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Published Feb 23, 2022
A fight for life: How the Joyners stayed strong through near-fatal crisis
Brian Rippee  •  RebelGrove
Staff Writer

Trimiesha Joyner took a moment to appreciate the crisp fall air as the sun beamed down on Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on a cloudless Saturday afternoon, as her eyes scanned the sideline, in search of her husband, Ole Miss defensive line coach Randall Joyner.

Her face lit up as their eyes met, just a handful of minutes before Ole Miss took the field against LSU in a late-October SEC West showdown. It was easy for her to bask in this moment. This one was worth it.

It was worth popping in the earplugs she spent more time researching than she’d like to admit, trying to find the best ones to accommodate traumatic brain injuries. It was worth swallowing her pride and accepting assistance to get down to the lower level near the field where, in her old version of normal, she’d be cheering with the other coaches’ wives, as invested in the game as anyone in the stadium.

It was worth all of this just to wave hello to Randall before returning to her new normal, where the noise was subdued and the sunlight wasn’t so bright.

Her world was much different the last time she was in here, in a stadium she calls “the place where I am happiest and feel the best.” But in this moment, none of it mattered, because she was back, and the sheer fact she was standing at this seat again, doing her pregame wave to her husband, was progress.

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"I began to think I was going to die today"

Twenty-six days earlier to the hour, on September 27, Trimiesha was soaring through a sky just as clear as this picture-perfect day, except she was inside a CareFlight helicopter bound for Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. She was in dire need of emergency surgery to treat what a CT Scan showed as bleeding in her brain. Survival was no certainty and a single second wasted could’ve been fatal.

A routine weekday trip to the gym earlier that morning quickly turned tumultuous. Trimiesha was at the newly-built Ole Miss recreation center, where she worked out four or five times per week. A perfectly healthy, active 29-year-old woman, she reached down to engage in a hip thrust, and just before she grabbed the bar, a crippling pain in her head stopped her instantly.

This was no headache, either.

“I felt this intense pressure, like someone was pinching my brain, picking me up and just squishing my brain,” Trimiesha said. “I don’t want to say I thought my brain was swelling, just because I had never felt something like that before. But looking back now, it definitely felt like my brain was swelling.”

She stumbled into a nearby locker room and laid down on a bench.

She pulled out her phone to check the schedule she and Randall shared. It was around 10 a.m.. He was at practice as the Rebels prepped for a showdown in Tuscaloosa against undefeated Alabama. Trimiesha is a coach’s wife and a diehard football fan. She understands the time-consuming nature of the work, and though she knew she could always reach Randall if needed, she didn’t want to bother him at practice. Maybe, if she could just get home and take some Tylenol, she could sleep it off -- whatever 'it' was.

That would’ve been a fatal mistake.

Ironically, the only thing that saved Trimiesha from going home was the debilitating pain. She tried get up, leave the locker room bench and make her way to the car, but she couldn’t walk. This pain was paralyzing.

She phoned a childhood friend in Dallas and explained what was happening to her. A little under 10 minutes went by, a quick glance at the ceiling light above her intensified a pain that was already so unbearable it restricted her motion. She began to vomit.

Something was very wrong. Her friend advised her call someone to take her to the hospital. Trimiesha called Alexis Love, wife of then-strength coach Wilson Love. Alexis traveled to pick her up and called head athletic trainer Pat Jernigan as she drove to the recreation center. Jernigan told Alexis to take Trimiesha straight to the hospital and to not let her fall asleep.

She screamed and sobbed as the pressure felt as if something sank its teeth into her skull. A staff member heard her inside the locker room. He helped Trimiesha into a wheelchair and then into Alexis’ car. They placed a cold wet rag over her eyes. She struggled to remain cognizant through the pain.

After a few minutes of waiting once they arrived, she was transferred back into a room. A light flipped on and Trimiesha shrieked in pain. It was clear she needed a CT scan. After doctors viewed the first image — before the scan was even complete — it was clear that Trimiesha's brain was bleeding and she needed surgery immediately.

