Her mother has also had two 'mini-strokes' within the past 3 years, one happening just before mine did. She is slowly getting more and more forgetful, not just age forgetfulness, but forgetfulness that is due to the strokes. She has had a lot of tests and her diagnosis is not dementia. It is brain damage from the strokes. So, my friend asks me...Is this what we have to look forward to? I don't know. Neither does she.
People who see us being competent at our work, functioning at a very high level think that we have 'recovered' and all is well in the brain department. Yes, we both have recovered. I think we both have accepted that we are now as good as we're gonna get, yet we both face our own brains every day, and those who live with us, or our closest friends know that we have been changed forever, and we have to learn to compensate for the deficits which we live with every waking moment.
We talked also about how frustrating it is to have people tell us "Oh, I experience the same thing...it's just age." No it is not just age. No it is not the same as you, who are aging and forgetful. We have that aging process too, on top of the damage to our brains, so it makes it doubly weird to not remember things like we used to. There is more to it though, than just memory loss.
My stroke was a Left Basal Ganglia lacunar infarct of 1mm . The left basal ganglia is a group of nuclei in the brain that helps motor control of the body, emotions and learning. Great...the big emotions and learning place! My friend's stroke happened in the left base of her brain, and was considered small too...so from those tiny places that went without Oxygen we have been gifted with these:
- Getting overwhelmed in crowds.
- Not wanting to go anywhere but to the couch after a long day at work.
- Still having times when someone asks you something and you cannot understand what they are asking for.
- Not being able to add in your head anymore.
- Not being able to understand something someone is trying got explain to you, and when they try again to explain it, you have that deer in the headlights look, and have to say.."I am just not going to get this no matter how you try to explain it."
- Not being able to have spur of the moment changes in plans happen without freaking out.
- Not being able to handle all the information which comes into our brain and having to say "WAIT". "SLOW DOWN, You are going to fast, we've got to make the morning last." [It is having one thought, and then going off on another wave to somewhere that the electrical impulses firing takes you...just like now, when I was writing Wait, slow down.... I was headed in one direction, then went into the song by Simon and Garfunkel, which is a way cool song especially when thinking of the 'good things' from the stroke. Then getting stuck on the spelling of Garfunkel, because it just doesn't look right, and even though I Google it and find that it is spelled right, I have to go back and forth from tab to tab, because by the time I have gone from the tab with the words to the song and the right spelling of Garfunkel, to the tab to write this post, I have already forgotten if that is truly the right spelling or not.]
- Being in a place that brings us back to times long ago, things which happened that we both were in therapy for, and experienced healing from. Then we get stuck on what I call the hamster's wheel. It is a place where we keep going around and round and round with a set of thoughts and we need someone to remind us that we are on the wheel again. I am so grateful for a husband and daughter who can say "What's going on? You already dealt with all of that and were at peace with it all." Then it is as if a button is pushed and I reset, and all is fine and dandy, but there is usually the aftermath of cleanup for words spoken, actions taken during the "not so merry-go-round" of being stuck on the wheel.
- Living in hell when we are on the wheel. We say things we wouldn't ordinarily say, we look at things as being hopeless, we see ourselves going around the same mountain time and time again with no stopping point.
For me, it is a place where I have a run of migraines, day after day, I will notice afterwards that I am much more vulnerable to being overwhelmed, I say it best as "I cannot compute today." And there is the fear of ....did I have a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) or am I headed for another real stroke?
So, all this negative is just that negative. Me, who has always had a Pollyanna attitude, deemed so by my Aunt Nell standing outside my Dad's hospital room during his years battling pancreatic cancer. I am still not used to thinking in such negative terms so frequently. Reset, I need a reset!
When the reset comes that is when I see all the positives that have come from the stroke.
- I value life more.
- I don't take crap off of anyone anymore. No matter who they are.
- I have lots of be still time.
- I don't have time for anyone who is going to drain me.
- I am much more connected to Spirit, and choose to be involved only in things that I am called to BE involved with.
- It is so easy to say NO.
- I dot no see anything that I have to FIX, either in myself or in others, or in situations which occur.
- I enjoy the sound of the birds more.
- It's really enjoying the song from The Wizard of Oz ... If I only had a brain!
- It's playing charades to get people to understand what word you can't get from brain to vocal cords.
- I love to just sit and stare, "at what?" you ask Nothing, my mind can just go blank...into a place of total encompassing peace.
- It's being able to laugh at myself and say, "That does not compute." (and laughing at the memory of watching the Robot on Lost in Space...Danger, Will Robinson, Danger.)
It does not compute
- I can forgive myself for things said and done during the wheel process.
- I am patient with myself, compassionate with myself in this process.
- I forgive others and have compassion for them just as easily.
- I can stop the world and spend all day writing a blog posting, or more importantly write my grandchildren individual old fashioned letters.
- I can walk out of a store if there is too much information coming into my brain, shopping can always wait til another day.
Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy
Hello lamppost, what'cha knowing
I've come to watch your flowers growin'
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doo-it in doo doo, feeling groovy
Ba da da da da da da, feeling groovy
I got no deeds to do
No promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Life I love you, all is groovy
So, no matter that there are negatives to the stroke, the migraines.....my Pollyanna rises as a Phoenix from the ashes and yells at the world:
Life, I love you......All is groovy.
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