When the Wild Becomes a Mirror: Hunting With a Brain Injury, POTS, and Fading Senses

By Frankie — Disabled Air Force Veteran | Chronic Illness Advocate | Medical Nerd

There’s something about watching the sun crawl across the eastern Montana sky that reminds me I’m still here — still fighting, still learning what this new version of my body can and can’t do.

This year’s antelope hunt wasn’t just about the chase. It was about reckoning — with my body, with my brain, and with the stillness that comes after realizing even the wild doesn’t quiet the storm inside you anymore.

Between the Wind and the Wild: When Your Eyes Aren’t Your Own

“It’s like trying to hold still in an earthquake — my vision feels shaky, like I can’t anchor to the world long enough to aim, to trust my body.”

The rolling hills of eastern Montana are gentle — slow sloping, wind-laced, and dotted with sage — but even walking them feels like scaling a mountain. The moment there’s any incline, my heart rate spikes to nearly 170 bpm. I live with POTS — and the unpredictability of how my body responds means I never fully know if it’s going to cooperate.

And when my heart is pounding, my vision starts to go with it.

My brain can’t focus the way it used to. Objects feel “shaky,” and no matter how much I steady my breathing or brace my rifle, the world won’t hold still. Even spotting an antelope — something I could do in seconds a few years ago — becomes almost impossible through a scope that never stops quivering.

When my heart races, my ability to see declines. But that’s not by accident.

Why Vision and POTS Are Linked

POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) forces your heart to work overtime just to keep blood circulating, especially when you stand or exert yourself.

When your heart rate skyrockets:

• Your body diverts blood from “non-essential” systems (like vision and digestion) to protect vital organs.

• Result: Blurry, shaky vision and poor visual focus.

• Add in brain-injury-related visual processing issues, and it becomes a full-blown sensory bottleneck.

Losing My Senses, One Step at a Time

“Hunting demands silence. But how do you stay silent when you can’t hear yourself?”

I can’t wear my hearing aids while I hunt — sweat from POTS could fry them, and they’re not waterproof. That means I enter the field unable to fully hear my surroundings.

Every step becomes a gamble:
Am I too loud? Am I missing something? Am I safe?

I rely on my husband, who walks in front of me — his footsteps become my guide, his silence my cue. I use all my energy to keep my eyes on his heels, just trying to stay quiet and balanced in a world that now feels foreign in both sound and sight.

Even speaking becomes complicated. I can’t tell how loud I am, and sometimes I accidentally whisper too loudly — breaking the stillness we’ve worked so hard to create.

“When your body becomes both the barrier and the battleground, even whispering is a test of control.”

The Moment I Knew the Hunt Was Over

We hunted for four days — two trips out per day. I pushed hard, watching the sunrise in awe, enduring windburn on my face and fatigue in open defiance of my symptoms. But on Tuesday morning, as we crested a hill in search of a herd we’d been tracking, it hit me like a wave:

I had nothing left to give.

My brain fogged. Speech processing started crashing. Noise, balance, breathing — every system in my body was begging me to stop. The antelope were still out there, but I wasn’t.

So we called the hunt.

I walked away empty-handed — but not empty-hearted.

This Body Still Belongs Outside

“Grief lives here alongside grit. I hate what I’ve lost. But I love that I still go.”

Hunting isn’t just something I do — it’s something I share. My husband and I rebuilt parts of our relationship in these landscapes. I learned to slow down again, to listen to the wind and let nature carry the weight of what I can no longer hold.

I didn’t grow up thinking “someday my brain injury will affect my ability to aim a rifle,” but here we are. My MRI shows tissue damage and encephalomalacia — silent, structural reminders of what gamma knife surgery cost me. And yet:

I am still here.
I still show up.
I still learn new ways to live.

Because being alive isn’t about bouncing back.
It’s about adapting forward.

The Damage You Can’t See

My MRI shows:

• Encephalomalacia and gliosis: Brain tissue damage and scarring from radiation and A/V malformation.

• Visual processing issues: From tissue loss in areas related to perception and eye tracking.

• Major Neurocognitive Disorder: Diagnosis stemming from these changes.

That’s why I’m starting occupational and speech therapy — to regain even a sliver of control over what’s been lost.

Ending on Purpose

I used to think pushing through pain meant I was strong. That ignoring my limits made me worthy.

Now I know this:
Honoring my limitations is how I stay in the game.

I left the wild empty-handed this time. But I walked away with the kind of pride you can’t hang on a wall — the kind that exists in every breath I didn’t give up, every step I took beside the man who taught me to love hunting again.

