Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Virtual Funeral Details for Angela Ronson

 Hello to Angela's dear friends and distant family:

If you would like to attend my mother Angela's funeral service tomorrow, but are sadly too far away, I am attaching the information for her Zoom funeral service!

I will be live streaming the service for all of her distant loved ones. My mother loved connecting and finding community online, and it’s only fitting I include that community in her send off.

Much love, Marina 💛

Zoom Meeting
Time: Apr 8, 2021 09:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 823 6007 6929
Passcode: 01191970

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Remembering Angela Ronson

To all of Angela's friends, this is her eldest daughter Marina:

My mom Angela Ronson peacefully passed away early Friday morning in her sleep at the age of 51. Life has a bit of a different outlook than it did when I woke up this morning.

I know 51 sounds young, but my mom was living on borrowed time. My family and I are so grateful we got to have 19 extra years with her after her AVM ruptured and she had her stroke in December 2002. I knew the day would come when I would lose my mom for the second time, I just didn’t expect it so soon.

My mom loved living, and she fought like hell to stay earth side as long as her body would allow her. She was one of the strongest and smartest people I’ve ever known in my life and I’m so blessed and grateful that she brought me into this world. Her wit and tenacity and resilience were thankfully passed on to me, as was her bravery. She stuck around long enough to get to know her granddaughter Layla and to see me and my sister both graduate from high school. These things are more than I ever could have asked for. I wish like hell she could see me graduate college next year, meet my future spouse, and that my future children - her grandchildren - could have met their grandmother. They would have loved her.

My mom loved my sister and I so much and was always so proud of us, even when we struggled. She gave us everything she could even though life was not easy. I am going to miss her dearly.

Angela is survived by her parents, Myra Metz and Robert Ronson, her stepfather Alan Metz, her sisters Carla Mahaffey, Vanessa Mejia, and Gina Ronson, her 10 nieces and nephews, her daughters Marina Pauline Garcia (me) and Sarah Alyce Daneri, and her granddaughter Layla Diane Abasta.

I will be in the process of making arrangements over the next few days and will keep loved ones posted. If you knew my mom and would like to get in touch with me, my number is (714) 478-3181. I may not be able to answer right away, but I will be responding to texts and calls as I can.

Donations toward funeral costs can be made directly to myself through Venmo or Zelle, both of which can be found via my phone number. Venmo can also be found via @marinapaulineee.

There will be a virtual service with details posted in the coming days. If you have photos of or with my mother, please email them to or text them to me.

Thanks in advance for everyone’s love and support.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Where's the Miracle?


I am not in a hospital, care home, or any other facility. If I was, I doubt that I'd be here. I was sent home to die back in 2006. I never did die, I'm actually healthier.

I was supposed to die from an AVM bursting in my head. (Like an aneurism) That's not possible anymore. The AVM is gone. Stanford removed it in 2004. There's nothing there to bleed.

As for providing for my immediate medical needs caused by an initial bleed... I knew what to do. In former employment I have been a care home shift supervisor, a (medical in nature) social worker, and an early intervention program manager. I was more than qualified.

Doctor's usually don't give surgery 
instruction during their own surgery.

That is what I am doing. I am not a doctor. I am a patient who says what to do next and my speech is hard to understand.

Giving instruction on how to care for a patient isn't new for me. I did this as a shift supervisor in a care-home. I had to train new staff and a care home is all about giving care.

Maybe if that last hospital that gave care that I was at had wrote down that I could say a word it wouldn't look so fantastic. Each step of my care can be said in 1-3 words. I could do that. After years of doing that, those words became sentences.

Nothing here looks fantastic. That's because I filled in missing information. Whenever something has been missing it is filled in with God or magic by other people.

Talking has been a big mystery. First off, this writing is not speaking. I think the first e-mail I sent was to a doctor in Belgium in 2006. It took a couple days to write the message and it was only a few sentences. This was after I got out of a hospital. This was the right person to write, though. I was coming out of Locked-In Syndrome and he has written on it extensively. As for speaking, my first words were never charted? I was still in a hospital at that point. I can't help lousy paperwork. My writing has never been documented by the government. I guess I don't speak, either.

Speaking of paperwork, what happened to all papers from Stanford? It's like they were completely erased. My AVM then just magically disappeared. That's a miracle!

The real miracle comes in the form of my memory. That should all be gone, right? Also, why did my higher education and employment history prepare me for this ordeal?

Monday, March 15, 2021

A Comic Book Drama Is Close


This post depends on this video clip. It's amazing that my story follows a comic book. The TV series, The Flash, is based on the comic book, and the video clip is of the show.

Star Labs is Stanford. I don't have abs yet.

My body is in a state of cell generation, though.

My current unfortunate situation begins with a stroke. It wasn't the usual clogged artery stroke we are warned about. I had a bleeding stroke caused by a tangle of blood vessels in my brain. The blood clot, or mess of blood vessels, or Arteriovenus Malformation (AVM) bled in my head.

