A two-time brain injury survivor becomes a successful children’s book author.

By KENDALL MOON/Murphy News Service

The birth of a child is supposed to be a magical day, but for author Angela Halgrimson, the joy of childbirth was entangled with the fear of death. With that back-drop, baby Jake was born on April 17, 2003, under less than ideal circumstances.

Halgrimson’s pregnancy had been rough, in hindsight almost a foreshadowing of the delivery day. Earlier in the pregnancy, Halgrimson had been diagnosed with preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that includes high blood pressure and damage to other organs. Women with blood type O-negative often develop preeclampsia and can take precautions early in the pregnancy; however, her doctor did not prepare her as well as she had hoped.

Baby Jake wanted to arrive at six months, but doctors had to stop the labor and put Halgrimson on bedrest. The baby waited a while, but he still managed to make his way into the world a month early.

On April 17, 2003, Halgrimson’s heart began racing, and her body swelled up so much that she was unrecognizable. She was discharged from St. Paul’s United Hospital at 2:30 a.m. with a diagnosis of the flu.

“It wasn’t the flu,” she said. She also said a nurse urged her husband, Josh Halgrimson, to get her to the next nearest hospital.

By about 7:30 a.m., the couple had made it to Unity Hospital in Fridley, Minnesota, where she was immediately admitted. From complications with pain medication and baby Jake eager to come out, the night was chaotic. Halgrimson was not getting enough oxygen to her brain, and that meant baby Jake wasn’t either.

He was born “blue, floppy and unresponsive, according to the medical papers,” she said.

Jake is now 12 years old. Halgrimson said her son did see some slowed development early on but that he is otherwise happy and healthy.

A whole new world

Halgrimson had suffered suffocation of the brain during Jake’s delivery, which caused her short- and long-term memory loss along with other complications. She said she would often go to the grocery store for the same items and only realize her mistake once she arrived home.

And while her family liked to playfully make fun of her for this, the repeated mistakes scared her.

“I don’t remember birthdays, anniversaries, significant events, and that really sucks,” she said.

Halgrimson also had balance issues, sometimes falling down even while vacuuming.

“Some days were really bad. I couldn’t even walk. I had to crawl,” she said. And because her balance was unpredictable, she said she was afraid to walk around with the baby. The new mom improvised and instead pulled him around on a blanket.

Halgrimson attended occupational, physical and speech therapies about six days a week at Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute in Minneapolis. Her mom, Sue Haugen, retired early to help with the baby and drive her to therapy.

“It doesn’t really matter how old your child is. When your child is hurt or suffers or has issues, there’s an impact on your world, in your life,” Haugen said.

Almost as if her medical history repeated itself, Angela Halgrimson had to be taken to the emergency room after a medical procedure complication on October 18, 2012. Coming out of the anesthesia, she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were collapsing. By the time an ambulance arrived, one of her lungs was totally collapsed, and the other was headed that direction.

It’s an awful feeling knowing you’re going to die, she said, “In the ambulance, I took my mask off, and I mouthed, ‘Tell my family I love them.’”

Halgrimson was clinically dead by the time she arrived at North Memorial Emergency Room in Robbinsdale, her oxygen level dangerously low. Miraculously, she woke up the next day.

Here and now

Halgrimson said she can appreciate her traumatic experiences now for what they have taught her about life, but she did have a “pity phase.”

She was watching TV, something she rarely does, when Ben Utecht, a former University of Minnesota football player and NFL tight end, began sharing the pain of memory loss he suffered from multiple concussions. He was speaking on behalf of the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance, and Halgrimson said she wanted to know more about this organization.

“I felt alone in this brain injury. Even having it for how many years prior to this last one, I still felt alone because nobody really understands,” she said, “I don’t think until you’ve had one you fully get it.”

She went to their Walk for Thought event and found that the people there understood her pain, her loss. They may all have been at different spots in life with varying degrees of disability, but those were her people, she said. Now, she is heavily involved with the organization and has partnered with them financially.

Not many people go through near-death experiences, and even fewer people go through multiple. Angela Halgrimson lost memories and to this day battles remembering different day-to-day occurrences, but she sees a silver lining to her experience.

“I have to live every day here, now, because I don’t know when. Nobody knows when,” she said.

Moving forward with a passion

Halgrimson said she woke up from a vivid dream in 2006. She ran down to her home office and began writing down the scenes that had been playing in her head. The story included details from her family and the farm she grew up on, including fun oddities like her dad’s John Deere tractor and distant memories such as the crows that flew around her house. Even the names in the story had personal touches from people in her life.

“When I read the story, I was just absolutely amazed. It was such a good little story that I was just so impressed,” Haugen said, “And this was someone who had a hard time just remembering what she did the day before.”

Halgrimson had tried to get her book, “Lenny the Crow,” published through traditional publishing houses, even getting an offer from Candlewick Press, but she wasn’t happy with the contract offered. Her search lasted about eight years.

Her new life motto is part of what inspired her to finally get her book published. She decided to self-publish her book and used a hybrid press called Beaver’s Pond Press. Once she began that process in 2013, it only took 90 more days for “Lenny the Crow” to come home from the printers.

Halgrimson has won an Independent Publishers Book Award and a Mom’s Choice Award. But she does not keep her success to herself. One dollar from every “Lenny The Crow” copy that is sold is donated to the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance.  She also travels all over the country to do book signings and readings. Halgrimson visits school as well, spreading the idea to kids that disabilities shouldn’t hold you back.

Lily Coyle, director of publishing at Beaver’s Pond Press, worked with Halgrimson on her story. Coyle asked Halgrimson if she wanted to include her brain injuries in the “About the Author” section on the back of her book. Halgrimson said, “Yeah, it’s a part of me. It’s the reason why I’m doing this book. It’s because I want people that have a disability to say, ‘I can still do this. I can function.’”

Coyle said she thought it was a good idea to include it. “It’s a badge of honor, a real milestone,” she said.

Connections mean the most

Halgrimson’s health history fanned the flames for her passion and zeal for life, yet her personality has not changed, her husband Josh said.

“For her and those around her, it put things in perspective for how precious health and life is,” he said, “She’s just an incredibly gracious, wonderful, kind-hearted person. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for anybody. And that’s just the way she’s always been.”

Halgrimson’s family grew up raising horses and cows and chickens on their farm. Her parents still live in that same house in Ham Lake, Minnesota. When Halgrimson’s parents were younger, they planned on using their 110 acres of land to develop houses for their retirement. They still plan to do that, but they started it a little early. Halgrimson and her husband built a house on that land, right behind her parents’ house.

Halgrimson has an affinity for crows, hence her book’s title. She said she isn’t sure if it is because of their black color or if she’s drawn to them because of their intelligence.

In researching her book, she said she learned that crows are loyal birds that always migrate back to where their flocks originated — not unlike how she has returned to her family homestead.

She laughed thinking about the crows she grew up with, marveling that the same family of crows could be the ones that land on her house today. “And I’m still feeding them.”

Reporter Kendall Moon is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.