Dusty Wentworth

  April 3rd does not arrive quietly. It sits there in the calendar like a marker you cannot ignore. Not a date you move past, but one you circle back to whether you want to or not. Two years ago, on April 3rd 2024, my brain aneurysm ruptured. At the time, I was already an inpatient in a neurological rehabilitation centre, trying to get a handle on Functional Neurological Disorder. I was already in the system. Already under observation. Already someone needing help. And still, everything changed in a moment. That matters. Because there is a quiet assumption people make about medical events. That if you are in the right place, under the right care, things will be contained, managed, resolved. That assumption does not survive contact with reality. What followed has not been a clean narrative of recovery. It has been two years of disruption, loss, adaptation, and, at times, a kind of forced recalibration of who I am. This is not a story about overcoming. It is a record of what re...

Resilience is often described as the ability to endure, to withstand pressure, to keep going when circumstances are hostile or uncertain. Yet for those who have had their lives interrupted by illness, injury or profound loss, resilience is not an abstract concept. It becomes a daily practice, a series of deliberate choices, and at times a hard won act of defiance against despair. Over the past two years, resilience has been the central theme of my life. It has shaped how I have faced the consequences of neurological injury, institutional barriers and the quiet erosion of confidence that prolonged dependence can bring. This is a reflection on that period, and on my determination to rebuild. In October 2023, I became an inpatient. What was initially a hospital admission extended into a prolonged stay and then into a neurological rehabilitation centre. From October 2023 through to September 2024, my world narrowed to wards, treatment rooms and carefully scheduled routines. Reh...

✍️ Reframing Limitations I didn’t choose tactical living. It was either that, or collapse. Two weeks after regaining consciousness from brain surgery, I knew life would never return to what it was. I’d survived a subarachnoid haemorrhage — the result of a ruptured brain aneurysm — and the aftermath was brutal. I couldn’t walk. I’d lost sight in my left eye, most of my hearing, and my speech was compromised. My memory was fractured, my cognition unpredictable. And layered beneath it all was combat-related PTSD, tangled with Fibromyalgia and Functional Neurological Disorder — each diagnosis amplifying the next. The effects were extreme. And if I was going to stand any chance of rebuilding a life, I had to do things differently. This blog isn’t about resilience in the glossy, inspirational sense. It’s about tactical living — the kind that emerges when survival demands strategy. It’s about designing systems that honour limitations, protect energy, and make space for meaning. Be...