Patience with My Brain

Today I have spent the morning going through files and trying to get everything organized. In doing so, I am reminded ever so 'right in my face' that my brain does not work like it did before the stroke. I have in one form or fashion kept writings, poems I have found along the way, things from my years with hospice, things from seminary all filed away in folders, yet there is no sense to how I just stuck papers into the various folders. As I sort through them all, and try to put them into some categorized order I have papers all over the desk and my brain seems to be as jumbled as the papers are. I can make no sense of any of it.

I must be very patient with myself. It is almost noon, I have not even gotten dresses, haven't done my pilates, I am out of my normal routine and it shakes, rattles and rolls my brain into a mass of firing nodes.

Pre stroke I could have had all this sorting done in no time, labeling the folders and putting them away into the filing cabinet. I could keep up with the piles of papers and the mess on the desk with ease and joy (I love organization). Yet, here I sit, typing on my blog, just to give my brain a break from thinking what to do.

It just amazes me how one tiny 1mm infarct can have this much affect on me. It gives me a greater compassion for people with major strokes and traumas to the brain. I cannot even fathom how much time and energy they put in to recover from such things. Some people never recover. They live out the rest of their lives in bed, or wheelchair, in a nursing home or other care facility because the demands of their care are too much for family to handle. And yes, I do believe that even the best of families eventually reach a place where they have no choice but to place their loved one in a care facility. Private 24 hour a day care is expensive and in the times we live in most caregivers cannot give up their jobs to stay home with their loved one.

So, sometimes there does creep into my brain the thought that someday, should I experience a major stroke, that I might end up in a care home also.

With that thought, I will go back to sorting papers and making some sense out of all of this mess I have created.