its been 11 months since my aug 5 mild stroke. the year was kind of uneventful except for the sudden disturbance of my ability to swallow as I had done. namely in the morning of june 21st I was able to eat bread, and in the evening had difficulty swallowing it. the disturbance has remained. did the barium swallow and the comment of the dr was I swallow as a not untypical 71 year old. was curious if this was the result of another small stroke of which I have had 3 in the past 2 years and so did the mri. we did not find another stroke but did see an "interval worsening of small vessel disease" which meant that there was a region near the center with a lot of small dots. the dots were less than 1mm and my guess is that they represent small areas of brain with dead material. as the last mri that I had was march 2012 any change represented a change over the two year period. and the good news is that I have not had any strokes in the past year. my guess is that if enough of these little dots occur in the correct areas they can influence ability to swallow.

the conclusion of robin -- my neurologist was "I don't think your deterioration/large massive stroke is imminent"

I really don't plan to wait for the next event but will try to do what I am able to do today realizing that today is the best day for the rest of my life.