our journey

This blog is like a diary or journal of our journey through the murky waters of having a stroke. To be able to understand the story you should start on the first post and go from there.

Friday 3 April 2015

Lost in stroke land


I am not the same guy that lay down to sleep on july 28th 2014 ; he was confident , fresh from the battle of a  stress filled work day and was very comfortable in his own skin . I awoke to numbness and panic and the knowledge that I was in dangerous territory . I woke my wife and headed to the e.r in a cab and walked into the hospital ;  I  awoke again in a different city with my family gathered around and I was someone else ; the confident warrior had packed his bags and I was alone in a body that was broken and alien ;  it didnt feel the same and the places that I drew on for strength , emotion and stamina were not where I'd left them . I no longer felt like the old me , someone had broken into the place where I'd lived for over 50 years and had stolen all of my stuff , my brain , that traitorous thing had let itself be hijacked , I was sending signals out and they were not getting through . I understand why  my left side stopped working but not why the right side felt so different , why the commands I was sending out were being interupted , sure the right was moving the way it should but it didnt feel the way it always had, my sensations and emotions were no longer in my control , where I would once have dropped something and gotten mad I now cried uncontrollably and had no say over it tension became something I breathed like air , I tasted and felt in my veins , where I once fuelled my determination with anxiety I now cowered in its presence.  I have become intensely aware of fear lately.and throughout this storm of emotion and terror stood the anchor of my former self , my beautiful partner , no stranger to this kind of fear herself , treating me each and every moment of each interminably long day like the familiar old guy she married all those years ago , this is the single greatest gift I have ever received.

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