I’m not done. I’m just learning how to hunt a different way.

If this resonates with you, and you’d like to follow my journey of neurodivergence, chronic illness, healing, and everyday resilience — you can follow me on social media @thechronicallyresilient

And as always, Stay Resilient ❤️‍🩹

From Life-Saving Surgery to Lifelong Consequences: My Fight for Answers

By Frankie
Disabled Air Force Veteran | Chronic Illness Advocate | Medical Nerd

“I never imagined the treatment that saved my life would take so much from me.”

If you’re here, maybe you’ve been where I’ve been — sitting across from doctors who once saved your life but now can’t explain what’s happening to your body. Maybe you’ve searched for answers in medical portals, scrolled through research articles at 2 a.m., or wondered if anyone would ever believe you again.

This is my story — of survival, loss, and a slow, painful rebirth into a life I never expected to live.

The Diagnosis That Changed Everything

In December 2018, I was diagnosed with a cerebral arteriovenous malformation (AVM) — a rare, tangled web of blood vessels deep in my brain. At the time, I was an active-duty medic in the United States Air Force, thriving in a high-pressure environment where precision and strength were part of my daily life.

When the diagnosis came, it felt like a betrayal by my own body.

I wasn’t the patient — I was the healer, the one others turned to in crisis.

My AVM was too large for open surgery, and on January 31, 2019, I underwent Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery, a targeted form of brain radiation designed to destroy the AVM over time. The doctors were confident. I was told it was safe — precise, effective, controlled.

And it was. Gamma Knife saved my life.

But no one warned me about what else it might take. 

“I went from fighting for the lives of others to fighting for my own.”

Within a week, I developed bilateral pulmonary emboli — blood clots in both lungs — triggered by my oral contraception. I survived that too, but my recovery was complicated and frightening.

A year later, my lungs failed me again. After months of shortness of breath and fatigue, I underwent a bronchoscopy and mediastinoscopy. The diagnosis: pulmonary sarcoidosis, a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the lungs and lymph nodes.

I was exhausted — but hopeful. I thought maybe this was just part of the healing process.

I was wrong. 

When the World Went Silent

In September 2019, while hunting, I suddenly lost hearing in my left ear. One moment, I was aware of the world — the sound of my breath, my heartbeat and the frost crunching under my boots — and the next, there was silence. I was hiking the rolling hills of eastern Montana chasing antelope with my husband when suddenly there was a high pitched ringing in my left ear followed by that muffled hearing you get after firing a rifle without hearing protection. Except, my hearing never came back…

Eventually, I lost hearing in my right ear too and now I wear hearing aids to accommodate for some of my hearing difficulties.

Doctors couldn’t explain it. They called it idiopathic (no known cause) sudden sensorineural hearing loss, and every test came back inconclusive (allegedly). Actually, initially it was blamed on an extremely rare complication of sarcoidosis, neurosarcoidosis, or sarcoidosis. of the nervous system which can cause sensorineural hearing loss. This didn’t make sense though because my MRIs were not consistent with neurosarcoidosis.

With my medial background I naturally began doing my own research. That’s when I discovered studies linking Gamma Knife radiation to hearing loss and even scarier, cognitive impairment depending on which brain regions were affected. Before ever experiencing cognitive decline I reached out to my neurosurgeon and radiation oncologist through my MyChart portal messaging in December 2019, asking if my hearing loss could be related to my gamma knife surgery, looking for validation of what I already knew to be true.

They didn’t reply in writing. They called instead. I remember the words clearly — “That’s not possible.” My husband remembers the conversation too too.

But I knew something was happening inside my brain.

“It felt like my mind was slipping away, piece by piece.”

By 2021, my cognitive began impacting my life and I didn’t even realize it.

I forgot tasks, misplaced simple information, showed up wrong place wrong time, lost my train of thought mid-sentence.

I had always been sharp — the Air Force medic who thrived under pressure — and suddenly, I couldn’t function. I lost my job as a clinical receptionist, something that had once come naturally to me and theoretically should be super easy given my past profession. It devastated me, embarrassed me, brought about shame and deep unsettling fear for my future.

I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t unfocused.

I had a brain injury — and no one believed me. 

The Diagnoses That Finally Named My Reality

In 2022, I underwent a comprehensive neuropsychiatric evaluation. The results were both validating and devastating:

• Major Neurocognitive Disorder

• Autism Spectrum Disorder

• ADHD

• Non-Verbal Learning Disorder

• Math Disability

During that same evaluation, the doctor asked a simple question that changed everything:

“Are you flexible?”

