Thirty Days of Stillness: How Silence Taught Me to Listen

By Alicia Northern

My story of hope, survival, and recovery after having three strokes in two months. It details the experience I had over thirty days in which I believe my spirit was deciding whether or not I would live or surrender to my affliction. In it I hope to have shown how hope and strength and spirit can carry one through even the darkest of days, and to have inspired a zest for living the life of one's dreams in spite of circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312551510

Book preview

Thirty Days of Stillness: How Silence Taught Me to Listen

Thirty Days of Stillness:

How Silence Taught Me to Listen

By Alicia Northern

(Introduction)

My name is Alicia. I am the mother of one wonderfully beautiful seven year old little girl and the wife of an equally wonderful and caring not-so-little man, both of whom I simply adore. I am closer to forty than I care to admit here; however, because of what I have experienced recently- the basis for the account you are about to read- I am evermore looking forward to reaching that milestone in my life. I enjoy writing and helping others do so as well, and I’m really not so unlike countless other women across the world, who oft times, out of a sense of duty perhaps, put the needs of family and the like ahead of themselves and their own wants and needs. Today I am standing on the other side of the most viciously horrifying three month period of my entire life, and there were quite a few times in which I didn’t think I’d make it through to tell this tale, thus being the reason I noted those last thirty days of my life or death struggle to survive for this very purpose. I thought then that even if I were to lose my battle, maybe my journey through it could help someone else win their own. I found it comforting to think in that manner, of still being able to do some good in and with what little life I may or may not have had left to live.

(Chapter 1)

Before I dish out the meat of this story- my story- I feel I must also ladle up a bit of the marrow as well, in order for you to even begin to fully understand what I went through and how I felt whilst there. It was mid-October, 2013, when out of nowhere I began to feel absolutely horrendous, my body becoming overwhelmingly racked with pain. I was having trouble breathing