You Can’t Affect What You Don’t Know About

If you hang around me long enough, you will eventually hear me say: “You can’t affect what you don’t know about.”

I say it often because it is factual, and because that is truly how health and wellness work. Almost everything in life begins with awareness.

You don’t take your car to the mechanic unless it starts making a noise or acting unusual. You can’t remove the food stuck in your teeth until you feel it or someone kind enough points it out. You can’t fix the typo in the email until you notice it…hopefully before hitting send.

Our health is no different.

The challenge is that when it comes to our health, awareness can feel terrifying. Attached to the mammogram you have been putting off or the overdue colon screening is often fear — fear of what the results could be, or the belief that “it won’t happen to me.”

But after today’s visit to the hospital, I feel incredibly led to share something that my husband and I believe deeply: “You can’t affect what you don’t know about.”

If you have followed our journey for any length of time — or if you have been one of my clients — you have probably heard me talk about awareness A LOT.

Not because it is the “wellness thing” to say, but because awareness has saved our lives and the lives of others more times than I can count.

It is also what started our entire health and wellness journey.

Today reminded us once again just how important it is to be aware of your own body and the health and behaviors of the people you love.

This morning, I woke up to my husband asking me for a “puke bag.”

We have kept these nearby since his stroke because from time to time he experiences episodes of cyclical vomiting that doctors have never been able to fully explain. The closest explanation we have ever received is that it may be connected to the lasting damage from his stroke.

But if I am being honest, that answer has never fully settled with me.

Watching his body go through these exhausting cycles takes a toll on both of us, and as someone who naturally tries to solve every puzzle I encounter, it has been difficult for me to accept that this one still feels unresolved.

Thankfully, he had not experienced an episode in quite some time (months, actually), so I had started to wonder if maybe his brain had healed beyond that point.

Until this morning.

I immediately went into analytical mode.

As I was taking his vitals, my mind immediately started scanning everything he had done over the last few days that could have possibly triggered an episode. Not to place blame on any one thing, but because this was still the puzzle that felt unsolved — and maybe this moment contained another piece of it.

Because, after all:

“You can’t affect what you don’t know about.”

After I checked his vitals, I reached over to rub his head the way I have so many times before to comfort him. That was when he told me that the pain on the right side of his head was at a level 9, and even the pressure of my hand felt unbearable.

That had happened before… but not since about two months after his stroke.

So immediately, I made note of it.

Then he got sick again.

Now he was shivering.

That had also happened before because the stroke affected the part of his brain responsible for helping regulate body temperature. When his brain becomes severely fatigued, overstimulated, or distressed, his body temperature often becomes affected too.

Sadly, all of these symptoms had become familiar over the years. None of them individually felt entirely new.

Until they did.

After the third time he got sick, there was suddenly a look in his eyes that I cannot fully explain other than to say:

he was there… but no one was home.

I asked him five separate times to sit up so I could perform an active stroke assessment. It was not until the fifth time — after I had raised my voice hoping something would finally register — that he responded and sat up.

As I assessed him, he did not present with the typical symptoms most people associate with stroke. His arms appeared equal. The left side of his face looked slightly swollen and droopy, but that had also happened during previous episodes.

Again, nothing entirely new.

But I could not shake the confusion in his eyes.

So, I called 911.

As I was on the phone with the 911 operator, she walked me through the same stroke assessment I had already done myself just moments before. I complied and did it again anyway.

Same result.

The paramedics arrived incredibly fast, which I was deeply thankful for.

They repeated the same assessment I had already performed twice before because, of course, that is part of their training. After evaluating him, they told me they were not seeing obvious signs of an active stroke.

I responded,

“I know… but he also didn’t present typically during the initial assessment last time either.”

I then walked them through everything that had happened since we woke up and reassured them that while this may not be an active stroke, something was clearly not right.

I remember saying:

“My husband is there, but no one is home.”

That was not normal for his previous cyclical vomiting episodes.

Combined with his elevated blood pressure and heart rate, it was enough for me to know he needed to be evaluated.

This moment also reminded me of something important about awareness.

When I say his blood pressure was high, it would have been very easy for someone to dismiss that at first glance because he has a history of chronic disease — hypertension being one of them.

But that is no longer his normal.

Since overhauling our health, our nutrition, and our lifestyle, his blood pressure now typically falls within a range many would associate with an elite athlete.

And we only knew that because we consistently pay attention.

We check his blood pressure multiple times each week in the spirit of:

“You can’t affect what you don’t know about.”

Because of that awareness, we immediately recognized that something was out of sync.

So, off to the hospital he went.

They ran a CT scan and noticed concerning changes compared to the imaging from his previous stroke. Because of that, they sent him for an MRI to get a clearer picture of what was happening.

Thankfully, the MRI showed that he had not suffered another stroke. Thank you, God.

But what the scans did reveal was something we did not know before:

He has Chronic Ischemic Disease, and the carotid artery responsible for supplying blood flow to his brain has become increasingly blocked at a fairly rapid rate. Especially for someone who no longer presents with many of the chronic conditions typically associated with this type of progression.

We are now being referred to a vascular specialist to discuss what the next steps look like to help prevent further damage from occurring.

And as overwhelming as that news was to receive, both my husband and I had the exact same thought on the drive home:

What a blessing it is that we know now. Because if today had simply been dismissed as “just another episode,” this could have continued progressing silently in the background until it eventually resulted in a catastrophic stroke.

Instead, awareness gave us an opportunity to intervene. Not with fear, but with complete and utter gratitude.

Gratitude that we paid attention.

Gratitude that we knew his normal well enough to recognize when something was off.

Gratitude that awareness gave us the opportunity to respond before something even more serious happened.

Because “you can’t affect what you don’t know about.”

This was such an important reminder for both of us — not only about the importance of awareness itself, but about the importance of responding to that awareness with intention. That is where real change happens.

Awareness without action keeps people stuck. But awareness paired with intentional response can quite literally save your life.

I am sharing this deeply personal story because I know how easy it is to avoid the things that scare us.

To put off the mammogram.

To delay the colon screening.

To avoid getting the labs drawn.

To ignore the symptoms because “it’s probably nothing.”

I understand that fear because I have felt it too.

But today reminded me again that awareness itself is not the threat. Unaddressed reality is.

So schedule the appointment.

Get the screening.

Ask the questions.

Pay attention to your body.

Pay attention to the people you love.

Because after all…“You can’t affect what you don’t know about.”