“I need to tell you something but you need to remain calm," one doctor said.

"He told me my brain is bleeding and that I needed to go into surgery immediately,” Trimiesha recalled. "He told me that the more I panic, the worse I am making it. I am putting more pressure on my brain.

"That is when I began to think I was going to die today.”

"Is she going to survive?" 

Randall blew a kiss upon spotting Trimiesha in the stands as he strolled down the home sideline. A grin spread across his face.

In this fleeting moment, the toll the last 26 days had taken -- grappling with the possibility his wife might die, commuting back-and-forth to Memphis, sleeping in a hospital chair -- was hardly detectable.

Things were more normal again with his biggest supporter back in the stadium. Trimiesha had been there since the beginning, when he signed with SMU out of Newman Smith High School in Carrollton, Texas. Trimiesha went to nearby Denton Ryan High School. The two met over 12 years ago during their senior year when Newman Smith's standout running back known as "Rambo" introduced himself by that very same nickname.

"That's how he introduced himself, so my first thought was why his mother would name her son something like that," Trimiesha said with a laugh.

They married in the fall of 2020 and had their Covid-delayed ceremony reception last July. Trimiesha has been by his side for his entire coaching journey that includes stops at Hawaii, Ohio State, back to SMU and now Ole Miss. Randall describes her as a die hard football fan and the strongest person he knows.

On that harrowing Monday morning, Joyner was by her side, doing his best to be strong. He remembers being called off the practice field and told that Trimiesha was going to the hospital. She's asthmatic, so it could've been a flare up related to that. Practice ended shortly after.

Randall got another call. The situation was much more serious. He arrived at the hospital less than two minutes after Trimiesha had been taken back for the CT. A doctor greeted him with the news.

"What happens after surgery?” Randall asked.

“I don’t know," the doctor told him.

“Is she going to survive?” asked Randall, as tears streamed down his face.

“She just needs to get to surgery right now," the doctor repeated.

Trimiesha was experiencing a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage stemming from a brain aneurysm rupture. A brain aneurysm occurs when a blood vessel (in the brain) fills with blood and swells like a ballon.

It typically carries no symptoms until it ruptures, which causes fluid to build up, putting intense pressure on the brain and inducing excruciating pain. A rupture is a a life-threatening situation. It also waves a proverbial checkered flag to commence a race against time.

There aren't any neurosurgeons in Oxford, so the next step was locating one in either Birmingham or Memphis. Trimiesha was given morphine for the pain in the meantime. They found a surgeon in Memphis. Randall hopped in a car driven by a graduate assistant behind a police escort and headed north to Baptist Memorial Hospital as a helicopter carrying his wife took off above him.

"I am wide awake, living and feeling every second of this"

Aside from the crippling head pain, the most tormenting part of all of this for Trimiesha was the fact that she was living out this life-threatening nightmare completely conscious and cognizant.

The first helicopter ride of her life consisted of her on a gurney, eyes covered, not knowing if she'd make it long enough to see another day -- or, hell, long enough to see the helicopter land. On board were two EMTs who made small talk with Trimiesha, trying to keep her awake as the pilot flew the aircraft.

“It would’ve been one thing if I were sedated during all of this,” Trimiesha sad. “But I am wide awake, living and feeling every second of this.”

The flight lasted 25 minutes. Randall made it 15 minutes later. Once he slipped past the hospital's tight Covid restrictions, he joined Trimiesha in a room. The hospital couldn't find an available anesthesiologist for her surgery. They waited for over three hours.

The morphine was wearing off and the excruciating headaches were back as more blood from the ruptured vessel seeped into the area between Trimiesna’s brain and skull. Randall searched for a nurse as the screams and tears returned.

In the three hours they had to themselves in a dark hospital room, they used the time to talk and pray.

"I'm doing my best to be calm. She was feeding off me. I needed to be strong. I kept telling her 'you're going to make it through this,’” Randall recalled.

