I've been wanting to blog about this topic for a week now so today I got the courage to tell my part. My attitude has changed, in part by my doctors, but then also by my pastor and my own sense of dealing with what I got left after the stroke I survived in 2004.

First of all I feel and know I have come a long way from where I was on that morning after it took me down. Of Course I have much joy and many folks to be thankful for where I am presently. That being said, attitude plays an important part in stroke survivors recovery. It's all about an attitude adjustment.

First and foremost we have to accept the drastic change in life style we are about to encounter. It's a style we know nothing about assuming we were in a healthy state of mine and had control of all our body parts we were born with. The element of surprise is most devastating for any human facing any adversity we know nothing about. That's why it is so hard for us to see ourselves as handicap when the day before we could do anything, go anywhere without any help from anyone.

For many survivors acceptance of their stroke is plain hard to do by themselves. That's where this site is so helpful in support of survivors and the are glad they found such a support group right in their homes, the computer stroke net work. I been here awhile and I know it has helped me and others.

Now each person's attitude can help them even farther along from dealing with what you can not do good or at all in some cases. I complained about walking bad, in pain, can't do this or that without help. Well, a change of attitude can make all that stuff better. My doctors told me it's all in my head, from my brain receptors making me believe I need more pain meds to cope when it has become an addiction that I feel is necessary for me to feel better.

You know how many are hooked on cigarettes? Their brain is saying they need more nicotine so they light up time after time. The same thing is happening with our brain telling us we need more pain medicine so we load up two, three times a day or even more. We are really not hurting but we think and feel we are big time. For the most part we have soreness of the muscles from none use or not enough activity. Notice how you feel better after PT sessions and don't seem to have pain?

A mental (Brain) complex state of mind involving your beliefs, your feelings, values of life, and your dispositions to act in a certain way at a certain time is really called ATTITUDE. That attitude is all yours but you must learn to control it then you can control your mind. Why do you think people want to kill themselves, others or just give in to living? It's a state of mind! It's your brain on drugs, prescribed to control whatever you were told it would control.

Look at the lives of Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson to name two! Their attitudes were out of control. If you say you can't walk good, then you won't, but consider you are walking not in a chair or have no legs. What about the person in the chair who wish they were walking or could walk but have no legs? Walking is walking unassisted, assisted or just a little, it's one foot at a time moving along the way!

Pain works the brain in the same manner, the attitude you develop controls the effects of pain. I am convinced this is true. Chronic pain is another subject. I spoke about that last week but still you control it, it doesn't control you.

When you encounter the attitude you want to give up or you are in so much pain you could harm yourself, stop and think what your mind is telling you, that's not you, it's not your intent but your attitude is trying to tell you the worse case and if you don't change your attitude you will become a victim of circumstances.

With the doctors counselling my changed attitude, I am doing a 100% better than just a few weeks ago. You, all of you can get on the ATTITUDE change in how you think what you can or can not do and start doing, It's all in the mind! The mind can bog down, get stuck in the unreal, so start changing your attitude and get better with less. That's all I'm saying!

Do your PT, exercise however much you can, be active, appreciate the one caring for you and live your life as the survivor you are now. Don't think of all we did before the stroke, that's gone. Think of what we can accomplish after the stroke with what we got left, that is an attitude adjustment!!!! Just do it! It works. :makmiday: