, and the howling chorus of neighbourhood dogs that accompanied it made me giggle. I remember thinking that I hoped that whoever needed the first responders was okay.

Out of nowhere, a familiar migraine aura: the sense that I soon would be unable to speak. I’d lost speech with migraines on rare occasion in the past, so I wasn’t worried, but knew I didn’t have long to get to AH to let him know what was happening.

I didn’t move fast enough, and so by the time I got to him all I could do is stare. AH knew right away something was up. He was concerned, I could tell. He sat me down on our kitchen sofa [Who has a sofa in their kitchen, right?! We do. It’s the hub of our home] but instead of sitting, I collapsed into a heap, folded over a pillow. I couldn’t move. And then I stopped breathing. Wide awake, not breathing is not something you want to experience. Trust me on this.

AH – always a rock, and so good in an emergency – made a semi frantic 911 call while pounding on my chest to get me to breathe. I started breathing, then stopped again. We did this a few times: I stopped breathing, AH pounded on my chest, I resumed breathing. Eventually I figured out that I needed to tell my body to keep breathing. And swallowing, apparently, since I suddenly found my throat choked with saliva.

Fire crew arrived, followed by two ambulance crews, and a second fire crew. “Crap, this must be bad,” I remember thinking. I watched our kitchen fill with very large men. I was still unable to move, unable to speak, working hard to find a way to swallow, and just keep breathing.

I heard words like “massive stroke”, “good window for treatment”, “we need to be quick on this”. I’m a worrier by nature, so I should have been panicked by this stage, but I had no emotion about anything that was going on. I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t feeling, wasn’t wondering what was going to happen next. My only job was to breathe, and to try and swallow.

It was the loveliest time of my life – and I’ve had some pretty lovely times, let me tell you – that window when all I had to do is hang out and remember to breathe while a kitchen full of people decided how to handle the situation. It sounds bizarre, and yet I was completely removed from it all, just peacefully watching everything unfold.

I was lifted onto a stretcher, and my left arm fell between the gurney and the doorway. I couldn’t move it. Nobody seemed to know it was there. A kind woman appeared, and gently lifted it up and returned it to my body and strapped it in with the rest of me. I was wheeled out of the house and up the driveway. I saw the garage door was open and wondered if someone would close it. The thought left as quickly as it came. No worrying or concern. Back to breathing. Breathing is important work, it turns out.

The ambulance ride was a unique experience. I had two paramedics with me, one a lovely young woman (she was the person who had found my arm for me) tending to my IV and telling me what was happening, and what to expect when we got to the hospital. Her words came into my brain, registered, and then left without causing any concern on my part. Everything was taken care of. I could feel her compassion and her caring nature. The other paramedic was hopped up on the drama of it all. I could feel his adrenaline. “She’s going down hard,” he kept repeating. I remember being fascinated by those words and had the thought that if I was in fact going down hard as he said I was, that it wasn’t so bad at all. I actually felt pretty great.

Arriving at the hospital was a blur. AH appeared (he’d ridden in the front seat of ambulance), then my parents, then a doctor. I had a CT scan, and was then transferred to a cubicle in the ER. The doctor reappeared, kindly reassuring us that we were in a good window of time for stroke treatment. He told us the radiologist was reading my CT images and then they’d know what treatment to start.

Again, just a prevailing sense of calm and ease. No thoughts, no worries. Just watching it all happen, very present in each and every moment of the experience. Somewhere along the line I realized that I no longer had to remember how to swallow and breathe. Relief.

The kind doctor again. “Amazing news. You’re not having a stroke. In fact, the vessels in your brain look amazing. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” Because of my migraine history, the doctor shifted to the presumption that this was an atypical migraine and started pushing meds to abort the paralysis and aphasia.

People came and went. One family member at a time came and sat with me in the tiny cubicle. The kindest, funniest nurse took such care with me. She dished out a parade of one-liners the entire time I was there. I felt loved and safe. Such an odd place to experience such an overwhelming sense of peace and being held.

Two hours in, I was finally able to move my fingers, then my face. And then, words. I could see the relief in AH and my parents. Everything was going to be okay.

Five hours after my symptoms started, I walked out of the hospital. But I seem to have walked out into a world that’s different than the one I used to live in. I’m quieter inside. My brain doesn’t race. My mind doesn’t worry. I find the world is much busier, and noisier, and more stimulating.

Making my way in the same life, in the same world alongside my entire inner landscape having shifted is a massive struggle and I’m still in the process of figuring it all out. But one thing I know: I crave quiet in a way I never have before.

And this is why you’re here, reading this blog post. The week after my episode (“episode” is the best word I have for it, feel free to suggest another if you’d like), I was walking into an office at work and clear as a bell I knew that I needed to write, and it would be a blog, and that I should call it this quiet life. I don’t know where this is going, but I’m excited about the journey and the discoveries I will make along the way.

Thank you for being here. I hope to see you again!