He called various family members on speaker phone so they could talk to Trimiesha. While this was comforting in a way, with each call she wondered if the situation was more dire than she was being told.

“The more people that called, the more I thought that this was it,” she said.

Coaches love being in control, having a plan, knowing it and executing it. In this moment, it was all out of Randall’s control. He was helpless.

"Am I going to die?" Trimiesha kept asking the doctors and nurses that rotated in and out of the room, only getting the same answer.

"We are going to get you into surgery as soon as possible."

As far as a game plan, the doctors needed to figure out where the bleeding was coming from. That would help them determine where they needed to begin the surgery. This was a crucial determination — to enter through the groin or her cranium. The groin was the more optimal solution, if possible, for a number of reasons, most obviously because it avoids having to cut open a person's skull. But they wouldn't know until they were already in the operating room.

At 6:30 p.m., Trimiesha went into surgery.

Randall went to a hotel room across the street that Sarah Durkin, defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin's wife reserved for him. She booked rooms for Randall, his parents and Trimiesha's parents (who were all on a flight from Dallas bound for Memphis) and got all of them food.

Randall sat down to eat. You could forgive him for not having much of an appetite. This was the first time he was left alone with his thoughts as doctors operated on his wife across the street. Eight hours earlier, he was on a practice field prepping for Ole Miss' SEC opener against Alabama.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," Randall said. "You'd think your immediate reaction is just panic, but in reality, it’s not really like that. Of course I am worried, but I was kind of just numb, you know? What can I do? I am hoping and praying it would all work out."

The surgery lasted about two hours. The doctor promised to call when they’d determined where to enter. He made good on that promise 45 minutes into process and let Randall know they were able to go through the groin -- the first bit of good news he'd heard all day. This was a massive victory as it mitigated the possibility of immediate brain damage.

The surgeon ran a catheter through an artery at the groin, up into the afflicted area in the brain. The catheter released platinum coils that induce clotting at the rupture point and stop the bleeding.

Randall got another phone call when the surgery concluded and hustled back across the street to the hospital.

Trimiesha woke up a short time later to find out she was still alive. She groggily remembers seeing Randall's face. She touched her head to feel where she was bald, finding out she wasn't, and then went back to sleep — realizing she was alive and still had a full head of hair were the positives of this Monday

"Progress isn't always pleasant" 

The 26 days between Trimiesha's surgery and this pregame moment she and Randall shared on a picturesque fall day in Oxford, was an arduous journey. The simple reality of both of them standing in this place, separated by a few bleachers and a fence, was an accomplishment that bordered on miraculous.

When Trimeshia woke up, it was a realization that was more of a starting point rather than a finish line. The first seven days after surviving a brain aneurysm are vital in shaping long term prognosis. There are several potential complications, but the overarching concern is ensuring vasospasms don’t develop.

Vasospasms occur when a blood vessel narrows and blocks blood flow in the brain, which can lead to a stroke and open the door to a myriad things that compromise quality of life. This is partially why the rehabilitation process begins immediately.

First came occupational therapy, then speech therapy, followed by physical therapy. Trimiesha passed the first two quickly. Showing no signs of speech issues was a win. Physical therapy was harder. She had to learn how to walk again.

"Just because I woke back up didn’t mean I was out of the woods,” she recalled. “That was the weirdest thing, learning how to walk. As babies, we obviously don't remember learning how to walk, yet I am struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Like, I know how to walk, but I am having to tell my brain to put one foot in front of the other, and it’s not moving.”

Excruciating headaches hindered the process. Trimiesha’s brain was irritated, and the excess blood and fluid produced a pain so intense that, when the pain arrived, she was immediately bedridden. This happened five or six times per day.

The nurses gave her medication that took about half an hour to set in before it numbed the pain. Even worse, there was no guarantee of the exact source of the pain. Each time, she wondered if she was experiencing a re-bleed and if that this one was the setback that would prove to be her demise.

