After Affects of a Stroke

After Affects of a Stroke
Learning to Cope

Isn’t it amazing how complex your brain is? What happens to that complex, well functioning brain, when you have a stroke? One person said it was like having an earthquake in your kitchen and all your dishes got messed up.
The funny thing about it is it affects everyone differently. Oh sure, there are the usual things people struggle with, like learning to walk again, swallow, talk, or getting use out of an arm or hand. But there are other things that are unexplainable.
Have you ever heard of anyone losing the letter “N” in their alphabet? According to one speech therapist, he had never come across that problem, nor had his professor in thirty years of practice. Yet it did happen.
Speech is affected in many people who come through a stroke. It is embarrassing to be working as a cashier and hand someone $4.00 and say “four o’clock.” Or trying to sell something and wanting to tell them that you have a good deal and what comes out is, “I’ve got a real good Marshall for you.” That’s not your normal speech problem, but that’s the unique way a stroke affects different individuals.
They say sex is like riding a bicycle. Once you learn it you’ll always remember how, even if you haven’t ridden one for a long time. Oh really? What if you forget how to ride a bike? That can become an impossible feat after you have a stroke. It is rather humbling to watch your three year old great niece riding her little bike all over and you fall over and crash into things every time you get on a bike, even if you can even succeed to figure out how to get on it. Now the sex part is questionable, but you get the drift.
Did you ever ask anyone for directions? They can be hard enough to follow as it is, but if you can’t decipher the difference between right and left it becomes almost impossible. You can overcome that by pointing left when they say left and pointing right when they say right but there is a delay time in there so by the time you point right he could already be telling you to go left. You kind of look like a policeman directing traffic. Just have them draw you a map.
What if you are a writer? What happens then? You have all kinds of challenges. Can you imagine revising a book where your “be” comes out the end of your fingertips as “me” and your “it” becomes “if” and on and on you go? The written voice in a writer can be affected more than the verbal voice. If you can’t speak it out properly and it doesn’t come out of your pen properly either, you have a problem.
There are lots of words in the English language that sound the same, like “ate” and “eight”, “night” and “knight”, “dear” and “deer”. When you say them out loud you can’t tell the difference, but if you can’t hear the difference when you write your brain doesn’t know the difference either and they come out all wrong. It becomes very difficult to figure out which one is right. Or is that write? Course it could be rite. The more you try to figure it out, the worse it gets, just like when you are speaking and can’t get the right word to come out. Sometimes you just have to let it go and let the other person figure it out.
Balancing your checkbook is a very important function. Knowing how to add and subtract properly is helpful. What happens when you know how to do both but when you write the numbers down they come out adding instead of subtracting? You better check with a trusted friend or your banker quite often. Whatever you do, try to stay away from credit cards or debit cards.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who talks a mile a minute? Sometimes we just say “yup” a lot, or nod our heads. The problem some have is by the time even a slow talker gets to the end of the third sentence, one can’t remember what the first sentence was. The whole conversation makes no sense whatsoever. What do you do then? Keep your mouth shut and they’ll think you’re a fool? Open it and they’ll believe you are. You can’t tell them they don’t make any sense. It is you that can’t make sense out of it.
Being on time to work is a good way to keep your job. But when you have to be to work at 10:30 am and you live a half hour away from work, you can’t get out of bed at 10:00 and think you’ll make it to work on time. The concept of time is very difficult for some and they come late to many functions. They aren’t lazy, they just don’t remember how much time it takes them to put on their underwear and brush their teeth.
Having a calendar is good to keep track of where you are supposed to be and when. But you have to remember to write it down, and you have to remember where the calendar is in the first place. You have to remember to read it, and if you read it you have to remember what it says. If you tie a string around your finger you’ll never remember what it is for. That definitely is a problem. Just keep looking.
There are probably a dozen other odd ball things that surface after you’ve had a stroke, you just can’t remember what they are. It takes time, determination, hard work, a willingness to get your ego out of the way, and a sense of humor to go on after a stroke. Become aware of difficulties that come up, find a way around them, and don’t take yourself so seriously. You just haven’t found all your dishes yet.