Mimi So Rocks

At 22, Mimi Hayes was embarking on a career as a teacher in Denver, Colorado.  Never could she have imagined that 4 years later, she would be living in New York pursuing a very different career as a comedian and author with her debut book set to release all because of a life threatening health crisis that would change her life forever.  Read about how she turned her brain injury into an opportunity to transform her life into a humorous and creative journey by “making brain hemorrhages look cool since 1992.”

So it was 2014 and I was in the first week of my student-teaching semester in Denver, Colorado (that’s where I’m from). I was excited to be starting my career for the first time and nervous about all the typical things; meeting my students for the first time, getting them to like me and also do their homework in a timely manner.

As it turned out, I’d need to focus my attention elsewhere because in the first week of my teaching…my head exploded.

Now when I say exploded I’m being a bit dramatic. It was more of a slow leak I guess. But you get the idea. I had what’s called a Cavernous Angioma rupture in my Cerebellum; that fun area of the brain responsible for a bunch of cool functions like walking, and talking, and seeing!

We didn’t know that this was what happened until a few weeks into my symptoms which were things like nausea, clumsiness, and some weird double-vision. I was misdiagnosed several times with things like an ear infection, Vertigo, and my own doctor told me I was probably depressed and needed to take some Valium (if you didn’t know, this is probably the worst thing you can ever tell someone with a BRAIN BLEED, but I digress!) So finally after my mother threatened with an attorney to get an MRI scan we found out what it was.

After being diagnosed, the neurologist decided to wait and see if the blood would reabsorb into wherever the heck it came from so that we wouldn’t need to do surgery. I was on bedrest for about a month and over that time, my symptoms got worse and by mid-September I’d lost mobility on the whole left side of my body, had lost 20 pounds, was seeing double consistently, and couldn’t taste on the left side of my tongue.

A second MRI revealed that the blood bubble had gotten larger, swelling parts of my brain. I received a craniotomy (fancy word for brain surgery!) on October 3, 2014, to remove the hemorrhage and surrounding cells. Luckily for me, it was in a real great place, providing them easy access so that they didn’t have to go through a whole lot of tissue.

When I woke up from surgery I was dazed and confused, and most definitely thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I was also now seeing double AND sideways, which sounds really cool, but is actually quite strange. I spent several days in the ICU and eventually my vision flipped back right side up, although the double-vision took several months to fully correct.

After the ICU, I went to a rehabilitation hospital in Aurora, Colorado and received intensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy. I did a lot of things I never thought I’d have to do at 22; relearning how to walk again, doing basic tasks like how to maneuver in a kitchen, and, oddly enough, a lot of 3rd-grade math and logic problems.

I was released on good behavior (and improved motor skills) within 2 weeks and returned to my parent’s house. I did some outpatient therapy at the rehab center that winter, but I was back to the classroom by January! Woah, brain! Good job!

Teaching was not easy, and it was exceptionally harder now with a brain injury. I can honestly say it was the hardest experience of my life, aside from, you know, having my head opened and relearning how to walk and see and stuff…that was pretty tough too.

After two years I left the classroom. I loved the students, but I found the career to be too demanding for my brain. While I was in recovery, I wrote a book which ultimately started out as a joke, but was recently picked up by a publisher when I moved to New York this summer and is coming out this year! You can follow my blog (and soon to be podcast) at mimihayes.com and look for my debut memoir, I’ll Be OK, It’s Just a Hole in My Head (A Memoir on Heartbreak and Head Trauma) coming to bookstores near you, September 18, 2018!

Thanks for having me, Joe! I hope that we can all spread awareness for brain injuries and help others who are struggling.

 

 

 

 

 

To continue to follow Mimi’s journey, follow her at @mimihayesbrain on Instagram and check out her website at www.mimihayes.com.  Connect with more stroke and brain injury survivors on the YouSoRock Facebook Support Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/yousorock.