“The days were painful,” Trimiesha said. “Every time the pain set in, I had no idea if I was going to be okay. It was ruthless for seven days.”

It was hard to stay the course. But she drew motivation from wanting to get back to the games.

As inconsequential as it seemed, Randall eventually had to go back to work. Obviously, his first priority was Trimiesha’s well being. D.J. Durkin made no bones about it: do not worry about football. Take all the time you need.

But once Randall was briefed on the recovery plan, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do other than support her. She wanted him to go coach. This was her game plan she had to execute.

Randall slept in the hospital and didn’t leave her side for the next two days. On Thursday, he returned to work and eventually accompanied the team to Tuscaloosa two days later — the first game he can recall with Trimiesha absent. It was an ominous day. Alabama pummeled Ole Miss, 42-21. Once he got back to Oxford, he drove straight to Memphis.

“It was hard not to think about her the entire time,” Randall said. “You have these moments where you just drift off. But now, it’s putting together a game plan about how to handle this recovery. There was a job that had to be done.”

This trek up-and-down Highway 6 and I-55 became his routine for the next eight days: drive down to practice, go to work, drive back up and remain by her side in the hospital.

“It made my day so much better seeing him walk through that door at night,” Trimiesha said. “That’s when I felt more comfortable going to sleep.”

As Ole Miss prepared for Arkansas the next week, Trimiesha was nearing a return home. She’d been moved out the ICU and was walking gingerly up a few stairs. She watched the game on an iPad because she hated the tiny hospital televisions.

The Rebels survived Arkansas for a 52-51 victory decided on the final play of the game. Trimiesha’s nurses cautioned her against yelling at every big play for the sake of her own health.

It was a victory that foreshadowed another. Two days later, on October 11 at 9:54 a.m., Trimiesha was discharged from Baptist Memorial Hospital — 14 days after she entered without a guarantee of ever leaving alive. She hadn’t felt fresh air since being wheeled to the helicopter on a gurney. She sat in the doorway in a wheelchair, soaked in the sunlight and sobbed. It was easier to live in and appreciate that moment. A tumultuous two weeks was over and the Joyners had come out the other side.

One last southbound drive down I-55 and an eastward turn on Highway 6 extracted a sea of emotions as Randall and Trimiesha enjoyed their favorite songs.

“Progress isn’t always pleasant,” Randall said. “She had terrible headaches. It was hard. Progress isn’t always easy. But if you are moving forward, it’s still progress. She is so, so strong. This has taught us to live in the moment.”

"This is my new normal"

Living in the moment makes for a nice saying, but it isn’t congruent with human nature. It’s hard to view life through the lens of a snapshot until a moment has already passed by. But on that October day, it was a little bit easier for the Joyners to relish the handful of seconds that comprised their sideline greeting. Their eyes met, sparking a joy in both of them that was rooted in a sense of normalcy.

“You talk about wanting to make progress? That was huge progress,” Trimiesha said. “That is where I wanted to get to and where I wanted to be. I was grateful to be back in the place where I feel the best. I love being in the stands, being around those people. I was grateful God brought me back to a place that makes me so happy.”

Ole Miss beat LSU that day, 31-17. Joyner’s defensive line recorded five sacks, six quarterback hurries and held the Tigers to 77 yards rushing. The 12th-ranked Rebels progressed to 6-1 heading into the final week of October with a chance to notch the best regular season in program history. Trimiesha met Randall in the Manning Center after the game and leapt into his arms. She did it. She attended an SEC football game 26 days after suffering a brain aneurysm. What couldn’t she do?

It was a new normal, though. Shortly after they exchanged waves before the game, Trimiesha ascended upstairs into Lane Kiffin’s family box. She couldn’t bear the noise of a late-October clash between SEC West rivals. She wore earplugs on top of noise cancelling headphones with a hat and sunglasses. She needed help to be seated in the box.

