Natanya Sortland
In 2014 Natanya Sortland was living the dream any 40 year old woman would want to live. She lived independently and was running her own business. Natanya channeled her love for dogs and the outdoors by starting a business where she cared for whole packs of dogs from estate to estate – being active, responsible, organized and dedicated was an every day requirement.
Then on February 1st, 2014, Natanya was putting away groceries when suddenly she felt like she’d been literally shot in the head. She collapsed in her home and after loved ones intervened, she was airlifted to the hospital.It was a Subarachnoid Brain Hemorrhage – at just 40 years old she had a type of stroke.
After 3 weeks of inpatient care, she was released and sent home. Natanya had no idea that she had a brain injury, and what that entailed. Suddenly her independence was gone-she was warned she should not be alone for at least 2 weeks. With dedication and her determination, she slowly began getting back on her feet again.
Just a year later Natanya was in her backyard woodshed when the roof fell down on her head. She now had a traumatic brain injury to add to her challenges. Her ongoing symptoms include but are not limited to: aphasia, short and long term memory loss, autonomic dis-regulation, as well as sensory and auditory processing disorders. Her most recent diagnosis resulting from this TBI is Acquired Cortical Visual Impairment which she characterizes as “an overwhelming clutter of visual information”. Natanya is legally blind.
Outpatient rehab was next. After they had done all they could for her physical recovery, she went back home AGAIN- still symptomatic, non-functional and now alone. She remembers that it felt like she’d been dropped off a cliff, she had no idea how to re-enter her once purposeful life…she felt hopeless.
Then she heard about the Mind Your Brain Foundation conference in Philadelphia at Penn Med. Natanya says“ I will never forget my first conference. My aide rolls me in with my dark glasses and ear protection and I immediately felt welcome and accepted. Nobody was telling me ‘Why can’t you just…?’, and no one seemed disappointed in me or pitied me – it took my breath away.”
She had just taken her first step on a path that led her to leap outside of her comfort zone, making the once impossible seem possible again. With every conference since then, Natanya has taken another step toward reaching her new goal of giving back to her now normal communities; survivors of stroke, TBI and the visually impaired/legally blind. She decided to do this through all the organizations that have helped her along the way. All the resources she met through Mind Your Brain were so instrumental to her recovery, she needed to show appreciation somehow.
At that first conference, she was introduced to Scott Dillman of Fighting Back. When Natanya met him in her wheelchair, she told him all she wanted to do was to dance again. He gave her a scholarship, a personal trainer and an entire organization that supported her physical recovery. This was another outlet she never thought was even available to her. After training for six years with Fighting Back, Natanya was ready to live out her dream. In training one day Scott challenged Natanya to make a dance. Again stepping out of her comfort zone, she choreographed a dance with music that she felt told her story. She couldn’t remember the choreography, but she could remember how to tell a story through movement. She could never find the words to talk about what happened to her, to explain her deficits and her physical, as well as emotional challenges. Natanya was practicing in her kitchen for many hours of many weeks – culminating in her performing live(!) at an annual gala. Natanya stepped up her game, creating a dance that moved an audience of 500 people to tears and earned her a standing ovation.
Onto the next challenge – When Natanya became legally blind after her TBI she couldn’t find the services in Chester County to help her adapt to vision loss through TBI. Through new connections in the community she was now a part of through Mind Your Brain she found her way to Vision Corps in Lancaster. They had just happened to be starting to offer services in Chester. She was given cane training, taught how to cook, and taught how to solve myriad problems in the everyday life that a blind person would be facing. Since 2020, Natanya has rallied the crowd for Vision Corps’ annual fundraiser by rappelling down a 10-story building dressed as the Statue of Liberty in Lancaster!!When they first asked her to climb down the building in support of their annual fundraiser she emphatically said no, “I’m terrified of heights!”. Deep down though Natanya felt the call to give back to the community -she realized that she would need to send a powerful message. She was inspired to overcome her fear after listening the key note address of Brigadier General Don Buldoc at that year’s Mind Your Brain conference. His words, and all the survivors before her inspired Natanya. She dressed as Lady Liberty to thank Vision Corps for giving her back her freedom and independence.
Having yet another example of giving back Natanya shares, “My first year in recovery I was struggling to remember to eat, I couldn’t remember how much time I spent moving; I’d only be sitting or sleeping in a day. I received a Fitbit at that time gave me the minute to minute support I needed to see how I could change and move forward, even an inch at time.
I had always wished for a program that I could share this idea for a FitBit to be given to us all and to gain support from my peers”. In 2022, for the first time since her injuries she became a leader and a mentor for a small group of TBI survivors in the 2023-24 pilot program of Strive with her long time ally Scott.
They presented a program at the annual brain injury conference, where both Mind Your Brain and Fighting Back funded the purchase of FitBit’s to make it happen. The program was a great success with participants’ learning how to set realistic goals for movement, getting support from peers and professionals and learning that “it’s all about the effort!”
Natanya’s most recent and most fulfilling accomplishment this year is being hired to continue the work she has done as Ambassador for Fighting Back and Vision Corps plus her new title of Outreach Coordinator for the Mind Your Brain Foundation.
Natanya says that she couldn’t do any of her work without the support of intense cognitive therapy and her personal aides for which she is very grateful. She also cannot stress enough how integral Mind Your Brain has been to her recovery – the support and encouragement of the survivors and the board members of the foundation have helped her move forward.
Her dream was always to make the impossible a possibility for her community.
Natanya knows her journey wasn’t only about overcoming her injury; it is about being a beacon of hope, a shining light guiding others through their recovery and towards healing.