larrymm

Dear Ross, I was out of town this weekend and just got in. I am very sorry to hear the news. That's awful. My heart goes out to you and the boys. Larry

I agree with Joe. A stroke is fundamentally different than many other conditions as Joe alluded to. I have no problem telling people I had a stroke if the situation calls for it. However, the difficulty I run into is that people often don't know anything about strokes so I usually don't tell them. I am probably their only direct contact with stroke. True, people are very nice and make allowances for many things (speech, movement, thinking, etc.), but they don't know what to do beyond that. Sadly, I don't have any great suggestions for them either. I think the "shame" thing is more evident in those survivors who have memory of who they were before and want to be, to a degree, like that again. For me, I am striving to be as much as I used to, even though I know I will never be, because each little part I get back of how I used to be is a little bit of who I am. I have read on here many times to not let the stroke define who you are. Well, to me anyway, getting back to who I "was" is not letting the stroke define me. I just realized something. While this thing may be understandable, when you're going through this process (because it is so lengthy due to how long it takes a person to recover an ability) the stroke *does* define you. Is there a way to not go through this process and still try to recover who you were? Do I feel the isolation that others have mentioned? Yes. Do I feel the frustration with communication? Yes. Why do I keep doing what I'm doing? I don't know - genetics maybe? Larry

This is a very timely topic. I don't spend much brain energy thinking about God this or God that, but maybe I should. I don't know... I know that all my tomorrows will be "another day" unless I make them not that way. I am three years out and I still look at tomorrow as just another day. What I need to do is create one or more dreams to put in those tomorrows, so I'll have something to look forward to. I am not at all happy with this life right now and my only option is to change it. Creation of new dreams after what we went through is not easy at all, since almost all those dreams were based on many things the stroke took away and any new dreams are based on who you are now (which we may not be all that thrilled with). OK, so I may know that this is a possible solution, but it is one thing to know something and something entirely else to do it. FYI - I don't mean to offend anyone, but I don't believe in the thought that I am a "survivor" should make me happy. To me, all it means is that I beat the odds. I suspect that (for several of us) all it does is make others around you a lot happier. Question: for those of you that made new dreams, what process worked for you? Larry