This was a glimpse into Trimiesha’s new normal. She couldn’t get up and down the stairs in her own house without assistance in the first couple of weeks after she returned home. She couldn’t shower or brush her hair without Randall’s help. She still wears earplugs when she goes out with friends. The radio can’t be too loud in the car. She was forced to drop out of graduate school because she periodically struggles with retaining new information. She makes herself wake up at or before 8 a.m. to ensure she gets a workout in before a potential headache arrises.

The headaches still haunt her. When the pain comes, she has to lie down until it subsides. It grinds her day to a halt, and there is never any regularity to them. The weeks leading up to the Sugar Bowl saw some of the best cognitive progress she’d ever made. She tore through books, read and retained better than ever, and never felt any head pain.

Two weeks after the Sugar Bowl, after the Joyners spent a week in Dallas visiting family, she was bedridden for seven days with a crippling string of headaches.

Trimiesha later found out that aneurysms are hereditary and that her uncle had one at 35 and her grandfather had one at 60. She uses social media to tell her story and advocate for people to go check to see if the same is true for them. She is prescribed a rotating arsenal of medication and likely will be for the rest of her life. But none of it breaks her spirit.

"I need to see the progress I am making"

Trimiesha is striving to get back to her past physical self. As soon as she was discharged from the hospital, she wanted to know how she was going to get to the Tennessee game in Knoxville the next week. Randall had to coax her into pumping the brakes.

Every day, she walked outside in her neighborhood, making it to her next door neighbor’s house on her own, then two houses down a few days later and then three houses down. Visible mile-markers helped her. Brushing her hair on her own was progress. So was showering without assistance. Then came bigger steps.

She sat outside in her normal seat in the coaches’ families section for Ole Miss’s 29-19 win over Texas A&M. She wore the same earplugs and noise cancelling headphones, which made a crowd of 63,000 people sound like television background noise. She learned to feed off the facial expressions and emotions of the people around her — like when A.J. Finley picked off Zach Calzada and took it 52 yards for a touchdown to seal the win.

"I acted like a person who has never had a brain aneurysm in her life,” Trimiesha said. “I was yelling, I was stressing. I think I just stressed myself out and did too much.”

It came at a cost.

Trimiesha was readmitted into the hospital two days after the win over the Aggies. She began to experience the same intense pressure as she felt the day she reached down to grab the hip thrust bar. She spent the week in the hospital.

She had blood drawn 20 times and endured two excruciating spinal taps. The setback temporarily altered her speech to the point of being unable to form words — which prompted speech therapy. Trimiesha was discharged a few days later after all of her tests came back favorably.

This was her new normal. As the doctors told her after she survived the initial surgery, these setbacks can happen at any time and might linger for life. You just never know. That’s why Trimiesha doesn’t view them as regressive to the progress she made.

She attended the Egg Bowl 12 days after her re-admission into the hospital. Two months after a brain aneurysm, she survived a stadium full of the only legalized artificial noisemakers in the sport — this time, Keith Carter saved a seat for her in the visiting athletic director’s box. After the game, she posed for a photo on the field with Randall and a handful of the defensive linemen.

“There is no greater feeling than seeing your husband grind day in and day out. See you in NOLA,” the caption read on social media. One could make a pretty compelling argument she was the toughest one in the photograph.

Each day brings its own challenges. Menial tasks result in extreme exhaustion. A single headache can hijack her day. But she’s continuing to seek out mile markers of progress in pursuit of the normal she once knew.

"I have learned that I can sit here and pout with the bad days I am having,” Trimiesha said. “I can feel sorry for what happened to me. Or, I can take the rest I need to take, listen to my body, and get up the next day and try again. I don't want to let what happened to me change what I want to do in life.”

Trimiesha turned 30 earlier this month. She’d never been skiing. That was about to change. Her logic was simple: “I am 30. I almost died. Yeah, we’re gonna go check something off the bucket list.”

They departed for South Lake Tahoe a couple of weeks ago. She and Randall went up and down the slopes, resting on the ski lift in-between, taking in the sunshine and fresh air, living in a moment that was never guaranteed.

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