So, I wandered my way into the break room for a sandwich this afternoon. Nothing particularly interesting about that. I do it every week day around 11:30 or so. I had to bite my tongue to keep quiet as I passed one table of co-workers, however.

Yep, still walking with a cane. Still having balance problems. This can make life interesting when retrieving items from a vending machine. Sometimes it takes 2 hands, which means I have to lean the cane against the machine, get my selected item, juggle everything into my right hand/arm, and tak hold of the cane, before carefully turning myself around to walk to a table or back out of the break room. I tend to eat lunch at my desk so......

As I was manuvering my sandwich into my right hand, I heard one of the females sitting near me ask a friend of her's "oh my god, I know she told everyone she had a stroke, but when she going to stop milking it? Get over it already!" I SO wanted to say something back, but kept my composure and managed to walk out of the break room without confrontation. Good on me!

I ranted on the message boards about people who have no point of reference when it comes to strokes or stroke survivors. I don't need to rehash it here. I am trying not to let it *beep* me off when people say ignorant things like that. Getting angry or upset will only make my day more difficult. I don't need that.

A stroke isn't a cold. It won't "go away" after a while. The effects of a stroke are life long, as I am learning, and can be mild to catastrophic. I thank God my effects are pretty mild. I'm pretty functional and pretty independant and only 2 months post.

No, I have decided to try to educate people, instead of getting upset at them. So, I ordered myself a stroke survivor t-shirt and I plan to wear it every Friday at the office. Friday is jeans/t-shirts day at work. Hopefully, after reading the back of the t-shirt a few times, it will make people search the web for information, or better yet, visit us and read some of our stories/blogs/posts/educational materials/etc. That seems like a better use of my energy than getting upset.

I know the t-shirt is being shipped priority mail. I hope it gets here before Friday so I can wear it this week. If not, next week will do just as well.