When I Learn . . .Surviving Stroke with Pride

I clearly remember the day I returned to work because I had a speech and language session before I went. I remember how nervous I was to face those I had known for years with the new and not so improved me. It was a very bright and sunny day. It was warm and I remember looking at the sparse amount of clouds that hovered over my head and wondering if I was really ready. Deb had done everything she could do to help me. She was a source of my stability but I was doing this one on my own. She could not be at work to help me understand and manage my life. I started working only four hours a day. That was really hard. I was so exhausted by the time I got home that I often would fall asleep before I had even changed from my work cloths. My oldest daughter would wake me when the baby would cry. I was scared and I was panic-stricken over my inability to keep myself going. The confidence I had once known was gone. I felt panic-stricken at each turn I made and each step I took.

As I drove towards the building that I had once shared with friends I started trembling inside. I was afraid of what they would think of me now. Would I recognize them? Would they see though this barrier I was trying to develop to hide my deficits? My heart was racing, my legs were shaking, and it was all I could do to keep the tears from streaming down my face. I longed and needed the protection of my isolated house and therapy environment. I had a few panic attacks prior to this day but non-like the one I was having now.

People change in times of crisis and devastating illness. There are those who want to help you and those that treat you like the plague thinking they could get it from you. I think the most surprising is that some who helped were people who I thought didn’t even like me before the stroke. Then there are those, those who were your friends that are no longer because of the illness. People can be on two extremes of each other. You don’t know where you fall until you get there. I had a friend with whom I thought I was close, who turned her back on me in my greatest time of need. The scorning words and hateful comments would rip though my heart like a razor blade. I would not understand why until later. I would have to learn more about people before I could "see" why she reacted the way she did.

The art of learning has a lot to do with your willingness to look deep within your own life to find the answers that were placed there years ago. We are all born with a sense of love, morality and consciousness. It is our outside self in growing up and our experiences that take and keep us from who we were born to be. I realize now that people are afraid of illness, death, and disability. That we are taught to mistrust and be hateful to the things we do not fully understand. It is in our power and up to us as individuals to seek the reasons for our fright. It is also within our power to change. You must be willing to change and accept the responsibility of your mistakes to change your own heart. You can not make me change nor can I make you change. One thing I know for sure is that if I show my best you too will be tempted to show yours. It is when we have touched the heart of someone that change happens immediately and forever. To be an inspiration is good but to inspire is better, for those that inspire cause change. Change for the good is our life’s purpose. To me change means trying to make life better for all that are affected by stroke. It is our duty to teach what we have seen and learned so that we can help others understand better and accept the things we can not change. To help others see past our brains limitations and their own. We must all understand that it takes some people a lifetime to achieve and learn what it truly means to live. We must try not to be to harsh on those who just can not see what we see, who can not feel the passion we feel, and who can not see past our limitations.

I panic at pain, I panic at loss, I panic at strength, and I panic in crowds. What is panic? Panic is the inability to fulfill your destiny, to reach to the stars and touch one. Panic makes me lost in a familiar place and lonely when others are around. Panic strikes when you least expect it with a vengeance of unknown proportions. To look at the familiar like you have never see it before. Panic makes you fight against the threat of not remembering. Panic is how you feel as you try to fight your way back to where you were when the end is nowhere in sight.

I had not experienced panic until after the stroke. I would often get nervous before a big game or a big briefing but I would never panic. Panic was for the weak at heart and weak in soul. I now was panicking at everything I tried to do. I was afraid to tell others until it was apparent that these attacks were not going to go away. It would take several uncontrollable occasions before I would realize that panic was an uncontrollable intense frustrating feeling of helplessness that can only be understood by those who have panicked. These occasions of panic mold the doubt that stroke has already left behind. The attacks seemed, for awhile, to just confirm the fact that I have no control over what had happened to my brain and my life. Since I now have the attacks under control, with medication and therapy, I have often wished that we all could understand more deeply how others with panic disorders feel without having to experience it. I now understand first hand the shame and depression that the attacks create.

Hiding

I was sitting here at my computer today wondering if there is some point in time that my thoughts would just stop. That my days would not be filled with stroke questions of why me and how. What causes it and why did it happen to me? I went to a wedding with my husband last night. It was a lot of fun we socialized with people we don’t get to see that often.

When we entered the room that was packed with about two hundred people I took Mike by the hand and told him don’t leave me behind. It is all so overwhelming for me at first. The music and bustle of all the relatives greeting each other with hugs and kisses was overpowering me. I often wonder if they can see my nervousness as we start to greet each other. We found Mike’s mom and I planted myself next to her. I could just sit there. People were talking to me but I couldn’t hear them. It was really loud but it was hard for me to concentrate on their words. I often have no control over which voice or sound gets my attention.

I am getting to be a pro at hiding my deficits. I am slowly learning that is not a good thing. I have cost myself some valuable learning and time because of pride and honor. It is quite strange that out of all these people there is one that always seems to see when I am hiding. Trying to act normal when I feel so abnormal. Maybe it is the look in my eyes or the expression on my face, I do not know, but I know that whatever it is she senses it and always seems to save me.