When life changes you
Frightening health crisis steers Kitchener executive onto career path she never would have anticipated
SANDRA O’HAGAN knew her body was trying to tell her something. She just couldn’t figure out what it was. This was unusual for the Kitchener woman who says she has always been in tune with her body. If she had a headache, she knew the cause, be it lack of sleep, stress, too much or too little caffeine. But early one morning in August 2009, O’Hagan, then 47, was forced awake by a “massive” headache. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. At the time, she was working as a credit manager for a
>> large Kitchener company and, in her spare time, committed herself to rigorous workouts at the gym. A self-described workaholic and “gym junkie” who often took on more than she should, O’Hagan shrugged off the pain as a result of stress.
She took some Advil and waited for the headache to subside. But it didn’t.
Instead, over the next few days, O’Hagan’s body began deteriorating, doing things she couldn’t control or understand.
“It was like an out-of-body experience. Nothing was right,” she recalls during a recent interview at her home.
Healthy and vibrant today, O’Hagan shakes her head in disbelief as she recounts the journey she was forced to undergo, and at how she so clearly missed the signs of what was happening to her. “It was a bizarre time,” she says. Shortly after she awoke with the “massive” headache, O’Hagan says her perception of things felt “off.”
Her hands shook when she tried to button her blouse. She had problems speaking. She sometimes lost her balance, forcing her to walk into things.
After a week, she went to see her doctor, who sent her to the hospital for a Computed Tomography (CT) scan. That’s when, she says, her life changed. “The doctor came in and said, ‘There’s something there. It looks suspiciously like a brain tumour but it could be a bleed in the brain,’ ” she recalls. Panic set in. “I was thinking ‘Oh man, this is not happening. This does not happen to me.’ It was way bigger than I thought.”
O’Hagan was sent to Hamilton General Hospital where doctors diagnosed her with a cavernoma — a collection of malformed blood vessels in the brain, which, in her case, had caused a bleed.
The swelling was causing her to slowly lose control of the left side of her body. The surgeon wanted to wait to see if the blood would absorb into the brain and the bleed
I think the biggest thing this taught me is that all of the material things in life are just stuff and I no longer need or want as much stuff.
Sandra O’Hagan
shrink on its own before they intervened. O’Hagan was sent home and told to call if her condition worsened.
By the next morning, she found walking a struggle and had difficulty lifting her arm.
For the first time in her life, O’Hagan, known for her optimism, contagious energy and “superwoman” mentality, was losing control.
She put her head in her husband’s lap and closed her eyes.
“I thought, ‘This is it. I’m checking out.’ All I wanted to do was sleep.”
She was admitted to Hamilton General Hospital and treated with steroids to attempt to reduce the swelling in her brain. Doctors told her if it persisted, life-threatening surgery would be required. The surgery, she was told, would likely cause some type of paralysis since the bleed was so close to her brain stem.
Knowing she had no control over her situation, O’Hagan decided she had to be positive.
“This was the hand I was dealt and we would deal with it,” she told herself.
She started getting out of her hospital bed for walks in the middle of the night. She pushed herself to lift her arm and move her legs.
Repeated scans showed the swelling was indeed shrinking and so, after just four days, doctors told her she could go home.
“I remember waiting outside of the hospital in the wheelchair and watching these women walking around in high- heeled shoes. I thought ‘Will I be able to do that again?’ ”
At home, she underwent weeks of physio, speech and occupational therapy sessions. Her husband and neighbours took her out for walks, holding her arm to support her. As the days went on, O’Hagan slowly began walking on her own. Through it all, O’Hagan says she thought of only one thing — getting her old life back, including her demanding career.
She remembers a social worker asking, “Are you sure you want that stress back in your life?” O’Hagan was certain. “That’s who I am,” she told the social worker.
Just over two months after O’Hagan’s diagnoses, she was well enough to put on her high heels and go to work part time. But it didn’t last long.
“It was the most exhausting thing ever. It was debilitating. I would work and then I would have to come home and sleep. I was a mess.”
Her doctor forced her to take more time off.
It was during this time that O’Hagan had what she calls an “aha moment.”
“I remembered what the social worker had said about doing something with fitness since that was what I loved. I woke up one day and said, ‘Aha! I’m going to start my own business.’”
Exercise had become part of O’Hagan’s life when she was 43, after she began noticing her strength and stamina weren’t what they used to be. She quickly fell in love with how alive the workouts made her feel. But she never saw exercise as anything other than a hobby.
Now, in that “aha moment,” it was about to become her new career.
During her time off work, O’Hagan became certified as a personal trainer, started renovating her basement and “this is what I did,” she says, pointing towards
her 800-square-foot basement filled with exercise machines, dumbbells, mirrors, a shower and change room. She calls her new business So Full of Life and offers personal fitness training, custom group sessions, private sessions, wellness workshops and entrepreneur networking meetings. While her business was in its infancy, O’Hagan says she did go back to her old job full-time but started falling back into a stressful lifestyle. She soon realized “I didn’t want to be unhappy. I didn’t want to be stressed. I didn’t want to feel pressure. “Life was too short,” she says. In the end, she quit and devoted all of her time to So Full of Life. “I realized I am just as empowered in my workout clothes as I was in my business suit. Now I am changing other people’s lives.”
O’Hagan doesn’t regret what happened to her. In fact, she considers herself “lucky,” to have had such a frightening diagnosis. It forced her to step back and take a look at what is important in life.
“I think the biggest thing this taught me is that all of the material things in life are just stuff and I no longer need or want as much stuff,” she says. “I realized that when I die no one is ever going to say, ‘She had a great job and made great money and had great clothes.’”
She says she is able to appreciate more of the little things in life, stuff she never took the time to notice before.
“I am more aware of what is not directly in front of me,” she says. “When I drive, I see buildings, roads and houses that I never saw before. I take time to say hello to people or chat in the grocery store lineup. Life was always too busy before to notice this.”
Many working women with families are stressed, overworked and likely not in the best health — just like O’Hagan was before her diagnosis. Her advice to them — slow down.
“Women have that superwoman mentality that we have to do everything,” she says. “We have to slow down, share the load.”
Today, O’Hagan is the healthiest she has ever been. She still has a spot on her brain that is being watched by doctors. But she is able to walk on her own, sprint, lift weights and do chin ups. “I feel better than ever,” she says. “I am simply calmer, happier and ever so grateful for the life I have and the opportunities I have been afforded.”