It’s hard to know how to start one’s personal story of stroke. I found mine to be so uninteresting, that I thought it of no particular interest. But, upon reflection, there may be someone out there who has nearly my same story. This might help them.
Almost 7 years ago I got the opportunity to stop typing and got in on the ground level of repairing computers for the company where I worked. I loved doing this and in the space of three years learned everything I needed to know about both computers and repairing them to keep myself employed for life. It was different every day. What more could a guy ask for? I didn’t make a lot of money, but did have something different to do every day. I felt very lucky. Which pretty much brings me up to my stroke.
It’s hard to tell exactly what happened because it took me so unawares. I remember working that day. I was training a new guy at work and was under a particular amount of pressure. (For some reason, I’ve blamed this for my stroke, but who knows.) In fact, the day of my stroke, I remember having a beer after work because I was particularly high strung that day. But I figure I must have been in the process of having a stroke the whole evening, because a friend of mine told me I chatted with him on the phone until rather late about what we were going to do over the weekend. That was never to happen.
Instead, I woke up Friday morning, and was laying on the floor in my living room. I have no memory of anything and my right arm was all curled up. I did the only thing I could think of, and grabbed the phone and hit the auto-redial button. It was rather early in the morning when I got my friend Elaina. I simply told her to call for an ambulance, that something had happened.
The ambulance came very quickly and took me to a hospital. I spent most of the next 3 days unconscious. When I did wake up, my right arm was totally unusable. It was curled up to my chest like “The Mummy”. It never occurred to me that the mummy had had a stroke. I stayed in the hospital for three days.
That was the last of medical help I got at that time. But the hospital that originally took me in lost my medical records, and I had to be transferred to another hospital.
They ran the tests all over.
Again I was sent home, but this time for good. Very little was done with me.
It turned out, the most interesting thing about my stroke was the part of the brain it affected. It was the back of the left side of my brain. It appears that very few strokes occur there. My friend, who is a neurologist, said he had not seen one in that part of the brain for 7 years.
Anyway, at the beginning, my right side was pretty curled up. Only the forefinger and thumb on that hand worked. But, bit-by-bit my hand recovered, though, to this day, it is still numb and tingles constantly. But I have gotten used to it.
Another thing I remember of interest early on in my stroke, was the way all my memories looked. They were a hard to see yellow, like a film that had been burned. As I got better, I forgot most of the pre-stroke stuff, but memories stopped being yellowed.
Also, for a long time after my stroke, I could not have dreams of any sort. Now I have them, but mostly don't remember them.
My memory has been pretty much erased and "recreated". My old memories have mostly returned, though I am still missing large hunks. That is disquieting. But I am getting used to it, I think.
It amazed me how I lost all but one friend. It appears nobody was comfortable or wanted to be around a stroke victim (or as I learned slowly to call myself, stroke survivor.)
Probably, the most irritating thing was the loss of vision. I now only have ¾ of an eye left. And, for the first time in my life, I was thankful that I was blind in my right eye since very young. Because it went very dark, I am sure I would have been blinded in that eye if I had been able to use it before the stroke.
After the first year staying at home, I tried to go back to work. Like I said, I really loved my job and was hoping to go back. But it appeared my employer had no intention of taking me back. In fact, my boss told me that he did not have to help me out. I could either do the job or couldn’t. And, after a month and a half, I was “retired”. I never dreamed I would be “retired” so young (I’m 49). Just so some of you don’t get jealous, was retired without any savings for retirement.
But here I am, now learning how to exist with less money. But, amazingly, I have learned to live on the money I have. My wants are pretty simple. I will move to Indiana from Illinois next month. From there, I will only have to worry about my meds and a $450 rent. That won’t be so bad. I might even be able to save a little money.
Anyway, that’s my story. Short and sweet, just like me. And if you wondered, I really do laugh that much.
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