In 2014, I was getting ready for work and had a thunderclap headache hit me while I was brushing my teeth. I wasn’t expecting it to be anything major, just a normal migraine except it didn’t go away and I lost vision within five minutes of it happening. My nine year-old son was home and I did not want to alarm him that something bad was happening so I called my mom who lived 20 minutes away to have her come and take me to the hospital. I made the call a few minutes later that I probably needed an ambulance because this wasn’t normal. That was on January 7th, the local hospital in my small town that I lived in sent me to Spokane Washington because they had a surgeon who could potentially do it there. Unfortunately, he was unavailable and I was life flighted on the 8th to Seattle. That is where I met Dr. Sekhar at Harborview medical center. It was determined at that point that I needed to have a craniotomy to clip the aneurysm so it wouldn’t rupture which happened on the morning of January 10. By this time my family was in Seattle, and my best friends were in Seattle along with a few nieces. The night before my surgery, I wanted what I thought would be my last meal, which was a brownie with German chocolate icing. On my way to the OR. My sister played eye of the Tiger to remind me of my strength. I told her that when I woke up, I would tell them to tell her ‘Yo Adrian’. Which I did and all of my people that were in the waiting room cheered and hollered, they told me that later. Here I am 12 years later I still struggle with memory issues and my emotions are wonky. But I survived, and I was reminded that my family and my best friends are the best things that ever happened to me in my life and to live my life the way I want to.

I connected with the Niekro Foundation because I was looking for a 5K to do.  I will be participating in their first in-person 5K on October 4, 2026.

My words of advice for other survivors is to be patient with your recovery and know that there could be some things that are not the same. And that is ok.