On April 18, 2019 I had an experience that will forever change my life...

I woke up that morning with a splitting headache but it gradually got better through the beginning of my work day. But then, around 1:00 /2:00 pm I was on a phone call when I began to experience strange visual sensations, tingling in my face, lips, tongue, right arm and hand, and then my speech went. I was having difficulty getting words to come out, jumbling them when I did and I was speaking words that I wasn't even thinking of. I was fairly certain that I was having a stroke. After hanging up the phone, I sat on the floor of my office for about 10 minutes before I felt like I was "with it again" and I knew that I needed to get medical help.

My husband arrived and rushed me to urgent care. The doctor there believed it was possible that I had experienced a transient ischemic attack, which meant that a stroke could occur soon, so I was immediately taken to the ER. The ER team decided to do a physical exam, extensive bloodwork, as well as a CT scan. We talked at length regarding my medical history. Here's where I need to side note to my medical history...
....For as long as I can remember, I have experienced violent headaches. I have a clear memory of having to leave school in 2nd grade because my headache was so bad, and then lying on the floor at home at the bottom of a staircase since the pain was so intolerable and I could not bring myself to climb the stairs. As I got into high school and college, the headaches at least became less frequent. I have received a handful of CT scans as well as at least one MRI due to these headaches and the fact that brain aneurysm has a history in my family. Nothing concrete was ever found. About five years ago I was at breakfast one weekend when I began to see flashes of purple and yellow. These flashes morphed into what I would describe as prism shapes, and eventually blind spots. I went to the ER where the doctor asked if I had ever had a migraine before. I said, though questioning my own experience, that I thought I had many times. The doctor sort of chuckled and said that this was a "real" migraine and I should go home, take some Advil and brace myself for a very bad headache. I experienced 2-4 migraines like this annually from then on, but because the ER doctor had basically told me this was normal, I never spoke to anyone about it...
...And so, when in the ER in April 2019, I began discussing these migraine with aura (as I have learned they are called). The doctor said that my visual disturbances were not normal and I would need to see a neurologist. After a little waiting, the doctor came to speak with me about the results of my tests. Bloodwork looked great - despite a spike in blood pressure most likely due to the fear and anxiety surrounding what had happened to me - but there was an irregularity on my CT scan. First, the doctor explained, they believed I experienced a complex migraine which can mimic the symptoms of a stroke. Secondly, the doctor asked almost in disbelief if I was truly unaware that I had an Arnold Chiari Malformation. Huh??? A WHAT? The doctor explained that the rare condition is generally congenital thus his surprise in being the first to tell me I had it, since it should have been caught on one of my previous CT scans and MRI. As he began to explain the condition, I think I blacked out. I didn't register anything he said to me expect that they wanted a neurosurgeon to look at my MRI before releasing me from the hospital. "A neuroSURGEON?!", I thought. No no no. I was about to get married so this couldn't be happening now. I made my husband search the internet for everything he could find on this condition while we waited to see the doctor again.

I didn't end up needing surgery and have had to visit with a neurologist on a regular basis. My Chiari was determined to be a "moderate" case but because the symptoms do not interfere with my every day life, I have chosen not to see a neurosurgeon. The would most likely not recommend me for surgery at this time. Because my migraine with aura are so infrequent and dissipate with OTC pain medication and sleep, I currently do not need to treat them with regular medication.

The aftermath of all this? Honestly, it took a long time to begin to digest it all. I went on as if things were back to normal for a year before I began to comprehend what it all meant. The migraine with aura, we don't know why I get, but it does increase my risk of stroke. I understand now that it's important for me actively reduce that risk to the best of my ability. I think the reason it took so long to understand that is because I think "I'm young and healthy; that won't happen to me", despite the fact that I am being told otherwise by the medical community. I have also started to dive deep into what research is available on Chiari and I realize how much it may be affecting me (though still not enough to inquire with a neurosurgeon at this time).

I am thankful that all of this information has started to settle into what I refer to as my "big brain", and that I'm finally taking it seriously. I can analyze how healthy I eat, my exercise habits, take the medications that I should be taking, and re-evaluate my life to ensure that I am doing all I can to live long with the conditions that I have.


What is Chairi? To give a very basic overview: it's a malformation of the cerebellum where the cerebellar tonsils extend beyond the base of the skull and crowd the space where the top of the spinal cord sits. There are four types of Chiari malformations which vary in severity and symptoms.
For information on Chiari Malformation, please see these helpful resources:
The National Organization of Rare Diseases
Conquer Chiari
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
American Syringomyelia and Chiari Alliance Project

It was a lesson that I have read from Phil Maffetone many times: Having poor nutrition and expecting positive results exercising is like filling your gas tank with the wrong type of fuel and expecting the car to run the same.  Despite having experienced this lesson first hand a few times, I'm still testing it..

I have fallen off of the exercise train and recently been trying to hop back on. I had a great weekend of running and nutrition, and although I recognize that I have a long way to go to where I want to be, I felt positive about where I was. Then, on Monday, I gave myself a day to rest. Instead of letting my body recover, I filled my tank with lots of the wrong type of fuel on Monday night and continued to do so into Tuesday morning. When my feet hit the pavement on Tuesday night for a run, they wouldn't budge. I felt bloated and heavy, I was sluggish, experiencing moderate heartburn, and my heart rate was unusually high. As I begged my body to at least make it a mile, I heard the lesson in my head: don't fill your tank with the wrong fuel and expect good results. 

I continued to walk and was planning what other exercises I could do at home, when suddenly I began wondering why if I knew this lesson already was I still testing it. It lead to a small realization about myself - something to the effect of having a binge personality - and then something happened that was unusual for me: instead of getting down on myself and/or coming up with a plan to fix what I would normally consider a personality flaw, I simply thought "yes, that's me and that's ok; at least I know and can recognize it, and hopefully that will help me moving forward". 

In the moment that followed, I noticed the pavement under my feet and nothing else. My ears had dulled the sounds of the nearby highway and construction going on around me, and my eyes blurred everything outside of the pavement immediately underneath my feet. My eyes welled with tears and my throat became tight. I didn't feel sad or overwhelmingly happy or really anything exceptional; it was a feeling I could not identify, Next I noticed that I felt grounded - physically grounded - to the pavement below; like the scene at the end of Moana when Te Fiti's heart is restored, she's glowing and full of life again, and sinks down into the Earth as she and it become one. 

So what did I experience? I honestly don't know, but it felt beautiful and clear. Was it true self awareness and/or acceptance? Maybe. Was it a new maturity in how I approach bettering myself? Also maybe. Or perhaps it wasn't related to what I was thinking in my head at all.
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I wasn't sure which section of the blog to categorize this moment into, but it felt important to share. 

Feel free to share a story here of a similar moment in your life  :)