I showed him — the bendy joints, the stretchy skin I’d always joked about as a kid. His eyes widened. That led to a referral and, finally, a diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a genetic connective tissue disorder that explained my whole life — my chronic pain, neurodiversity, fatigue, and joint instability. 

“Everything finally had a name — but no one had warned me any of this could happen and even worse they wouldn’t admit it could have happened.”

By 2023, a new MRI confirmed what I already felt: stable but permanent brain damage — areas of encephalomalacia and gliosis, meaning my brain tissue had been injured and scarred. It was described as a “chronic treatment effect.”

The damage is stable.

But it’s irreversible.

In June 2024, after years of monitoring, my AVM had finally shrunk enough to be surgically removed. The resection was successful, but I temporarily lost left-sided vision, which slowly returned after months of recovery as well as more white matter brain damage.

It felt like every victory came with a loss, although I'd do it all over again, to save my life.

Living With the Aftermath

Today, my daily life is a careful balancing act.

I live with permanent cognitive and sensory deficits — and a long list of conditions tied to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, including:

• POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)

• MCAS (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome)

• Chronic dehydration and hypotension

• Gastroparesis and unintentional weight loss

• Chronic pain, fatigue, and insomnia

• Spinal instability with bulging discs and synovial cysts

“Every day is survival disguised as routine.”

I rely on structure and technology to function:

AI tools to help me write and remember,

Shared calendars, reminder apps and detailed notes track my days an responsibilities,

and the unwavering support of my husband and mother to help me stay on track and accomplish what I need to day to day.

I undergo IV hydration therapy multiple times a week to manage chronic dehydration, POTS and hypotension.

I carefully monitor my diet and weight just to maintain enough stability to take my ADHD medication safely.

Every aspect of my existence is managed, measured, and monitored.

The Fight for Answers

I have spent years researching, documenting, and trying to understand how my brain — the same one I once trusted to heal and care for others — became the source of my greatest challenges.

When I reached out in 2019, I wasn’t looking to blame anyone. I was scared. I just wanted to understand.

But my questions were dismissed and I was denied timely and thorough diagnosis, treatment and resources that could have made the transition from able to disabled a lot less traumatic. I was made to feel it was “all in my head”, that I was creating stories.

Now, after years of rehabilitation following the triggering of my chronic illnesses, I’m finally strong enough. mentally and physically to ask again and to fight for the truth.

In November 2025, I’ll meet with a neurologist who is willing to review my MRIs and explore the possible connection between my Gamma Knife treatment and my neurological and sensory disabilities.

It will be the first time any doctor has truly taken my concerns seriously.

“Healing doesn’t just mean surviving — it means being heard.”

I’m not seeking sympathy — I’m seeking truth and understanding.

Because I believe every patient deserves to know the full range of possible outcomes before consenting to treatment as well as what their resources are for recovery, support and accommodation if the unthinkable were to happen.

I believe every medical record should reflect a patient’s communication attempts, even when the answers are uncomfortable or are the result of care that was meant to save their life.

And I believe that “rare complications” should still be discussed — not dismissed.

What I Want Every Patient to Know

If you’ve ever been dismissed, told “it’s not possible,” or made to feel like your pain is an inconvenience — please hear me: you are not alone.

Document everything.

Ask questions, even when it makes people uncomfortable.

Request copies of your imaging, lab work, and communications.

And if your instincts tell you something is wrong — trust them.

Because you are the one living in your body.

You are the one carrying its history.

“I am not broken — I am disabled. And I am still here.”

I am forever grateful for the surgery that saved my life. But I wish I had been told the whole story — the possibilities, the risks, and the lifelong adjustments that might follow.

I’ve had to grieve the person I was — the Air Force medic, the quick thinker, the multitasker.

Now, I am someone new: slower, softer, but stronger in ways I never expected.

This is my story — not of loss, but of reclamation.

Of finding strength in limitation.

Of turning silence into testimony.

And if you’ve made it this far, please know — your story matters too.

💬 Follow My Journey

If this story resonates with you — if you’ve lived through medical trauma, chronic illness, or the invisible fight to be believed — I invite you to walk this path with me.

You can follow my journey and advocacy work on Facebook and Instagram, where I share updates, insights, and reflections on life after survival.

➡️ @thechronicallyresilient

And as always, Stay Resilient ❤️‍🩹