Stepping Out Of Darkness
Life Rebalanced Chronicles Season 3
After two years following 9 incredible vestibular warriors, the Life Rebalanced Chronicles are back for season 3 with an all-new cast!
EPISODE 2: Stepping Out Of Darkness
Heather always dreamed of sailing. She and her husband planned to someday sell their home and live their lives traveling from shore to shore. But that dream came to a halt when she got sick. As Heather battled her vestibular condition, she found a way to Stepping Out of Darkness and dream a new dream.
You can watch this 10-minute episode now to learn how Heather is able to step out of the darkness in her vestibular journey!
TRANSCRIPT
VeDA uses otter.ai to create machine-generated transcripts. This transcript may contain errors.
Well, um, I was just, I guess normal person just working my regular job, my nursing job and coming home taking care of the kids, I also ran a fitness group. And I had no whitespace in my calendar. And so I was I know I was burning the candle at both ends. Yeah. We dreamed a lot about sailing and would watch sailing YouTube channels, and just kind of binge that that was our downtime together, was just dreaming. And we figured, you know, when the kids graduated, we would take off and that would be what we would do just travel the world, sell our home and buy a sailboat. If I had a superpower, I would want to be able to touch a boat and just pass you know, check back to know what that story was. And so I just dreamed of having our own story.
I was still asleep and, and I was busy, just busy, busy, busy. And I started experiencing some numbness on the top of my head and tingling down my face as well. And it only happened on one side and I just pushed it off as the stress, okay, whatever, I’ll just deal with it. And after continued to have for a couple of weeks, I let my mother know who’s a cardiac nurse. She’s like, you need to go and get that checked. And I’m like, Yeah, okay, if it happens again, I’ll do it.
So it happened again. All I heard was brain tumor. I didn’t hear anything else the doctor said. And then we just started the journey and got to Mayo Clinic because there was a neurosurgeon there that could see me about the tumor. And he saw me and quickly put my mind at ease. He said, It’s been there a while it’s not doing anything, we’ll We’ll watch it. And if you were my sister, I would say go home. Don’t think anything else about it.
Then we were off looking for the vestibular issues. I remember sensations of spinning while I was in bed. I even remember snapping at my husband wants to stop moving the bed. Why are you jumping on the bed? And he was like, no, no, I’m not doing that I’m sitting right here.
I remember the the weakness in my legs was really bad and the dizziness and having to go down the stairs every time to go to a doctor’s appointment, I would have to sit on the stairs and scooch down. It was very, it was embarrassing. And it was a lot of shame. So it kind of went to have shame spiral I just I didn’t recognize who I was becoming.
Between appointments I really tried to be the best I could as far as a mother and a wife, but I had nothing. My daughter was three. And she didn’t really understand what was going on to say that she couldn’t be loud around me because I had that noise sensitivity that hyper khusus or voice was the biggest trigger. And I took a leave of absence from work dropped out of school just kind of stopped everything. I just lost myself I didn’t even know who I was I lost my complete identity. So I spent my days between doctor’s appointments, cooped up in a dark room with no TV on just me and occasionally my dog. And my daughter was snuggling once in awhile.
So if I had been but it was pretty much just me and the darkness just engulfed me I felt my life was over. And sometimes I wished it was so I felt like such a burden. And those thoughts are not who I am and he had a visit from a friend. And as she got to leave she turned to me and said I guess you’re gonna have to dream another dream. And those words cuts so deep because I never once I never thought about my dreams since the vestibular symptoms, but when she said that they just flashed through my mind that all that dream building that we had together my husband and my daughter right, you know kids bought but that never happened. He never, never kept in mind Me, I had to figure out a way to live this life with a symptom.
So I could still stuck in that journey. I had to really step into my darkness and people want of me her work. And just take a look at and so I just decided, Okay, we have till tomorrow and you’re getting out of this bed and opening the shades and doing what you can figuring it out. I didn’t want I didn’t want that darkness when the two spools of wire was I wanted to find that light again. I wanted to be who people remember, remembered eight it didn’t happen fast, and there was a lot of Eve a lot out to the balls. But I was determined to not, you know, fail my husband without her Archie’s.
My husband is so supportive, and even if we could martyr and stepped into our dreams and would have been out and we had a conversation, okay, let’s set a goal. Let’s set a goal, or let’s sell the house and then we will move on about and we’ll give it six months on the water and if my symptoms amp up, and they’re worse, we’ll come back we’ll start fresh and we’ll figure out a new dream.
Within three months, we found the boat of our dreams. I was afraid to take the first sail out on the water. I still had symptoms but nothing more than I did on land. Occasionally I would find something that would trigger me like fast moving water but I just learned to adjust or broke my eyes. You know I just adjust the adjust. My husband adjust under no weird twist away.
This disorder saved my life. And I know it’s crazy to say that but it has changed my personal perspective so much that I used to live my life what was expected of me and now we have taken a road less traveled and I have so much more freedom and I’m more at peace than I ever was. And I loved my job I loved my former life. But this is so much lighter. And if I have a bad day, all you have to do is go outside and something reminds me how precious life is whether it’s dolphin dolphin offer bow or or just just the birds and words. I just want to I just want to hug everybody that was going through everything that I was I experienced that we’ve experienced and you can do it but there’s so much work involved, but it’s worth it. It’s still worth the work.