78 - What I Learned from my Brain Bleed w/ Harlow Perry

This week on the Marina Perry Podcast, Marina chats with her daughter, Harlow, to share her experience, learnings, and lessons over the last year. For new listeners, Harlow experienced a severe medical condition called AVM, or “bleed on the brain,” which is a misformation of blood vessels that can result in a rupture. Harlow’s vessel ruptured last year at school. For her, it presented at first like a migraine, but as time went on, Harlow and her family realized her symptoms were much more severe than an average migraine. That led them to seek medical treatment right away.

 

Because of the area of Harlow’s bleed, medical professionals kept her in the ICU for several weeks. They needed to wait for the bleeding and swelling to go down to figure out what exactly happened. In recovery, Harlow had a hard time reading, which was especially hard for her since reading is an important hobby. At first, the doctors decided not to operate due to multiple factors, including Harlow’s age and the area of the AVM. After months of pushing back her return to school due to complications, they eventually decided to go ahead with the surgery. 

 

She had a phenomenal recovery process and eventually returned to school, which presented other challenges since she’d been absent for so long. Her friends were incredibly excited to see her, but they knew the teachers now, and Harlow didn’t. They hand inside jokes she wasn’t in on anymore. It didn’t help that Harlow was only going to school part-time. She tried very hard to care about the small things like the school dance or a new pet, but she found it hard to relate. She went through this particular experience of continued recovery from major brain surgery. While her friends worried about what they would be wearing to the dance, she was concerned about the results of her follow-up appointments and life-threatening complications. 

 

We all go through events in our lives, whether in childhood or later in adulthood, and we survive. But what we sometimes don’t realize is we are forever changed as a result of that experience, and as we’re going through one pathway, the rest of life is going through another. Often we’re all-consumed in an area of life, or we’ve diverged in a different direction. So if we’re still trying to keep alive a section of society that no longer adds to our lives, we need to permit ourselves to let it go. 

What You Will Learn:

1. Background on Marina’s daughter Harlow and her experience with AVM. 
2. Harlow’s journey through surgery and recovery.
3. The learnings and takeaways she gained through the experience.