it's simple, really.
If you're sick of feeling sick and want to learn how your mindset can help you build mental and emotional strength…
If you're desperate to feel heard but your experience of the healthcare system feels cold…
If you're tired of having your weak points highlighted at your rehab appointments without ever celebrating your strengths…
If you feel disconnected from your own body and want to find stillness within.
I’M HERE TO HELP.
I’m ashley, and i’m a stroke and cancer survivor.
I NEVER IMAGINED THIS WOULD BE MY FUTURE…
It began with what I thought were hot flashes at the age of 26. After numerous appointments, tests, and procedures, I was told I was having seizures.
I soon learned my seizures were being caused by a brain tumour, which was suspected to be benign. My doctors recommended a craniotomy that could potentially ease the seizures. My surgery date came about a year later, so I had an adequate amount of time to mentally prepare - and bump up my yoga practice to help me build an inner calmness and a growing strength despite the present weaknesses and ongoing health concerns.
THE STROKE
I went into surgery believing everything would be fine. Though I vaguely remember being told by my neurosurgeon about the risk of stroke during surgery, I didn’t fully acknowledge it. I went in, and hours later awoke on the hospital bed, confused and hearing voices around me – some making comments, some asking me to answer questions or move my hand. I didn’t feel good, but I was fresh out of brain surgery and definitely hadn’t been expecting to feel great. I was stunned to realize that I could not move my right hand, or my right arm, or my right foot, or my entire right leg… and my face felt weird too.
The next day, I was told I had experienced a stroke during surgery. (Yes, that risk I didn’t even feel was necessary to acknowledge.) In the surgery, I had been bleeding excessively and having this clot cause a stroke is what saved my life. I was freshly out of brain surgery and new brain injury, so not much was making sense, including this diagnosis and what the future may look like. This stroke had resulted in the loss of movement in my right side. I talked with a slur so thick I sounded as if I’d been at the bar for way too long.
it took a while for me to process and accept my new reality mentally, physically, and emotionally.
starting REHAB
I went to stay in a rehabilitation facility where they told me that I needed to push my own wheelchair with one hand. I celebrated my 27th birthday and Christmas, made new friends, fell a few times, got angry, cried, got incredible support from family and friends, and learned to become left handed. For four months, my days were filled with physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. While I was here, I learned my tumour had been malignant and I began to try to process this while still working through rehabilitation.
I was most afraid of losing the ability to do yoga, and travel. Yet, it was here that I started to do yoga again with a group of others, focusing on all the poses we could instead of the poses we couldn’t. Being within a community of people that have had a similar experience - and who know exactly how hellish tying shoelaces with one hand can be - was a saving grace after being put into a situation where my previous regular daily life had become a foreign and a distant memory.
RETURNING HOME
Coming to live at home again was both exciting and scary. I could be independent and decide what I wanted to eat, but I was also now surrounded by people that weren’t in the same boat as me while having a whole new set of things to learn and figure out. Some days I wanted to request vacation from my rehab, and some days I felt successful and full of hope.
Every day was a journey (honestly, every day still is a journey). It has now been 7 years since my stroke, which has felt like 7 years of ongoing rehab, recovery, and a therapeutic personal yoga practice.
I KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO KEEP GOING AMIDST THE NOT KNOWING OF RECOVERY AFTER STROKE.
I’ve laid in the same figurative hospital bed as you, surrounded by groups of people in scrubs standing at the foot of my bed, evaluating me like a lab rat multiple times a day.
There’s still so much I don’t understand about my stroke, but I know one thing to be true: If it weren’t for my personal yoga and meditation practices, I wouldn’t be where I am today in my recovery.
What i’ve learned…
mental health, support, and resilience are the key indicators of recovery.
I assist other young stroke survivors with ongoing emotional support, meditation, yoga, and reiki so that you can soothe your mind, body, and spirit and thrive in rehabilitation and beyond.
