Stephanie Rubeck

I would like to thank everyone for their warm welcome and support I have gotten from you in the short time I've been here. Some days are better than others, and today is a 'better' day for me. I'm feeling much stronger emotionally today. I have learned recently that I don't care if I **** people off anymore. (not that I ever REALLY did, but at least I pretended to) I just don't seem capable of caring anymore. After what happened to me, all I keep thinking is "I've always been a good person and done what was right, so if this is what I get for being good...screw it! Time to be in it for me." I've alienated a few family members already who just don't want to get that I've changed, that I'm not the same weak minded person who used to let them walk all over me, and I never will be again. I don't have time for such nonsense anymore.

I tried to talk to the neurosurgeon about things when I went for my check up, but he decided to discharge me from his service because I'm 'healed'. I'm supposed to go back to the neuro interventionalist for an angio, but with all that's going on with my husband, I don't have time for that right now. It will have to wait.

I don't know what I'm feeling any more. My husband is great. He's the one who keeps telling me that I'm different, but that it's ok. It's other members of the family who expect me to be the same old person I always was before. My 20 year old daughter tells me that I can't use brain damage as an excuse because I'm all better now. Oh, I wish I could be young and innocent like that again. My brother in law, who is NOT young, tells me I don't have time for such nonsense and to just get over it. He's right, I don't have time for it because in 9 days, my husband goes into surgery for cancer removal, and that surgery is going to be very dangerous and long. I want to be 'myself' again, but then again, I don't want to be the person I was either. I used to let people walk all over me, but since the SAH, I have a nasty habit of telling people off quite often.

That's what people I know keep telling me at least. Just 'get over it' 'you survived, you should feel lucky'. You name the cliche'...I've heard it. I had my SAH in Feb. of this year. I DO feel lucky that I survived it, and am functioning for the most part. But why can't I 'get over it'? All I want to do is cry, or scream all the time. I had bipolar disorder before this happened, but now I don't know how to explain it...my moods are just OFF. My family thinks I'm fine and everything is back to normal since I'm out of the hospital and doing most things for myself. How do I tell them that nothing is normal, nothing will ever be normal again. Some days I think it was a mistake that I survived at all, that they would all be better off if I hadn't. I know that isn't true (most of the time) but I can't help but dwelling on it other times.

On Feb. 5th (Super bowl Sunday) right as the halftime show was about to start, I stood up and told my husband to call 911. I had felt a pop in my head and a warm gush down the back of my head and neck. Shortly after that, my face sagged on the left side and I began having seizures. By the time the ambulance got to the house (18min later) I had stopped breathing and had seized 3 times. I was life flighted to Riverside hospital in Columbus Ohio where they coiled the anyourism and put a temporary shunt in my head. They told my family to say their goodbyes, that I would not survive. I proved them wrong in more than one way. Not only did I survive, but I survived with minimal brain damage. I did end up with blindness in my left eye and partially blind in my right eye because of a syndrome called Tersons. That's where the blood from the SAH was pushed into the vitreous of my eyes and blocked the vision. I'm still partially blind in the right eye but they did a vitrectomy to give me back most of the vision in my left eye. When I woke from the week long coma, they told me that I probably wouldn't walk again. Less than 4 months after the event, I am walking, talking, driving, and basically living my life better than I was before it happened. But, I have changed, I cry alot now, my moods are worse than ever before. I just don't feel like 'me' anymore. I thought in Dec. of 2010 when I had my widow maker heart attack that life couldn't change any more than it did that day. I shouldn't have survived that either...but I AM a survivor by nature. With all that's going on with me health wise (and I'm far too young for all of this); while I was in the hospital for the SAH, my husband of almost 20 years now was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Less than a week after I was released from the nursing home, he underwent surgery to remove the tumor. Now he is about to undergo another surgery to remove infected lymph nodes in his abdominal area. I don't get it, we're good people, we are kind and helpful whenever we can. I don't drink, I don't smoke (since 2010), I don't drink caffeine (since 2010), I don't even eat foods high in sodium, I"m not understanding why Karma is messing with my family in this way.