Strokes
I looked for a thread on Strokes but only see Heart Disease. Since strokes fall under the category of "Cardiovascular Disease". I hope to open up a discussion on the topic so I am starting this thread on strokes with 3 stories about my experiences with people I love who have had strokes:
About 12 - 14 years ago I had a 55 year old friend I met in a support group who had a major stroke. I visited him in the hospital with several other friends of his and some "support group" folks who all promised to help him through this tragedy and be there to help him for the long haul. As these things usually go only 3 of us actually showed up to help the day he got home from the hospital, only 2 of us showed up the 2nd day and by the 3rd day I was the only one left. The hospital did at least send a nurse either every day or a few days a week to help him bathe, prepare meals and learn how to function from a wheelchair. Of course they ended up getting romantically involved, she turned out to be married and he got his heart shredded into a million little pieces at a time when he was much too vulnerable for anyone with a fraction of a conscience to be treating him that way.
I drove him to P.T. until, having no insurance as he was a self-employed Shrimper, they told him he wasn't making any more progress and sent him home where he lived alone and now had extremely limited use of his right leg and virtually no use of his right arm. Being 6'2" and probably around 250 lbs this made it difficult, to put it mildly, to be self sufficient. His sister had helped him get signed up for SSDI and Medicaid as he no longer had an income but he had to sell his boat to qualify (they very generously - insert sarcasm emoticon here - allowed him to keep the 2 room house he built and owned on the canal under the bridge.
He worked on PT at home and slowly but eventually improved, began to walk with a walker, then a cane. He never regained use of his right arm but could use his thumb and a finger or two. He found ways to supplement his completely inadequate SSDI (now just SS retirement) income selling shrimp from his home. He even employed me for a while shelling shrimp a few hours a day a couple days a week. It was about then that I started having relationship problems which sent me off the deep end in many ways I won't go into here but suffice it to say I became useless. I distanced myself from this friend once he was self-sufficient enough to no longer need me. He probably still needed or at least wanted me around for emotional support but I didn't have anything to give. I made excuses to get off the phone with him and often didn't even answer the phone. I stopped visiting him, not all at once but little by little. I tried to explain that it was not him, it was me, but that was partially a lie because he was hurting pretty badly and depressed from the double whammy of the stroke, being lied to by and losing a woman he thought he loved. He was draining what little I had to give and I felt like I was drowning, he was drowning and he was pulling me under with him. This went on until he finally got so upset, hurt and angry with me that he told me he would never call me again.
Last week I went to the first support group meeting in 11 or 12 years and there he was. We looked at each other, I could see the softness in his eyes and knew we were still friends. We hugged and picked up the conversation like we hadn't missed a beat. I still had his phone number programmed into my cell phone but he had deleted mine. When he got pi$$ed off he didn't play. He apologized for cutting me off like that and didn't even remember why he had done that. I apologized to him and have a good friend back. There are few people in the world I feel that comfortable around and this friend, for all his negativity (he is and knows he has a negative attitude), is so honest that it is refreshing in a world so full of...shall we say... "spit". He keeps me honest. He quoted back to me the first thing I said to him
when I wandered into the local meeting 15 years ago, "I'll give this a try but if I don't like it I'm outta' here"....or words to that effect. He said he recognized an honesty in me that drew him to me.
He must be about 70 now and I am older than he was when I met him (and thought he looked old...ha!). He is still walking with a cane but tripped over a garden hose a while back, fell and broke his hip so that might be temporary.
Story two coming soon (about my uncle who had a stroke about a year and a half ago...and the third story is about my dad's stroke in October...both much shorter chapters than one).
Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know ~ Pema Chodron
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