Post-Stroke Survival and Sad Little Blues

I wonder if any of my small number of readers here wondered why shortly after the beginning of January 2010, I suddenly stopped adding new posts, even though I had been writing multiple posts per month for more than a year. It is because I suffered from a Stroke in early January. I had just recently turned 37 years old and had not experienced any other huge personal health issues in my life, but I suddenly had a bloody aneurysm in my carotid artery and almost died.

Luckily, my surgery worked well enough that I survived and a little over two months later, I am considerably better, although I still have much room for improvement. My Stroke has resulted in Aphasia, which makes it much harder than it used to be for me to read and write-and I have always loved reading and writing, especially poetry. I finally wrote my first new post-stroke poem yesterday and now I am finally going to try to complete this article about my situation.

The day before my Stroke happened to me, I thought I might be having an ear ache, because the area around and behind my left ear felt unusual. Granted, I had not experienced ear aches as an adult, but I didn't know what else it could be. It didn't feel good, but nor did it feel terribly painful. I have often had semi-severe headaches, and sometimes my headaches get so bad that I need to lie down and do nothing, whereas in this case, I had a very productive day and night, even though my ear area didn't feel great. I remember talking on the phone to my mom about it and deciding that if my unusual ear pain still felt the same or even worse the next day, then I'd either go to the doctor or get some sort of medicine to take. I think it did feel a little worse when I went to bed, but I didn't think it was anything overly serious or terribly unhealthy.

When I semi-awoke the next morning, I thought that my husband was crushed against one side of my arms and legs. Instead it turned out that my own arms and legs were temporarily immobile and I could not move the right half of my body. I could hear my husband talking to me, but I could not speak in return. He called an ambulance; some of its members came upstairs to lift me out of bed, carry me into the ambulance, and take me to the hospital. Inside my mind, I was thinking fine and could hear and understand everyone's words, but I could not talk out loud; I could only talk inside my head. I was worried that people in the hospital might think I had lost my mind, because even though I could understand what they were saying, I couldn't talk back to them. I felt like they didn't realize I could hear and understand what they were saying. Later, when I realized I had suffered a Stroke, I also felt scared that I might possibly die before I was able to speak out loud to anyone and let my own family members and friends now that I loved them.

For a short time I seemed to get better; I still couldn't speak many words, but a few little ones emerged. Unfortunately, I soon ended up getting worse and had to be life-lighted to another hospital for a serious surgery of which I could have died. This surgery included the placement of a catheter into my upper leg (beneath lower crotch) in order to insert a small hole that could be used to rise something all the way up so that they could insert a stent against the area where my carotid artery had a 99% block and an aneurysm. If that aneurysm had continued, I could have died in less than another hour. The stent was a piece of platinum mesh that now lives inside my carotid artery and up into my brain. I am lucky and grateful and happy to be alive.

After having my surgery, I was in the hospital for several more days. After I returned home, I could hardly read and could barely write at all. I had to sleep much more than usual, often felt sad while awake, and had many bad headaches. The not being able to read or write issue was especially frustrating to me. I am a poet and also enjoy creating other kinds of writing, but due to my Stroke and its resulting Aphasia, my brain area has been affected in such a way that there are many words that I cannot easily think of. If someone else says a word, I know what it is, but I can't always think of easy little words myself. For example, I have had problems thinking of the names of food stuff and people's names (including poets), among many other easy little words that are no longer easy for me. I have been seeing a therapist to help me with that and people in my life are helping too (especially my parents). I've improved quite a bit and very much hope my improvement continues.

I have seen one of my doctors since having my surgery and he told me that my Stroke was "like a gunshot wound to the head" and seemed impressed and even delighted with how much he thought I had improved just a little over a month later. At first that made me feel quite good, but later I thought that since nobody else I know personally has had a Stroke or knows what to expect from one, they might not be all that impressed about my recovery. I sometimes feel sadly worried that people who used to like me might not anymore. Even though I am still much like the same person I was before having this condition, certain things I used to love or enjoy seem off balance in a way.

I am increasingly feeling better physically, although mentally I am still tending to sometimes feel sad and blue. I am sad that I can't read or write as well as I used to, but that is slowly making progress and I sincerely hope it continues to get better. As I mentioned, I wrote my first new poem yesterday and felt really pleased about that. Still, it bothers me that I can't easily think of poet's names anymore, even of older poets that I've long known about or known personally for years. It also worries me that online friends and even people in my real life might be tired of hearing about my Stroke. Sometimes, I'm just not sure who to talk to anyone anymore. One of my sad feelings is now washing over me, so I may write more (and hopefully better) about my post Stroke recovery later.