The concert tickets were a gift to my youngest daughter for her 11th birthday. I wanted to get back to the things we used to do before my brain surgery – despite needing a cane, noise-reducing earplugs and numerous calls to the general admission venue to secure an ADA seating accommodation.

The accommodation turned out to be a metal bench attached to the back of a barricade that separated the VIP section from the general admission area. When I was seated, I faced away from the stage, into the VIP section. My head was in line with the standing crowd’s elbows. I was four months into recovering and terrified I would get hit on my healing skull.

As everyone sang along to teen pop star JVKE, the VIP crowd became denser. It was harder for me to stand up and turn around to watch the concert. But, if I didn’t try to stand up, I’d miss the concert and the joy on my daughter’s face.

It was during one of those moments when I stood that a man told his child to stand on my seat.

The man and his family were part of the VIPs. I saw them when they were led into the section by people wearing all black clothing and headsets. The man was about 6 feet tall, wore a tight white T-shirt that accentuated his muscular build and sported a curly-hair-topped mohawk.

I was afraid to confront him, but I needed my seat.

“Sorry, he can’t stand there.” I said. “That’s my seat.”

The man stared me down.

“Oh yeah? That’s your seat?” He reeked of beer and a jagged vein bulged from his left temple. “Why are you so special?”

The author at the JVKE concert in August 2023 in the seating accommodation provided by the venue.

His question triggered an internal response in me that I had been working hard to erase – cowering instead of advocating. It was a residual trauma from more than a decade of not being taken seriously by doctors.

Starting in my early 20s, I experienced unexplained dizzy spells, often felt fatigued and had crippling anxiety that prevented me from falling asleep, staying asleep or sleeping at all. One day, three years before I had my stroke, my brain felt so foggy that all I could do was curl up on my couch in the foetal position and cry for hours. I was so frustrated. I couldn’t find the words to explain to my husband and daughters what was wrong. All I could do was sob.

I bounced around from doctor to doctor for years, and each one blamed my malaise on something different: stress, an autoimmune disorder, being overweight.

Not one said, “We should order an MRI of your brain.”

At 37 years old, I still had no answers, except for a therapist’s diagnosis of medical-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

Then, the stroke snuck up on me. On Tuesday, I felt a pain in my shoulder. On Wednesday, I couldn’t grip........

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