At this point I appear to be brain dead. I even have paper saying so. Dear doctors, this is why you wait for blood to clear and then do a second scan BEFORE making prognosis. (I used to do Early Intervention for babies with brain bleeds.)

The trauma center froze me to start with. My body temperature was brought down to just above freezing. The heart stops, but the patient is frozen in time, so to say. It can't remain in that state for long, but most emergency procedures can be performed. This is for dire situations, and mine was.

I didn't bolt right up into sitting. This is great for the movies, but seldom does that happen in real life. In the video, this guy had been laying in bed for 9 months, He needed those abs.

I didn't wake after 9 months. I started  opening my eyes after 5 weeks, but then I was made vegetative, PVS. I never woke. My coma just morphed into a coma with my eyes open. Technically, I am still in a coma. I'm still waiting to read in reports that I ever woke up out of a coma. 

A couple hospitals later, or 2 years...

I wasn't struck by lightening. A computer on a robot arm shot gamma rays into my head. 

Beams of Radiation Are Shot Into the Head

This is a real procedure. I had heard of radiation use in cancer. This is it but I didn't have cancer.


I had stereotactic radiosurgery to reduce the size of the tangle in my head, that AVM. Once it was small enough, a regular craniotomy was done to remove it and waste.

I, and I bet doctors, too, did not know that my body would start regenerating cells. Now it is super (as in comic book). The Flash is fast. I am slow. Call me the snail. My ordeal started in 2002.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Are you Decerebrate?


This is the Tweet getting a lot of attention.

"Are you decerebrate?"

I was going to answer 'yes', but I realized he was being derogatory. It was Twitter and he was a med student. He was calling me stupid.

This person didn't know that years earlier I had a stroke and exhibited decerebrate posturing to pain. This person was using it to mean 'brain dead.' The doctors said that I was brain dead back then.

It was really bad.

It has been many years and I have had many procedures since then. I'm not the condition you call decerebrate anymore.

Do I look like I am brain dead? Yes, I am disabled, but I am not brain dead. The doctors back when I had the stroke could foresee the future, though. Who is stupid now?

Tuesday, March 2, 2021



I have dysarthric speech. This is what people hear. It is not a diagnosis.

This is from American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

I haven't used muscles that were paralyzed. As they come back, they are weak.

People can have a hard time understanding me. The more I speak, the better I am. I also have the computer for these longer thoughts. My speech is simple. What I write isn't always.

ASHA has some good stuff:

I will do the video over if I can't understand what I am saying.

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Guidelines For the Removal of Feeding


The guidelines go as follow:

1.  Leave in the feeding-tube.
2.  Stop giving formula.
3.  Administer the maximum dose of pain meds possible.


Notice I say Feeding in the title and not Feeding Tube. The tube itself provides pain relief from hunger pains. I'd keep it.

I am writing this because I have a feeding tube and I know. I am/was vegetative. Also I write. So what if I was ruled unconscious? Maybe I was then, but I am not now. That's something that is being worked on. 

So notice that I left the word TUBE off. This was on purpose. People do not realize there is some pain protection in the feeding tube. Remove this device and you open the patient to a world of pain.

I'm talking about hunger pains. Sometimes they are called "pangs." It doesn't matter to me what you call them. They are not pleasant. 

Many have heard of gastric bypass surgery. A portion of the stomach is removed. Lesser known is Gastric Balloon. A balloon is inflated in the stomach with the intent of always making the patient feel full. (If you need weight loss surgery, talk to your doctor, and yes there is a feeding tube diet.)

The feeding tube also puts a balloon into the stomach. Nobody ever sees this part, but doctors and nurses know it is there. The feeding tube has an inner tube. (Some other devices do, too.) After it is inserted, the doctor or nurse inflates the unseen balloon usually with saline. Saline is the sterile water used. It has added salt and I believe it is supposed to match the water in the body.

I like this video because it shows the balloon.
This is pediatric, so mine is bigger.

The guidelines go as follow:

1.  Leave in the feeding-tube.
2.  Stop giving formula.
3.  Administer the maximum dose of pain meds possible.

First off is leave the tube in. There is a second inner hole that starts closing within a few hours of  feeding tube removal. There is no room for changing the mind. If the hole closes then surgery is needed allover again. If fortunately there is a bit of a hole, the doctor can use a medieval looking device. My tube came out once and I know. It wasn't pleasant.

Second is formula. Formula is what goes in the tube. Who started calling this stuff food? The stuff in the hospital has been unflavored and sometimes vanilla. It's a liquid diet. There is no solid food. At home, some supply companies have offered chocolate and strawberry. I currently take advantage of butter pecan. Long ago, a company got coffee flavored, but that was short-lived.

Last is pain meds. I don't want to know what is coming. OD me. I don't want to know. (Not knowing was BS for me. I'm still not supposed to know.)