Diolch @axnr911, most of the time it’s strong-willed stubbornness and the survival instinct of bravado that is disguised as positivity 
Ah, you have beaches though. I am nowhere near a beach, just mountains and woodland. 
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@Rups sounds like you had a successful forage despite your vision issues. I’m not a mushroom lover myself but do envy you the forage & woods.
Enjoy a restful evening.
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I’ve never understood why the Horn of Plenty, a delicious, edible fungi is also known as Trompette de la mort (Trumpet of death?) The only purple mushroom I have found in my patch is the Amethyst Deceiver, it’s a stunning, gem of a mushroom. My prize find today was the Beefsteak or Ox Tongue mushroom. We may very well endure similar visual concerns, I’ve got a feeling mine have been exacerbated by a perfect storm of brain damage, the stroke hit all the important vestibular-oculomotor neurotransmitters with enough precision to render that function inept. I enjoyed reading your tale of gathering corn. I did make a corny joke in my reply.
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Mushrooms are like Marmite for some people. However, there are one or two mushrooms I could introduce you to which might shift your palate a bit.
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In the end, I just thought, what is the worst that is going to happen? If I have another stroke, I’m going to have one whether I’m walking in the woods or sitting in my chair. That’s mainly why I insisted my friend accompany me, I was feeling a little fragile, and doing too much fence sitting.
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That’s quite a good day’s foraging. I’m dead jealous! Unfortunately, if I tried walking through terrain like that, I’d be flat on my face in seconds!
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Rups
Would love to come on a walk with you and tap into your erudition re mushrooms. I found a v large and old ceps but when I cut it it turned blue/green. Cooked, it seemed to look and taste like a penny bun though I was the only one who would eat it. Do you reckon it was? Magga
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Shwmae Magga, possibly a Bay Bolete, but there are a few that turn blue, including the Devil’s Bolete which is toxic. Usually, Red netting or spotting on the stem of a bolete is a reason to not pick. You are brave to have eaten that fungi, not being 100% sure.
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Rups
Thanks for that. I did some checking with books and google so pretty sure it wasn’t toxic. I just loved your description of mushroom picking and the triumph of determination over difficulties. Do hope you have a splendid mushroom-picking outfit.
Magga
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I hope you all do not mind me commenting on older posts but I find them very helpful. I didn’t realize there were so many with the same or near same vision issues as mine. It is so hard to describe in a way people can understand, at least for me. I can see colors. I can see what I type for a short time, read for a shorter time, but everything is constantly moving until I can no longer tell up from down or right from left. Everyone I see has four noses. I see much better at night with the dim lights or none. Sunshine is nearly impossible to work with. Too much difference in the light bouncing off things. I hope you all have found help to get better with vision and the dizziness, or confusion that comes with it. I am just starting vestibular therapy. It is probably my last hope for driving, unless I can have prism glasses and they work for me. We aren’t talking about that yet, though. I would like to know if any of you have found good ways around the vision or have had improvements.
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Good morning DeAnne no physical problem just slammed head and loss of peripheral vision on left from both eyes I was told eyes healthy, they are not problem it’s the area of the brain that controlled that aspect of my vision that’s been damaged. Not likely to repair but live in hope.Garish bright colours and bright lights were problem early on. Could not face going into shops with vibrant displays. Bought wrap around sunglasses to cope with Sunshine and car headlights, Reading difficult to begin with then slowly eased myself into it. Brain could not cope with fiction so read non fiction that I was familiar with in short sessions. Recently tackled gentle fiction and a page or two a day completed the book. Slowly coming to terms with fact all our brains are different and our strokes different we may have had same stroke as some but our stroke is unique to us. Having said that.
Hearing other people’s experiences and how they cope, their advice and suggestions and encouragement has helped me enormously.
This forum is fantastic.
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I agree wholeheartedly! I know my situation is completely different from others here but we still have so much in common and knowing others coping strategies is priceless. Because my stokes were embolic in nature, I had 2 aneurysms, one brain hemorrage, and 19 ischemic strokes that landed in numerous areas of my brain, spine, spleen, liver and kidneys. A septic shower they called it. I am quite surprised to still be here, let alone up and moving and doing as much as I do. As you know, sometimes it doesn’t feel like we are doing much because we are comparing with before our incidents. I am often angry with myself for not doing enough. You all have been a godsend for me to remind me to do what I can, rest when I need to, and not feel guilty or too burdensome. Thank you so much!
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@DeAnn and everyone else who writes and reads on this forum.
If you do not realise this then we need you to.
When you write with honesty about the world you find yourself in, the ways you have tried to deal with it all and wisdom from whatever source, either your own or what you have come across, then you are making a very real contribution to this forum and community.
Others both now and in the future can use this as a light to open up the darkness.
We arrive here alone, in pitch dark, in some sort of a mind boggling maze. We feel totally defeated and at the mercy of everybody and everything. Our hopes and plans are torn to shreds. How do we move forward? Is trying to get back what we have lost just a series of backward steps. Is it really totally hopeless with no real direction possible?
Are these just flowery words that point nowhere?
So many questions, so much emptiness.
