While positive affirmations (PAs) can sometimes feel silly or even dumb to say to oneself, my experience is they can produce some amazing results.

Earlier last year, I was rushed to the hospital and had emergency brain surgery to remove a mass deep within my mid-brain. It turned out to be a vascular malformation which was slowly bleeding in my brain, and this bleeding also caused the ventricles that pass the spinal/brain fluid to block. But, even with the removal of the vm, my ventricles did not clear post-surgery.

So an external drain from my brain was necessary; they don’t like to leave the drains in too long tho’, as it can risk infection. They aggressively turned down my drain daily - as a way to try and force the fluid to pass thru the tubes in my head. But the pressure was close to unbearable, and they had to continually ease off.

By about day 5, my neuro-guy said we may have to put a shunt in the back of my head if those ventricles don’t open up soon. While many may feel that getting a shunt is no big deal, I react particularly badly to anaesthetic, and absolutely did not want to undergo another head surgery (I too, was more than a little freaked-out by all that had transpired the previous few days).

Given that I was otherwise completely incapacitated, I realized the only thing I could do lay in my mind. I began an aggressive course of PAs that day … saying things like: my brain functions perfectly, I am perfectly healthy, my brain/spinal fluid flows freely between my spine and brain with ferver and joy, etc. — over and over to myself. Yes - I was lying in ICU with tubes coming out of my head, still unaware of my overall prognosis, including having severe vision problems, but I so did not want another surgery, I knew I had to believe what I was saying.

I think that was the key - I truly believed what I was telling myself, and I visualized the fluid flowing between my spine and brain to the point that my spine would tingle. I also visualized myself driving again, and sitting at the beach being able to clearly see our beautiful landscape.

On day 7, things still weren’t looking good re: the ventricles. I kept up my PAs. On day 9 - probably 1 day away fm another surgery, Dr. Dub (my nickname for my neuro-surgeon) did his checking around and said “I’m not sure what you’ve been doing, but you’re flowing on your own.” I told him I’d been doing PAs. He said “positive what?”. Then he said I’d need to do a lot of those to get my vision back.

I was driving 3 short mos. later, and yes I’ve since taken in that landscape. My regime of PAs literally blew the blockage clear in my head — and totally blew my mind.