Ashley Lee

If I had to summarize my brain injury journey in one word, it would be Resilience.

My “before” and “after” are separated by a single, vivid memory from August 28, 2018. I was being admitted to the emergency room for pneumonia. When the doctor ignored my warnings about a severe penicillin allergy and told me he’d “bring me back to life” if I died, I had no idea he’d actually have to try.

My heart stopped for 25 minutes. It took three rounds of CPR, epinephrine, and the shock of the paddles to restart it. The result was a coma that lasted a week and a half and a permanent anoxic brain injury. Waking up was a nightmare; I had no clue what had happened or who the people in the room were. I couldn’t walk, I could barely talk, and I couldn’t think. My own brain felt like a stranger.

Even now, years later, the injury is a daily reality. I am now straight-up diagnosed with cognitive decline, along with epilepsy and PNES. My brain “shorts out” under stress. Simple tasks like watching a movie are taxing, and my eyes don’t always track correctly—sometimes I go to sit down and miss the chair entirely.

One of the biggest myths I face is that because I “look fine,” I must be back to normal. People don’t see the cognitive overload or the seizures triggered by the stress of a simple grocery store line. What many don’t realize is that most of us are grieving. We are grieving the people we used to be and the things we used to be able to do.

Perhaps the hardest part is the social toll. When I try to explain why I forgot a task or why I didn’t do something correctly, I often see people roll their eyes or hear them say, “Here we go, we have to hear about Ashley’s brain injury again.” It is a lonely feeling to have your daily battle dismissed as an excuse.

Knowing what I know now, I would tell anyone starting this journey: Trust your voice. You knew your body then, and you know it now. I would tell you that only you know what you’re truly going through, because other people still see the “old you”—the one that you are currently grieving.

Healing isn’t a race, and being a “Warrior” isn’t about being perfect. It is about being strong enough not to die from the incident and having the courage to come back—even if you are a little broken or a different person than you were before.