Mind Games

When I first started working with Amanda(Speech Theraphist). I couldn't understand why I would cry at the drop of hat? Crying I felt was the sign of a weak person? Later I would understand the crying. To tell the truth, at the beginning of theaphy even if they had tried to explain the process of a stroke to me I don't think I could have comprenhended the process of a stroke? We started working on  thought process. I remember the simiplest of thoughts would drain me ( my head felt as if I  had solved a 500 puzzle page book)!                   

I apologize for any names I may have wrong or the sequence of events. But this is all from a person that had big ole brain fart! I remember, the entire time thinking that I sounded perfectly normal, I didn't understand why I needed speech theraphy? I spoke my brother, Glenn, to get his opinion on how I sounded when I first had the stroke. His memory was different than mine. He remembered that I was not in clear in my speech. Matter of fact, they could not understand me! But, I an more fortunate than some my speech did return!

Even today my speech still bothers me. When I hear myself talk I hear a "Forrest Gump" tone! Being from the South and we carry our syllables on for days normally. Now I can make the words tommorow, funny, and money sound extremely long! Yes, I can laugh at myself, but for the life of me I can't make those words sound "normal". Now I have jumped to far ahead.

One of the problems with a stroke is you lose your side vision. There is a proper name for side vision, but at the time it is not coming to my thoughts? The problem being you lose all vision  on the outside of one side. Mine happen to be on the left, that's why they made me a button that said "LOOK TO THE LEFT".  For some reason I kept missing things to the left. When trying to read I would miss about the first 12 words on the left of an entire page . When trying to find something on a table, if it was on the left side of the table it was not visually there for me. When I was able to sit up they would put me in a wheelchair with a saftey harness. The harness which I fondly called my "thong", kept me in the chair. With my "thong and one good arm and leg I got pretty good at getting up and down the hall. A major problem with the chair I would forget to "look to the left".  Heaven forbid, if you were on my left side! It was not only limited to people, but walls, poles, carts, and chairs.

I was the "Queen of Denial"! Denial being your greatest friend!  I couldn't admit that there was a problem with my vision even when trying to read something and the pages  looking like the lines were moving up and down the page. If I could get the page to slow down long enough to read the page it made no sense. I remember thinking Oh NO! I have lost the pleasure of reading!  With speech theraphy I was able to getto the point where the pages  stopped  rolling, and was able to find the left side of the page again. I COULD READ AGAIN! This didn't happen overnight! I heard many many times look to the left! Many hours of speech theraphy.

Now Iwas able to read again! Now if I could just get my thoughts together? My thoughts could go 0 to 90 with two thoughts. My thoughts were random and out of order. I don't know if this showed in my speech? It must have affected my speech because I remember working on how to put a simple sentence together. You think to yourself how stupid have I become that I can't do a simple sentence? You at some point  realize it's not stupidity, but a new way of reasoning !In my humble opinion, the only way to try and conquer a stroke is with an open mind and a willingness for change!