I’ve always liked my brain, I always felt it as something insular and hidden away from the collective consciousness of society. It would amuse me, guide me through everyday activities, surmise in secret, and when prompted and primed, bemuse myself and others with its nuances. My spirits were dampened when it got damaged, life seemed very brittle, and what I once considered this ethereal cloud of thoughts became a tangible, electrical, mycelium of offal. Now, I am redefining my relationship with my brain. It has shown to me that it can be unpredictable, unreliable, and absolute. I still use the term “Stroke Survivor” but, more and more, I find myself needing to express myself by pulling out the phrase, “brain damage”. Getting down to brass tacks and all that, I feel just as challenged as anyone who has a damaged brain through head injury, genetics, disease, or something they’ve ingested. And I do want other people to know that. I had a stroke and now I have brain damage.
A stroke is so ambiguous to people. Had I had an accident on my bicycle, or accidentally drank something toxic, and the result was brain damage. I think the picture painted is less abstract than brain damage caused by a stroke. For me, personally, I need people to understand that my issue is with dead tissue and I can’t get around that at the moment.
At this time, my post-stroke symptoms are the worst they’ve been in a year. Suddenly, I am having trouble reading, blurred and double-vision, which I don’t remember having affected my reading, even while in the hospital, so who knows what is going on there. It can make me feel very nauseous, especially if I am looking at my phone. I’m trying to get through Casanovas memoirs of London and Moscow, it is quite the tome, and I fear with double-vision, it may take me twice as long to finish it.
My gait has become more reticent over the last few months, and I’ve taken to wielding a cane while out and about. If I stand still, I have serious wobbles.
Fatigue just makes me feel like I’m going to black out and collapse.
I think, I may be suffering from some post traumatic stress that has pummelled me about a bit, and since the adrenaline has dissipated, my brain is now trying to recover from the shock of it all.
I know I am not going backwards, but I sure am going a little sidewards. I have always been content with my lot, even at the worst of times, so I am not generally miserable. Of course, I have miserable moments. A few weeks ago, I had a cough that lasted for eight days. Every time, I was about to drift off to sleep, I’d have a raging coughing fit. So, for most nights, over eight days, I fell asleep at about 6 am, and woke an hour later in a fit of coughing. That was a pretty miserable eight days.
agree. Some people seem to take issue with, or deny use of the term ‘brain damage’ for the reasons you stated. I have no idea why because Stroke is an Aquired Brain Injury (ABI), as opposed to a Traumatic one (TBI) as a result of say a road traffic incident. Then there are those who judge whether you brought it on yourself or it just happened one day. I mean I get the argument it you smoked 40 a day or had McDonalds deliveroo on repeat order. However most of us are not doing that. The damage and effects are ultimately a roll of the dice among all of us. We all have to live with it and that is what we have in common.