A semblance of normality: An ex- lawyer/ stay at home mum/disabled mums view

I have spent 5 years imagining what my life should be like. Sometimes I have been almost able to see what I should be doing. It might sound crazy but I can actually visualise my family going abroad on holiday, spending the day in London seeing the sights and visiting museums, having afternoon tea at the Connaught or the Berkeley. Doing all the things that a normal family might do. Sadly, that isn’t my new normal. It’s not my reality. My ‘new’ normal is very different and going for afternoon tea at the Connaught or the Berkeley feels like it happened to someone else. It’s funny that seven years ago I would have thought that being stuck in the house on my  own without a car with two children sounded like absolute hell… Back then, pre brain haemorrhage, when my car was being repaired I remember crying and  wailing: ‘what am I going to do?!’ I haven’t driven since my brain haemorrhage, and I find this absolutely hilarious now. To be honest it's only now I can...

I love reading, I have always loved reading. It is very important to me that the children have the opportunity to enjoy books and I want to be able to encourage  them. At work, I used to go to a monthly book club. Then after I had children, I went to  another group where you ate a three-course meal and after every course you moved  to discuss a book. But after my brain haemorrhage (see post ‘about me’) my vision - albeit just in one eye - is much worse. So although I can still read, I am frustratingly slow at it. The double vision I suffered for the first 18 months (until I got a vision blocking contact lens  – turns out you can’t have double vision if you only see through one eye!) did not help. In my post haemorrhage life I have therefore had to come up with an alternative: and so I  discovered the audio book and I simply love them. To start with it felt almost like cheating. Just listening wasn't proper reading but now I love the fact that I ...

Everyone gets tired, right? I have two children and also suffered sleeping problems so I know what tiredness feels like. But that was nothing to the tiredness I felt in the years following my brain haemorrhage. I knew it could be a side effect of the brain bleed. Indeed, others who have suffered SAHs (Subarachnoid hemorrhage - this is a life-threatening bleeding into the space surrounding the brain) - and are lucky enough to survive – regularly describe this as something they face during their recovery. But it’s not really sufficient to describe what I experienced as ‘tiredness’. This tiredness was extreme; it was a living nightmare. I lived with my in laws (and did so for 2.4 years after the haemorrhage) during which my mother in law did almost everything for me, I didn't even register the tiredness. Once we were living on our own, everything changed. For example, on one occasion it took me almost 3 hours to unload the dishwas...

Last week Eversheds Sutherland, where I used to work, included this to their lawyers internationally. This is bittersweet. Although this represents a lot of my effort, perseverance and I am really pleased it's been published. A part of me is unbelievably sad - it didn't and doesn't feel real- denial is my friend!!! It won’t happen to me…. Claire Withnall, trained and qualified into Real Estate with Eversheds LLP 2006-2008 , and then left to have a family.  What happened next was not on her agenda...... Life happens. Plans change. It is a sad fact of life most people will face some sort of misfortune, mine was literally overnight. I had a burst AVM in my cerebellum (basically a brain haemorrhage - if you want to know exactly what an AVM is type it into any search engine). It was funny I went t o bed completely  normal and woke up spending three months, including my 30th birthday, in various hospitals! Pre - Brain Hemorrhage Post - Br...

This is the bit where I admit to being one of those weird people who loved revision and exam time at school. This was mainly because I knew how to revise, at least what worked for me and I would put in the time. This ‘putting in the time’ was mainly thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer until my post graduate exams when I watched the West Wing. It might sound strange but I would start on episode 1, season 1 and work my way through, sometimes twice but there were quite a few episodes! This was totally normal to me: my mum was a teacher and used to mark with Buffy or a mindless film on in the background. I know a lot of people used to get really stressed and lock themselves in the library but that wasn't me and I did alright! At the end of the day, I would count up the hours of revision I’d done by counting the number of episodes I’d watched in the background - it actually made it enjoyable. And, now, as a mother of two: I apply this logic...