Why I had a stroke
On that momentous day of June 10, 2011, at 6:30 am, I was standing in my living room, getting ready to walk out the door to go to work. Instead, I collapsed onto the floor and couldn’t get up. No warning, no signs, no symptoms… just a single belly flop onto the floor. My son who lived with me called the ambulance, which came in a matter of minutes, knowing how critical it was to get a stroke victim to the hospital as quickly as possible. The ambulance whisked me away to the hospital where I stayed for a week while they ran a gamut of tests to find out what had caused the stroke. They found out that I had a hole in my heart, which allowed a blood clot to pass through and land in my brain, causing me to have an ischemic stroke. The ER doctor said that my stroke was profound, but I was fortunate in that I received the tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), a medicine that, if administered within 4 1/2 hours after a stroke, minimizes the effect of the condition. They call it the “clot blaster,” and it reduced the devastating situation substantially for me. Instead of having serious speech, cognitive, vision and motor problems of a stroke that affected the basal ganglia, I only became hemiplegic with my right side paralyzed with very slight speech, cognitive and vision disturbances.
Now that was the physical reason for me having a stroke, but there is a very strong spiritual component to my story. You see, I was seemingly in great condition. I was slender, I worked out at least three times a week and I had none of the risk factors that would lead up to stroke. So why did it happen? During the course of my recovery, the vision of the truth behind my “dis-ease” became clear. It was karmic! To explain this, it’s necessary to discuss the concept of the masculine versus the feminine principles. Every human being has both masculine and feminine aspects within their psyche, with an associated physical element, the right side of the body being masculine, the left side being feminine. I had always operated out of my masculine side, being aggressive, ambitious, controlling, and ego-based, while suppressing my more heart-centric feminine side. To achieve the inner balance, which I strived for, the masculine had to be subdued. Thus, I had a stroke. It was as if God, Spirit, our co-creator, the Universe, or however you define the higher power was helping me find the equilibrium between the masculine and feminine principles, the balance that makes a person whole and living from her true essence. With my masculine side being put “out of commission,” so to speak, I could place more value on my feminine side so that I could realize that inner stasis, the harmony between the Yin and the Yang.
As I did this on a psychological level, on a physical level, my feminine side, as it became alive, took over and helped to bring my masculine side back to life. You’ve heard the saying “behind every good man, there’s a good woman,” and vice versa? Isn’t that just another way of saying the Yin and Yang are balanced?
So this was my truth about why I had a stroke, finding that inner balance between the masculine and feminine so I could live from my center of being, from my true essence.
If you want to hear more about my stroke, my recovery and other folks’ experiences with their own life-changing ordeals, visit my FB page at www.facebook.com/radiantsurvivor and read about my book on healing that I’m writing to inspire others who are facing their own trauma. You can also read the introduction to my book at www.ericatucci.com/radiant-survivor/.
