Cristal Rodriguez

Hi, my name is Cristal Isabel Rodriguez a 23 year old girl with lots of dreams, goals and aspirations in my life. I used to live a pretty normal life until the past December 16 of 2023 where my life took a bad turn, I had to live the most hard, rough and sad moment of my life. I had a ischemic stroke which changed my whole reality, my carotid artery had a rupture which caused multiple blood clots to block the blood flow to my brain, eventually I had  blood clots on my brain and had to go through a few surgical procedures such as percutaneous transcatheter, they put a catheter throughout my leg and tried to take the blood clots out through there. It wasn’t working and I had to go through a decompressive craniectomy because my brain would not stop the swelling, doctors had to remove part of my skull so that my brain will have space to breathe and that way it wouldn’t affect more parts of my brain. Because doctors were not sure I was going to be able to breathe on my own after being intubated for more than 10 days, I had to go through a tracheostomy that way they would make sure to put oxygen and help me breathe. I also had a tube in my nose which they moved to my stomach because I wasn’t able to eat on my own. I still have a long way to go, still surgery to put back the piece of skull they removed, lots of therapies because I still cant walk fully or do things on my own. The doctors that saved my life due to the neurological and physical damage that I had made the choice to incapacitate me. Hopefully with a lot of physical, speech and occupational therapy I will be able to learn again to be more independent. I currently depend on my wheelchair to move, I have weak movement on my left side, I cant move my left arm at all. I have difficulty remembering and retaining information, I have neurological fatigue which makes it hard for me to do a lot of things. My mom and siblings are the ones that are currently taking care of me and my needs due to some financial issues we were facing before this, we are currently living in a hotel and this makes it a lot harder for me to move and recuperate from all of this, I lost my job due to all of this and for a few weeks my family has been able to handle all of this  but all their lives have been affected not only financially but emotionally. Transport, all the appointments, food, medicine and medical supplies are really taking a toll on all of us since they have had and are still missing work because I cant not be by myself and we truly need help. Me and my family firmly believe that we will keep moving forward and that everything will better. We trust the doctors, therapists and God that this will only make me stronger not only as an individual but also as family. Like doctors have said I am young and strong and I will be able to accomplish more every day with my therapy sessions and help from my family. I know at the end of this I will look back and this will only be a sad and tragic memory but something that made me stronger and showed me how good people and God can be, how many good people were put in my path to help me get better, and I thank God, my family, doctors, nurses, hospital and the people that have helped me throughout all of this.