Archive for the ‘my posts,’ Category

A stroke, effects you emotionally as well as physically.  One day you’re going along just fine thinking and doing in accomplishing things in your life.  And suddenly you have a stroke.  Now you probably had indications that something was wrong before you actually had the stroke.  However, you probably didn’t pay attention to that and kept on doing your business.  I know that for me I was hell-bent to make a living so it didn’t pay any attention to my body signaling me some thing was wrong.  I hate to say this, but men are notorious for doing this.

Yes, we men are taught from an early age to cover up our     emotions.  And yes, we let our anger and other silly things hang out, but we truly guard our emotions.  We have much to learn.  As I think about my stroke  I realize that I had been bottling up my emotions for years.  Now those that live around me might not agree with that comment, but it’s true.  One thing I’ve learned after my stroke was to stop bottling everything up inside. In the bible  Philippians chapter 4 tells us  not to be anxious for anything.  This is easier said than done.

Learning to tap into my emotions was difficult   it was something that I had practice.

When I first had my stroke  I found myself crying a lot. My emotions would just boil over, and I was so upset at my predicament that I was found myself crying for no reason.

My   way of handling this was to  immerse  myself in my physical therapy.  I chose to do this.  So every day in the convalescent home I would have speach, and physical therapy.  So I immersed myself into this figuring I could beat it. I am a type A personality.  So this did help me a great deal.

Over time, my emotions have settled down.

So, things can improve for you if you do decide to do it.  It is now almost 4 years since my stroke, and I do have to say.  I’m getting better.

Mentally  [2 of 5]

Now, I never liked hospitals, so I wasn’t happy to be there at all.  No privacy, they keep track of every thing you do, and I couldn’t walk to the bathroom so I had to use a urinal… ugh!  Now remember, before the stroke I was getting around quite well by myself.  I’m kind of a self-sufficient guy, and I really didn’t like the idea of not being able to do things on my own.  You see, I was thinking that this is just a short-term thing.  duh.  As I look back on this experience from 2008 I seem really foolish!

They kept me in the hospital for about a week.  Then they transferred me to a convalescent hospital.  They said it would be good for me to begin therapy.  I was still thinking that this would be a short term problem.  So I threw myself into therapy with gusto, figuring I’d be all done and ready to go home in a month.  Well, walking was extremely difficult and I would get so angry with myself for not being able to walk.  Now this particular stroke hit me on the right side of my body… I’m a right-handed person, so it really affected me.

So you see that mentally you must shift gears.

This was no picnic for me, like I said I thought I would be out of there by a month, but the harder I worked on it the harder it became.     When I first had my stroke my mind was foggy.  I could not remember things I should have known.  This was very frustrating.

My stroke affected my speech also.  I could not talk clearly, and this was very frustrating.  I spent hours with a speech therapist .  She was very good.  As I write this today.  I am using a speech program on the computer that transfers, what I say into typing.  It’s called Dragon nine.

It was hard to keep from being angry all the time.  So… I set out to find out more about a stroke.  The more I found out, the more depressed I became.  I didn’t want to be this way, so I made my mind up that I would be determined to get   better. I firmly believe in God, and I believe that he helped me get through this very scary  time.

This will be a 5 part posting of what happened when I had my stroke… this will probably take me several weeks to complete so please bear with me…




My story begins with my third stroke. It happened on the morning of March 9th 2005. I was working at my desk at home and answered a phone call, and I couldn’t speak clearly, and my vision started getting dancing lights. [now I didn't feel like anything was really wrong] I went and laid down and called the doctor. He recommended I take some aspirin and just take it easy [of course this was not the right thing to do]. After a few hours I didn’t get any better so we called 911 and they came and took me to the hospital.

Now I was the kind of guy who figured how bad could this be? I had always been careless with my health… I was taking blood pressure medication [not faithfully ] since I had always had high blood pressure and I also had two previous strokes… you think I would’ve learned a lesson about high blood pressure … donucha know….

Now I was quite a distance from the hospital so it took awhile to get all this done. And of course after I got to the hospital I waited quite a while more, and I got worse the longer I was there it got to the point, I couldn’t move my legs, I was scared. Well it seemed to take a long time for them to figure out I was having a stroke. Now this took place in 2005 you would think they would know better! So they found me a bed and began to give me treat ments.

So, began my adventures in handicap living .