Welcome to Rewired with Love
Witness to a Warrior: Ashlee’s Journey, Through My Eyes
This blog began as something deeply personal-a journal for me, a place where I could put words to the whirlwind of emotions, lessons, and moments that come with being beside Ashlee through her recovery.
Ashlee suffered a subarachnoid right side and frontal lobe brain bleed on 6/6/23. The next 4 1/2 months were spent in the hospital as well as acute and sub-acute rehabs. We still have not gotten an answer as to why this happened, only speculation from the doctors. I am going to go into much more detail about exactly what happened to the best of my ability in future posts.
Before her brain bleed, Ashlee had just received her 2nd masters degree for mental health counseling. She was currently working for a private practice under a limited license, very close to completing her hours. I used to be such awe of her for the amount of work and dedication she put in, simply to help others. For how Ashlee has impacted me, before and after this; and how many other people I know she influenced as well..I feel like its my duty as her wife to pay it forward. Ashlee has pretty much taken care of me our entire relationship, handled all of the responsibilities, while doing everything else, so now it’s my time to step up, and her time to rest.
Since we have been home, end of October of ‘23, I have thought about making a blog to document everything that happened because it was truly indescribable. I wasn’t emotionally ready though, and quite frankly, I probably still am not; but this is as close as I’m going to get so here we are!
Not to sound too cheesy or cliche, but Ashlee changed my life. I think I can speak for everyone that knows me, as well as myself obviously, but never in my life did I think or want to get married. Marrying Ashlee was truly the best day of my life. I am not going to pretend we had the perfect relationship(because who does) but we truly loved each other, we still do obviously. I will get into those personal details later on in my “journal” part of this blog, because I will try to be as open, honest, and transparent as I can be…that’s what I want to be, and what Ashlee would want as well. There is so much I want to say right now, about the entire experience, about the horrendous survivors guilt I feel every second, and about so much more, but I will have to stop myself because otherwise the blog would start and end here lol.
Getting back to the blog…
My goal with Rewired with Love is for all of you to find:
Personal Reflections from our day-to-day challenges and triumphs
Resources that have helped us (and might help you, too)
Stories from others walking similar paths
And hopefully, a growing community forum where caregivers, survivors, and supporters can connect
I have always enjoyed writing, but I am far from a professional, and quite frankly have absolutely no idea what to do creating a blog. It definitely will not be a polished, perfect narrative-it’s going to be raw, real and ongoing. My goal is not only to document but to connect, to give purpose to what has been the hardest yet transformative journeys of our lives.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for witnessing our story, and if you feel called, thank you for sharing your own.
With so much love and gratitude,
Jennifer Cioffi and Ashlee Cioffi
