My greatest triumph is getting my life back again after a post-brain surgery stroke left me with an almost non-functional left arm and a difficult-to-control seizure disorder. I was 22. The surgery had successfully treated my brain arteriovenous malformation, but my healing journey had just begun.
Intensive physiotherapy and occupational therapy and a lot of hard work got me out of a wheelchair and walking mostly with a cane in about a year. My left hand (my dominant hand) didn’t bounce back as well as my leg, so I learned how to live using my right hand: eat, write, brush my teeth and hair, type, and do all other activities of daily living well enough to eventually live, one-handed, on my own.