At some stage we discover we are not alone. Whether we have rejected help or are clinging on blindly hoping for something better, suddenly we see others going through this same ‘thing’ that has captured us.
I dare not make promises, but I think as a community whether formed voluntarily or not we have something that can give us a direction, can show a way to carry on. Our struggles, difficulties, problems, when expressed and shared become something which we can overcome.
Together we can begin to see how things really are and begin to move around no longer in darkness.
Please write about your successes, difficulties, thoughts, the way you are living. To someone somewhere this is a beacon giving them hope and a direction.
Keep on keepin’ on
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I think looking at old posts is a good strategy BUT When my notification send me to a thread and I like a post then see is ayear or 3 old I get confused!!!
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Certainly from where I stand, between total confusion and a glimmer of reason, I prefer to walk towards the glimmer.
To me it matters not whether the flame was lit ten minutes ago, ten days ago or ten thousand years ago.
If it provides me with light to see the path on which I stand and, hopefully, a direction as well, then all is good.
Keep on keepin’ on
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Nos dah, @DeAnn, a post is a post no matter how old it is by time. I constantly grapple with vision. I know that some of it is cognitive nystagmus, double-vision, blurred vision, and then the rest is vestibular and oculomotor reflexes which includes a whole plethora of movement and sight focus issues. All this is compounded by other stroke related problems such as neurological fatigue but also affected by “normal” feelings and emotions, and thoughts. Can I also add to the cauldron, anxiety and stress. All these issues use energy, an immense amount of energy, every millisecond of every moment, used to engage the controls just to move and see. The problem gets worse, because if I shut me eyes, it doesn’t resolve the issue. My body can’t synchronise with my brain in space, thus, the cognitive visual-spatial reflex issue. Strangely enough, I have come to rely on smell as my main grounding sense. It is the strongest of our five senses, and has not been affected by stroke, for me. So, in an odd way, I tend to see and hear through my nose. If that makes sense. My movement is more fluid if lead by my nose.
As for eyesight, I have been meaning to write a post about that. Long overdue. There is lots to consider, and diolch, I will endeavour to write a post over the next few days, as it has helped me understand the way the brain interprets the world around it. If you end up in hospital with severe cognitive visual issues, alas, no one sits down to explain what is happening inside the skull. Many brilliant research studies are released and the sad matter is that many of us are locked outside of that research. Yet, we have this forum which is as good as any a place to share our experience and knowledge.
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I hope you will write it. Just your reply is helpful to me. I just started Vestibular Therapy…so far just standing on a foam mat with eyes closed; walking a line first with eyes open, then closed; walking while finding letters along the way to make me turn my head and try to focus at the same time; and finally tipping my head from side to side to my shoulders. I believe this was just for assessment. The last time I tried, six months ago, I couldn’t nod or shake my head as if saying yes or no, nor could I actually see a face right in front of me. I know they are there by either their movement, scent, or a sound they make, and one can just feel someone is there. I am more ready for this now. Hopefully ready enough, but no one is certain. I loved my job, but I can’t go back to it because it does not offer insurance and I would not be able to afford it. Yearly Echocardiograms and bi-annual MRI’s and CT’s would cost more than I make. I can’t imagine learning a new post at this time. I don’t think anyone thought I would live, let alone ever be able to work again, as I do not have to redetermine for disability for 6 years, which is usually done annually. Possibly I can do something from home in small doses. I would like to be able to drive, but don’t feel certain at all that it will ever happen. This is my last shot, I think, for now. Unless they come up with something new. Also, possibly prism glasses, but NeuroOpthamologist doesn’t want to talk about that for now. Not sure if she does not want me to give up, knowing it won’t work, or just putting it off to see how far I can get. She is also a stroke survivor and is quite patient with me. There are no other specialists of her kind around here and this is the 11th or 12th largest city in the US. I am very lucky they still even bother with me at this point…all of my medical team. I still get to see her, my Primary Care Physician, Neurologist, Cardiologist, CardioThoracic Surgeons, Urologist, Gastroenterologist, Physiatrist, Dermatologist, and Physical Therapists. Infectious Disease Specialist and Nephrologist are the only ones I am finished with. (Strokes were caused by Sepsis).
I’m sorry I am over explaining…I just wanted anyone who read to understand, sometimes even though we all have quite a bit in common, the beginning of this journey is often from quite different strokes altogether.
I would really like to hear about your journey, and hope you are still getting some help…or like TBI, stroke, or any other brain injury, everything just comes back out of the blue. And if not, that you have found work arounds that you are content with. I am just finding mine, little by little.
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Hello @DeAnn. I really hope the vestibular therapy works for you. I am currently trying again with prisms in my glasses as am due an appointment with the opthalmologist next week and I was given them in February but abandoned them after a few days due to a sore neck and nausea. It does seem a little easier this time but the resulting vision is still fractured, more so outside. I have a different issue to yours-third and sixth nerve palsy so my affected eye does not move with the other one which has a knock on on the vestibular system affecting balance and coordination.
Keep us posted on how the therapy goes, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you, Julia x
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Hello @SimonInEdinburgh. Never been suggested and never looked into it. Have enough vision in unaffected eye to function, including driving (with affected eye patched), so can only be grateful for that. Julia x
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