(Originally posted May 1, 2009)

I sat down to give you an update blog entry about all of the appointments and stuff that we've done this week, but I'm too angry to concentrate on that, so you get this instead. I'll do the other in a minute.

This morning I attended a meeting of the local chapter of the Financial Planning Association. One of the speakers invited to this meeting was a psychologist/sales coach whose presentation focused on the differences in the communication styles (and therefore, buying styles) of women vs. men. At one point during the presentation, the speaker said something along these lines:

"Men communicate using one area of the brain, Broca's area. If a man has a stroke in this area, he'll never talk again. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Pull up a Lazy Boy, give him a remote and a bag of Cheetos and he'll be happy for at least a decade."

And of course, the rest of the audience laughed riotously. And immediately my ears started ringing and I felt my face getting flushed. Because for one, I know his statement was a fallacy. J.J.'s stroke happened in EXACTLY this area of the brain. And he can speak. He speaks more every day. Secondly, there is no recliner, TV show or salty snack food that can appease him and make this better. And making light of the third leading cause of death and the leading cause of disability in this country, on the FIRST DAY of National Stroke Awareness Month, is just a really, really bad idea--almost everyone knows someone who has been impacted by stroke and his comments were sure to offend some audience members.

They offended me. So I got up and left. And I'll be writing to the presenter and the FPA to (politely) express my concerns.

What a jerk.