The day started just like any other for Jennifer Rose Goldman07:46, 30 Jul 2026The morning she nearly died, Jennifer Rose Goldman woke as usual and felt fine. She began the day with her usual routine, meditation and an hour of kickboxing before going into work at the family luxury clothing business.‌It was August 2021 and she was approaching her 31st birthday. Fitness and health were at the centre of her life. She loved hiking, worked as a yoga instructor and had set up a wellness aromatherapy brand alongside the family business. Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.‌"I remember getting up, working out, meditating and driving to work,” she said. “Then I remember not feeling well, strange, disoriented and not like myself, and being put into a fitting room by my cousin and a manager - and that's it.”‌Jennifer, from Long Island, New York, has no memory of what happened next. It began with speech becoming nonsensical. Then she fell to the floor, clutching at her hair, unable to speak or move her right side.Co-workers called her mother Caryn Hirshleifer. "Everybody was coming in and getting ready for the morning meetings when I got the call,” Caryn, 71, said."The general manager called me and told me, 'Something's up with Jen.' I heard it over the phone. It was agonising. It sounded like a bull being gored, just this horrific howling.”‌Caryn rushed into work, and by the time she arrived, Jennifer was being treated by paramedics. Within 10 minutes, she was taken to the local trauma hospital, where a neurosurgeon confirmed that she was gravely ill."He told us he wasn't sure what the cause of the bleed was, but that if it was multiple bleeds, he'd be unable to save her life. I couldn't process it. Jen was in perfect health.‌"10 minutes later, the door opens and he came charging back in. I thought, that's it. She's gone. She's dead."But he delivered the good news that he could save Jennifer's life. Jennifer, who was in a coma by this point, had suffered a haemorrhagic stroke in her left frontal lobe caused by a ruptured cavernous malformation, an irregular cluster of blood vessels."It then became a race against time to get the blood out so it wouldn't destroy her brain and so that the neurosurgeon could go in and operate and remove this cavernous malformation,” Caryn said. After 10 days, a span that included Jennifer's 31st birthday, doctors removed the abnormality.‌While mostly sedated, she relied on a feeding tube and was breathing with the help of a ventilator. Jennifer was left with a piece of titanium in her skull and a three-week stay in intensive care while the family waited in agony to see how she would recover."We had no idea whether she was going to survive or if she did, who she would be afterwards, what we would be left with,” Caryn explained. As Jennifer came round, the family saw how badly she'd been affected."She was unable to speak, she couldn't play tic tac toe, she didn't know what to do with a hairbrush or a toothbrush. She was left with no working memory.‌"We gave her an iPad so she could communicate with us at night when we left the hospital and she didn't know how to use it. On one occasion she saw our pet dog Luna with her sister Amanda and she tried to reach through the screen to stroke her.”Jennifer continued to make progress and was discharged from hospital into a rehab facility. From there, she was allowed to move in with her parents and Amanda where she relied on a wheelchair and daily physiotherapy."When she started to talk again, she said: 'What happened to me? Why is the family so traumatised?' It was an unbelievably difficult time,” Caryn said.‌Jennifer began walking using a walker and braces, but she'd lost her peripheral vision, which affected her balance. Today, she is vastly improved, but she still has a way to go."When I came around, I had no idea who I was or what was going on. Today, I am nowhere near fully recovered."Every day I make improvements in some capacity, which is very fortunate. However, it has been five years, and I wish I could just snap my fingers and be done, but that's just not how recovery from a brain injury works,” Jennifer said.‌Jennifer has been left with limited movement on her right side as a result of the trauma. Together, Jennifer and Caryn have written a book about their experiences, In The Face Of Catastrophe: How A Traumatic Brain Injury Became A Blessing, which chronicles the day the stroke occurred through one year out in the form of diary entries from each family member, including Jennifer when she regains consciousness. Today, she is determined to work on her recovery and improve her health.She added: "I am not going to stop until I reach the top. Before the stroke I was very independent, very active and on my own journey. I was a motivational speaker, was spiritual, healthy and exercised every day.‌"Then I have no memories until I was recovering at home, three or four months later. In the beginning, I was very grateful to be alive. But as I became more conscious of my deficits, I became more and more depressed.”Medication helps her and she has returned to work part-time with the help of a carer, but she is grieving the life she thought she would have.Jennifer said: "I am much more positive right now than I have been, but I am still struggling. My life has changed for good. I had wanted children. I am unsure if that will happen now. I had wanted to be married. I had a serious boyfriend at the time I had my stroke who stayed with me for three years after, then we just ended.Article continues below"But no matter what is going on in life, I know that hope is possible. Recovery is possible. And I want other people to take encouragement from that. One of the worst things that could have happened happened to me, but I am fighting on. I'm a survivor."