Meet Noemi — Perinatal Stroke

Translated from Italian

Here I am to tell how our life has changed at 5 years from Noemi’s stroke. Past the initial phase where the world seemed to collapse on me. And the period that follows, what I define it as change, a very different way of living.

What I had lived up to that moment no longer had the same meaning, family life has changed dramatically to cope with the new commitments that until that day we didn’t even know existed, (physiotherapies, speech therapy, checkups, EEG and so on). At the beginning it is hard but with time we have learned to organize ourselves reaching an almost perfect operation!

And then there is Riccardo the older brother of Noemi (13 years). Today I realize that we probably put him in the background. He lived for 8 years as an only child, with all the pros that it entails and then suddenly he found he was not the exclusive center of our attention. It wasn’t easy, I do not deny having much difficulty in managing it. Taking into consideration that he was in the critical age of adolescence. But from that day on everything changed. The real change happened inside each of us though. It was as if the emotions were amplified giving a new aspect to everything that happens around us. So today we value our affections more and pay less attention to material things.

Our social life has improved a lot. We now know wonderful people that otherwise we would not have known. We have also turned away people who we thought were our friends but that turned out to be superficial and useless. The working life certainly does not allow us to dedicate ourselves as we would to Noemi but fortunately at work they proved to be understanding, leaving us autonomy in managing the hours to spend on his weekly commitments.

In short, it is undeniable that Noemi has revolutionized our lives but with patience and perseverance we found the winning strategy to live peacefully, our motto? Never give up! Never give up!

Thank you to Fight the Stroke for their help in gathering stories from Italy!

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