Bonni Brodnick Blog

E very morning, before gearing up on news, weather, email, and Instagram, I go into the guest room and take a seat on my meditation bench. I set the timer for 20 minutes, close my eyes, and the mind chatter begins. I think about how lucky I am to be here; what would have happened if my mother wasn't in the car when I had my stroke; what about those two Good Samaritans who stopped to see what was wrong? My mind is stuck on replay of every detail and then I slip into my mantra (which I actually lost post-stroke! It just didn't sound right. [I had the syllables inverted.] My yoga instructor gave me back my mantra.) After each meditation session, I end with this one thought: I am in control of whether I have a bad day or a good day. I can go left or right. The left lane is feeling sorry for myself; my right side is weaker, my right-hand shakes if I have it in a certain position, it's hard for me to find words when I talk sometimes, I have double-vision, my body is ache-y...

Here's my annual bitching and griping about making turkey . You can read it by clicking here or ... read on. Thanksgiving Turkey: Let’s Get Fresh By Bonni Brodnick This year I brined the turkey the night before. When I took it out of the refrigerator on Thanksgiving morning, the salty/sweet brine had blobbed over to one side of the plastic bag, covering only half the turkey. I squished the liquid around and prayed this would work as a last-minute fix-it until my 20-something son strolled into the kitchen and asked, “Mom, shouldn’t the turkey be in the oven by now?” I acknowledged the wisdom and bled the brine from the bag. What was left was a bird that had butterball-smooth skin on one side only. I turned up the oven to 325-degrees, rinsed off the bird and gave it a pat-pat, herbed and spiced it, stuck a peeled apple in the cavity, placed it in the oven and slammed the door. “Respect me and I will respect you,” I said as I gaped at ...

Go to HuffPost ---- "My Stroke: I'm Still Here" or you can read it here. It's the whole megillah , from start to finish. (Well, not exactly "finished," but you get the drift.) It was Easter morning. I picked up my mother to bring her to our house. Being that it was a Sunday—and a holiday—traffic was light. This, it turned out, was a lucky thing. Because I happened to have a stroke on Interstate-95. I was driving and suddenly looked at my right hand shaking as it rested on the console. My mother screamed, “Bonni, pull over! Pull over!” She waved at me but I didn’t understand. There was a disconnect. She leaned over and veered the car into the right shoulder, where it collided into the metal beam guide rail. I remember two college-age people in a white car run up to my side of the car. Imagine driving and seeing a car slowly crash. They must have known that something must be very wrong. The next thing I remember is watching thes...