I went for an eye test today. The optometrist said, ‘Do you experience flashes of light?’. I said that I did, but it only happened twice, while in the kitchen, when looking up. She didn’t respond to that but I felt my feet tingle and an uncomfortable feeling within me. She asked me if it was a regular occurrence, and I resounded that it had only happened twice. So, I started to worry.
Am I to also worry about my worry? It seems so. No one else is going to do it for me. Am I going to just keel over and die? That’s, possibly, a worry. I have every worry under the sun and I feel responsible for it. Am I responsible for my brain injury or do I need to step outside of it and see it for what it is?
So many questions. If my time was due, I would have gone. But I am still here. I cannot see properly, I cannot move properly, I am at a slight angle to the universe (Peter Cook).
So what’s left? I walk down a street. I feel as if I am going to tumble. It’s the first time I have walked down a street in over a year. I feel as if I might have a TIA or another stroke. Perhaps, luck will be against me and this might happen, but it doesn’t. The whole journey is awful. Unpleasantly, I walk past people who are just walking. Meanwhile, I am concentrating like a hawk. I am like a person crawling through the desert looking for water, and this is Wales. What is going on? Did I survive? Yes, I am here typing this. It was misery, but misery likes company, so we are all friends in the end.
I am not a warrior. I am neurotic, nervous, self-conscientious, and physically delicate. I am, however, brave. I am, however, stubborn, and I know that the worst leaders in history such as Eric Bloodaxe was a fool. A successful fool but in all respect, could not manage a tea-party in a fair and equal way. So, there’s no excuse, but I feel I need to be a little blood axe in the way I deal with stroke symptoms. I will sail back and forth from the worst of it and reassume my authority of my own body despite my brain thinking otherwise. Confidence is a huge aspect of recovery.
Be stubborn because you are only a vessel for the brain, it does need to dominate the physical, but there are ways around that. It’s trial and error. Finally, the inner viking. Most of us will have some sort of indo-euorpean slash viking background or not. This is a traveller’s axiom, the journey is more important than the destination. So, if we can improve that, things will be better in the long run. Why I say that, is because without focussing on recovery we submit to it. Perhaps, for some that is the lot but for me, I am carrying on with everything that comes with having my seat of consciousness disquieted by an injury.
I hope my little screed helps those of us who may be a little stuck in the quandary of post-stroke. I haven’ reached any real conclusions but am always warm to people responding.
Love ya all.
” “try walking” “you don’t see tears when I am alone” but we all are probably guilty of just smiling and saying thank you, (unless someone catches me in a really bad moment/mood….then they get both barrels….oops 
)
Having said that, overcoming these obstacles becomes a building block for going further. I guess it is exposure therapy for us in the long run.