I was taken into the accident and emergency in hospital on 17th March, 2015,

with a life-threatening subarachnoid hemorrhage. I was only 38yrs old,

had always been a healthy, successful, career-oriented, and well-traveled individual, though I was working too many hours with no relaxation. Then, one night, I became extremely ill, and my whole world fell apart.

I was in the hospital for nearly two months, and after four intense brain surgeries, I had difficulty understanding what was happening to me and why. My memoir covers my journey to recovery, how I came to see the important things in life, changing my ways to focus on the true meaning of life, being in the moments surrounded by family and friends.

Along my hard road to recovery I had to relearn how to do the simplest tasks, like climbing stairs, retuning sounds because of my hearing loss, learning how to use technology again without severe headaches and sickness after looking at screens. My family and friends struggled with my personality changes, including short-term memory loss, intense mood swings, high

emotions, black-and-white thinking losing the middle ground of understanding. Another main principle of this book is to deliver information from reliable sources to educate readers and raise awareness of this troubling illness. Throughout my struggle to recover, I force myself to have new experiences and show by example that anyone can bounce back from such adversity and live life to the fullest, as it should be lived. This is my story of learning the most valuable lesson of all, that life is precious and should never be wasted.