Effects of Stroke

While I haven't had a stroke, I can identify with having to search things I have "always known." Even spelling and punctuation. More and more, in conversations, not having the word ready, but always on the "tip of the tongue." My education is 50% self taught, so, fortunately, I don't have as much to forget. He he.

Please tell me that dys hasn't turned into a Republican. I don't think I could handle that.

LOL Edgar. Maybe 50% self-taught, but still one of the most knowledgable posters on a2k. That's why Bob doesn't mention his degrees-it is a bragging right that so often doesn't have any relevance in these conversations and is used as a crutch when the actual understanding is limited.

Gus, if he becomes a Republican, I will come to you for help in burying him deep in the farthest reaches of the swamp.

Well, there's Gus. People are looking for you.

My way of marking, Diane.

They found me, Letty. And it aint pretty.

Something tells me that the farmer can take care of himself. <smile>

Diane, I do know this. Retraining the mind is a type therapy that works. Check it out on the net, honey.

Damn it, I wish I had something I could blame my slowness on. As it is, I'm 31 years old and find myself reaching and grasping for names of people I've known for years -- let alone high-falootin' book-learning. And if the rest of my family is any indication, I'll be pretty much helpless within the next 35 years.

This whippersnapper thinks Bob's probably doing all right by normal people standards...

Gonna bookmark for now, will be back tomorrow. Can tell ya about m'Dad.

Pdog--you're so right, but when it happens suddenly, it is very hard to accept. It's like so many things that we can understand logically but have a hard time with emotionally. Besides, you're one of those really smart dogs, not the silly little yappers. You are a little young to be tremendously forgetful, but that can be a sign of intelligence--like the absent-minded professor.

Jes, I look forward to your story of your father.

Just offering flip encouragement. (But I did begin to gray at 14 and all the old folks on the dad's side ran into senile dementia pretty early and the old man's already looking disoriented at 55, so I'm not optimistic. The only folks I've known with strokes had debilitating physical signs, too, so gauging quickness of mind was difficult to do.)

My cyberlove to dys, whose wit I greatly admire, whatever state he thinks it's in...

I didn't know Bob personally until he after he'd had the stroke. In ordinary conversation (say, over a cup of good coffee), he is sans peer. Well, I've been lucky in my life to know a lot of smart and/or wise people, with or without degrees, some with pinpoint memory, all pretty much varying in conversational communication ability even while perfectly healthy.

Of course I say this from the point of view of a person who can remember who directed a certain movie and nothing, at least at first, of the story or plot, though maybe a visual image or two. And...... I've always been that way.

I can only leap to understanding, then, the loss of suddenly not being able to do what I've never been able to do, re delineating immediately all applicable data/reasoning for the listener. Far as I can tell, Dys still has the heart of the matter, in varied conversations, in sight.

A mutual friend of Diane and I from Abuzz had a terrifically debilitating stroke and is better now - but has been through a lot. I don't think she has ever posted on a2k, so will likely not see this thread.

A fine, stout hearted Republican up until, oh, I don't know. . . . Seems to have changed in the past three or four years, but people do that.











Di, you wouldn't let him read this, would you?

a friend of mine had a very serious stroke - at age 78 - two years ago .
since he had gone to the bedroom , his wife didn't notice that he had had a stroke for a while and he did not get to the hospital until about 90 minutes after being hit by the stroke .
he has now recovered somewhat - he can move around in his electric wheeelchair , but cannot walk unassisted .
he has pretty much lost his ability to speak english , though he seems to understand it quite well .
german - his first language - does not nearly give him as much trouble .
the nurses at the seniors' home , of course , have a great deal of trouble understanding him . interesting thing is , that it does not sem to bother him much - he takes it in stride .
he also has kept an astonishing number of numerical facts :
how much their house cost when built 40 years ago , price of the last two cars , prices of various items purchased over the years .

i am a few years younger than he is and have a hard time remembering how much i paid for stuff . usually i have forgotten it within a few days !
i do remember the phone number we had in germany 50 years ago - but can't remember ebeth's phone number (i don't have to , it's on automatic dial :wink: ).

my friend always did fairly hard physicial work and is a rather big guy : about 6 foot , weighing in at 250 lb plus .
he certainly has not lost his appetite . i usually visit around 4 pm and when the clock moves to about 5 to 5 , he makes it clear that he'll be moving to the dining room : he starts up his wheelchair !

he sems to have accepted his situation . he's happy to see visitors , but doesn't seem to mind being in his own room watching TV . his wife lives within about a 5 minute walk of the seniors residence and visits him usually five times a week - she has been told to take a couple of days for herself and he seems to agree with that .
there are quite a few "entertainment" programs at the residence but he has no great interest in joining any .

he was always an 'easy going' fellow and he has really not changed much . he never seems to complain much . his wife told me often that he seems to be the same quiet fellow he was before .
hbg

No matter how long it takes him to find the "F key," Dys's posts are still full of brilliant wisdom or delicious humor; sometimes both.

My dad developed the use of his day-at-a-glance planner as a journal. At the end of the day, he recorded every thing he wanted to remember about the day. By the end of the year, that dog-earred book grew several inches thick, stuffed with news articles, photos, names and phone numbers, and other memories. Looking back, he can tell you exactly where he was, what he was doing and what he thought about on any given day.

After his bypass surgery many years ago, those planners helped him piece his life back together again. For some reason, he lost two weeks of his memory, the two weeks it took for him to recover and be discharged from the hospital. For a year he was stuck on those two weeks, trying to figure out why they were missing. He'd repeatedly ask people what happened and didn't understand why he couldn't remember anything about those two weeks.

When visiting him, I took out his old planner from the year before and we paged through each of the days until we got to his entries about his upcoming surgery. The next two weeks were blanks and then his entries started up again. It became apparent just how much he depended on those planners to keep his days organized and his memories pieced together. We took out a pen and wrote in on those blank days, "admitted to hospital today,""heart surgery today," "still recovering from surgery today," "discharged at last! Going home." After that he was back to his blissful self. He'd found those two weeks of memory.

Roger, if you recall, I came along about three and a half years ago and slapped Bob silly until he agreed never to associate with Republicans ever again.

Actually, he greatly admires quite a few Republicans on a2k.

Hamburger, your friend sounds very accepting of his condition. I'm glad he seems to be happy with his circumstances.

Osso, isn't it strange how different very smart people can be? You are one of the sharpest, yet I know you forget stuff--it makes me feel much better.

Butrfly, we must have posted at the same time.

I was fascinated by your post. It must be human nature to want to have a clear memory of everything we did or knew at one time. I tend to forget things in a couple of months unless it was a major event.

What a good daughter you were for helping your father to piece together those lost weeks.

Bob doesn't remember the stroke or the days after except for odd little moments, but that is completely understandable, considering what was going on with his brain during that time.

I expect osso's genius is of the geometrical kinetic sort. Isolated points in time and space have no meaning outside of the matrix. Very smart hands, I bet.

Urggh?