By Casey Neill
Probians took inspiration from a young stroke victim at a Dandenong Club event.
Emma Gee was the guest speaker at the Probus Association of Victoria (PAV) delegates meeting on Monday 22 May.
She spoke about developing resilience and choosing to bounce back.
“What an inspiration she is to all of us,” PAV president Joan Vogels said.
“We don’t know what’s around the corner.”
Another Probus member thanked Ms Gee for sharing her story.
“I don’t think many of us have gone through half of what you’ve gone through,” she said.
At age 24, Ms Gee worked with stroke survivors as an occupational therapist.
She’d just finished climbing a mountain in Malaysia when she first realised something was wrong.
She felt clumsy and was walking into walls. Doctors found a problem in her brain stem known as an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) – a tangle of blood vessels that could burst and kill her.
“For 24 years, the hardest decision I’d had to make was chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream,” Ms Gee said.
She elected to have the surgery. She suffered a stroke during the procedure and went into a coma.
“I remember vividly lying in my coma and being able to hear people around me,” she said.
She could hear her mum begging her to open her eyes.
“But I can’t move. My eyes would not open,” she said.
Eight days later, her eyelids finally responded.
“My world was spinning, like a ride I’d once been on at the show,” she said.
“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t swallow.
“I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.
“I really needed to choose to take a positive spin on things.”
Ms Gee hated her first walking frame, naming it anchovy after another of her hates.
She asked her occupational therapist for “a funkier vehicle” and was thrilled when she said yes.
“My therapist never delivered on what she said she’d do,” she said.
Ms Gee said integrity was important – to do what you say you’re going to do – as was being proactive.
“I went and bought myself a Mercedes,” she said.
She took control instead of choosing to blame someone else.
Ms Gee said she desperately wanted to “be the old Em” but it was important to “accept what you can’t change, change what you can”.
“Being fixated on what I used to be able to do was only going to set me up for failure,” she said.
She told the audience that being patient and grateful was something she had to learn.
“I’d accepted I needed people to help me,” she said.
“But I would be so bitter and resentful towards them.”
Ms Gee would watch her cleaner and think “I could do better”.
“Be thankful for what you have, you’ll have a lot more,” she said.
“It’s not what happens to us that matters but how we choose to deal with it.”
