The stroke I had 7 weeks ago was not immediately obvious to me as such. It happened when I was at work. I wondered why I couldn’t understand people’s conversation. I knew something was off; and hough I felt no physical illness, I left home for permission. I called my wife on phone that something was wrong with me but couldn’t explain what the problem was. She got home before I got home. When she observed that I had problems with understanding conversation, speech and language, and memory of names of people who were familiar with me, she arranged my hospitalization.
My experience was terrifying at the beginning. I had difficulty picking out the words people spoke. I didn’t understand the songs I heard. I couldn’t read out a text. I didn’t understand reading long sentences, talk less of paragraphs. I had in mind what I wanted to express, but my vocabulary was near to zero; so I was afraid of picking phone call.
After discharge from the hospital, the Community Nurses, Occupation Therapists, and Speech & Language Therapists helped me a lot at home.
@peter_2023 Hello and welcome to the forum. Sorry you’ve had cause to join us and thank you for sharing your experience.
My speech wasn’t affected as part of my stroke so can’t begin to imagine how scary it must have been for you.
It’s pleasing to hear that you’re getting help from the relevant therapists and sounds like you’re making progress. Hope your recovery continues to progress well and look forward to hearing how you’re getting on is you want to share it.
Hi @peter_2023 and welcome to the forum.
This is a cause for celebration in itself, the fact that you’ve made it onto the forum and create a post with aphasia.
It took me about a year to start posting.
That fact shows what progress you’ve already made and I’m so pleased for you
I’m 2yrs post stroke and still have mild aphasia.
I could understand speech perfectly, knew whatever was said, I just spoke gibberish.
But I can relate to some of your other aphasia symptoms and it’s noticeable in your post. Which is fine as you are in the right place here amongst fellow stroke survivors who understand
I read a lot and read a lot out loud to improve my reading and speech.
My reading went from barely able to read one line of text to reading whole paragraphs to reading pages at time.
I do still have a tendency to skip the last line in a paragraph.
And I do have to read carefully and can only read slowly. Otherwise I’m likely to misread or misinterpret what has been written.
For me it has improved immensely over time and it will for you too
Hi @EmeraldEyes thank you for celebration about my first post in the forum. The short post took me hours to draft and revise many times. I am happy for you that your speech understanding is perfect now; and I take that as an encouragement for me.
Thank you.
Peter
@SimonInEdinburgh,
Hello,
Thank you for some information you sent to me.
Yes, my recovery is in progress, still on speech therapy and brain training. Reading the experiences of people in this forum helps reduce the distress significantly.
Oh I understand that one so frustratingly well. Our posts can look as though they took mere minutes to rattle off, but they don’t know the half of it
Take advantage of the forum Peter, if you have the time and your body lets you.
Your contributions will allow you to practice with your reading/writing skills. And you will regain those skills the more you practices with them. Gradually you will be able to type straight into the forum without the need to draft and revise so much.
Although I joined in Jan 2021 I only started posting here until Mar 2023.
Partly because I couldn’t get to grips with how the forum worked so I just read.
And partly for the lack of my ability to communicate, fatigue etc. But that has all very much improved for me over the months I have been posting. The forum was an inspiration and the people are all so patient and understanding of our limitations. So it’s well worth staying a while if you can manage it
@peter_2023 If you haven’t already checked out your local support groups, here’s where you can find a list for your area on Stroke Association website Support in your area | Stroke Association. I attend a local Aphasia social group, we meet once a month and has been brilliant just for boosting my confidence in communication.
@EmeraldEyes
Hello,
Thank you for the information. I will contact with the stroke association in my area - email and phone. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Cheers
Peter
I hope your speech will returns. I have received my words in 4yrs easier and can also no find 3 number to make 10. my grammar is not good but i cannot doen’t this email.
