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Performing the Survivor Shuffle


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We all know what the survivor shuffle is... It is what our gaits look like and our balance is gone when we get tired. For me it becomes one step forward and three steps sideways and then hop around on my right leg to get my balance back. It takes awhile to get to where I want to go doing the shuffle, but I get there eventually. "Eventually" has become my middle name.

Why am I mentioning the survivor shuffle? Cause when I am performing my personal version I appear to be drunk, it happens at 9 a.m. but normally between 5-6 at night too.

 

TRhe other night we went grocery shopping. We didn't leave for the grocery store till about 5 P.M. and then we shopped for a couple of hours, big store. Get up to the register and walk past the register to get a bottled water out of the refridgerated units they have by all the registers. Well it wasn't working, so I start to walk the 15 or so steps to the next little fridge. On my way there I automatically started doing the Survivor shuffle. Reached the unit, grabbed my water, walked back over the register and set the bottle down with the other 240 items we had purchased. The checker is a young guy maybe around 21. He shyly asks me what happened to my leg, why I had a brace on? I replied" I had a stroke." He got embarrassed and kept saying oh my I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have asked." Now I wasn't that tired that I didn't stop and wonder why he was feeling such embarassment over asking. So after the third time he apologized, I bluntly asked him...."Tell me the truth, I said, you thought I was drunk with the way I was walking, didn't you?" He nodded his head "yes"

The reason I am taking the time to write a blog about this is because I have come along way in how I felt answering a stranger in what happened to me. I want to acknowledge that it no longer was an issue to me of none of their business. In fact I was pretty amused that he thought I was drunk. So do I chalk one up for teaching someone that they shouldn't judge someone before they know the whole story? or do I chalk one up for stroke awareness?

I had in the past replied on a thread about this very same subject a year or so ago. Then I hated strangers asking me what had happened. Then I was of the mind, that I thought they were nosy and rude and dragged me out of my comfort zone and makiing me face that I was different. phsyically. But the other day I didn't care a bit and it didn't bother me that I look drunk when I'm not.

Hummmmmmm, I think acceptance has become by default second nature and automatic.. Well thank the cosmos, progress happens still!

Pam

 

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Pam:

 

since I always wear brace outside, some people do ask what happened and sometime I just say accident, not that I am ashamed of stroke but saying stroke leads to another list of questions, oh you are 2 young, and what caused it, and telling about pregnancy and all that stuff becomes too painful for me so I like accident answer, people seem to just shutup and don't ask 2 many questions. I know as sandy had mentioned once acceptance is every day struggle, I m so glad you are doing better everyday, you are my inspiration in lot of things particularly the way you handle your stroke without any external support, and I vale your insights &comments on my internal struggle blogs

 

Asha

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Pam, glad you have the confidence now to be who you are. It is good for the young to know how it is for a survivor. They also have a better chance of adjusting to the world as it is if they realise it is not perfect and S**T happens.

 

I think acceptance like progress back from stroke is an inch by inch thing too. I don't take my acceptance of Ray's stroke for granted, I know sometimes I am okay with how he is now and somedays I am right back to "I want my old life back."

 

Sue.

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Pam, this is a great entry and very meaningful. I have a different "survivor shuffle". My deficits are all cognitive so when I tired I get very slow and spacey. I am on the other end with people noticing me. I don't "look" like I had a stroke. So people talk and act at normal speed around me but my mind is moving at about 20% the speed it used to. If I am tired it is moving at 5% or 10%. So I am not so much stuck with the problem of somebody asking if I had a stroke but ME telling them I had one so they slow down. I have only had the courage to do that once. (maybe I will blog about this). I called my insurance company. Usually phone calls like that are to much for me and my wife has to handle them. This time I told the person as soon as they answered. "I am a stroke survivor and I may have to ask you to slow down or even repeat yourself several times". I was surprised how accepting and coopertive she was.

 

AJ

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