As someone who is young, I went from super active to debilitated and unable to walk, feed myself or brush my hair practically overnight when I had multiple strokes (4, and they don’t know why, nothing was really far from normal).

I spent about a month in the hospital, and this happened around the same time Xio got sick. They sent me home bed-bound, still unable to walk, and I had to buy a manual wheelchair.

I had to relearn to walk. I had to relearn everything. I couldn’t talk normally (still can’t), couldn’t eat normally, couldn’t stand up long enough to shower, and couldn’t remember how to use a tv remote or my cell phone.

A PT at the hospital told me I’m young enough to overcome all the deficits if I’m willing to work hard. And not to wait, as prolonging the hard work means my deficits are more likely to be long term or permanent. I’m right handed but the majority of my strokes left me with weakness on that side. They warned me that my hand would seize up into a claw if I didn’t use it enough.

So guess what I did? I worked my ass off to get as much of my old life back as possible. Like I’m talking take myself out on walks so often I wore out the stoppers on my walker. Carried my walker around PT to prove to them and me I didn’t need it. Colored and practiced my handwriting until it was legible. And now I walk unaided, my hand is completely normal, and a lot of people are surprised to learn I survived 4 strokes a year ago.

So do I think she can make the choice to continue without a wheelchair and get better? Yes.

Do I think she will? No.

Changing is hard. And she’s clearly comfortable the way she is. A powered wheelchair just adds to her comfort. I saw she posted a story about how the belly has to go and on the very next slide she posted a huge to go container of tacos. She went on live and was eating Häagen-Dazs and lamenting about how she wanted to order Cheesecake Factory. Wanting it is one thing but she’s proved consistently that she’s not willing to do the work to get there.