Four Months

Four Months

Four months can hold a lifetime. Concerts. Bikes. A brand-new tire that never got its second chance. Hospital photos I didn’t remember taking, but my body remembers living. Trauma doesn’t change you slowly, it rewires you overnight. You wake up different. And then one day, you have to walk back into your life and see who’s still there.

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Reclaiming MY Normal

Reclaiming MY Normal

After months of hospitals, recovery, and forced stillness, I finally felt like myself again, not because I was healed, but because I was seen. This isn’t a story about rushing back or pretending nothing happened. It’s about reclaiming the version of “normal” that keeps my mind alive, my sanity intact, and my life moving forward.

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The Silent Moments

The Silent Moments

People have opinions about my recovery. Strong ones. They form them from moments, snapshots, not from the hours spent in silence at two in the morning, staring at medical records, trying to understand what my body remembers even when my mind does not. This isn’t recklessness. It’s reckoning. And what you’re seeing is only a fraction of a much deeper transformation.

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You Don’t Get to Be More Afraid of My Recovery Than I Am

You Don’t Get to Be More Afraid of My Recovery Than I Am

I survived injuries that kill people outright. Every minute since has been a fight, and I fought. Two months later, I got back on my bike, not because I forgot what happened, but because I refuse to let the person who hit me define the rest of my life. What surprised me wasn’t fear. It was the judgment for getting up.

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Back In The Fucking Saddle

Back In The Fucking Saddle

I took my bike out today for the first time in two months. It wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t razor sharp. I rode slower, gave cars more space, and listened to my body instead of my ego. But fuck it — I rode. And in doing so, something inside me snapped back into place. Healing didn’t just continue today. It shifted into overdrive.

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Fifty Days In

Fifty Days In

Fifty days in, and I’m not where I was, but I’m not where I was told I’d be either. I can stand. I can move. I can lift, even if it’s light and ugly and slow. My body is battered, stitched, numb, leaking, and missing pieces, but my mind? My mind is on fire. Somewhere between broken bones and stubborn refusal, I finished the work. And that counts for something. Maybe everything.

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A Tale Of Two Sides Of The Same Night

A Tale Of Two Sides Of The Same Night

Yesterday was a quiet victory: chores, stairs, a walker I wasn’t technically cleared to use, and a night out with people who didn’t owe me a damn thing but cared anyway. Today? A dream of autonomy, an ache that means living, and the sharp irritation of a doctor who dismissed what’s still swelling and hurting. Two sides of the same night. Both true. And I’m not stopping.

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The Universe Has Jokes

The Universe Has Jokes

Life has a way of circling a point. The accident didn’t just break my body; it rearranged my goddamned face. My front tooth now points outward like it’s trying to escape, and a piece of my lip went missing along the way. But as my brain and body claw their way back, I’ve discovered something hilarious in the chaos: the universe has jokes, and apparently I’m one of them.

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Recovery Rendition
Personal Essays & Reflections Kate Sjostrand Personal Essays & Reflections Kate Sjostrand

Recovery Rendition

When they sunk that final screw into my left wrist, something else unlocked with it. My fingers worked again — stiff, screaming, but usable — and suddenly the words poured out. In the aftermath of a crash that nearly killed me, writing became the one thing I could still control, the one place where the broken pieces rearranged themselves into something sharp, necessary, and aliv

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Shaken By God, Shaken By Fate

Shaken By God, Shaken By Fate

After surviving multiple cardiac deaths, I thought I understood fragility and purpose. But this recent crash shook me in a way nothing else has. Not because I died — but because someone else nearly ended me through carelessness. Now I'm wrestling with existence, meaning, and the terrifying truth that my life isn't only in my hands.

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Awakening the Words

Awakening the Words

As my body heals, something else is coming back online — my words. Surgery restored movement to my left hand, and suddenly I’m typing again, writing like a woman starved for expression. It feels like healing and creativity are feeding each other in a loop. For the first time since the accident, my mind is awake, my fingers are working, and I finally feel like myself again — at least a little.

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The Quiet After The Storm

The Quiet After The Storm

After a week of relying on others for even the smallest necessities, I finally find myself alone in a quiet house — the first real silence since the accident. I’m grateful, I’m hurting, and I’m oddly hopeful. This silence is a reminder of what freedom used to feel like, and what it might feel like again. But staying away from the anger that keeps clawing at me? That’s the struggle I face every damn day.

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