Hi retrokeyplayr. I’ve heard other people say they can read deeper into the music they hear. I definitely have more emotional insight … it’s like every phrase I can tell what the mood is. I noticed it very soon after my stroke… it was a shocking revelation. Now I talk about it, and some friends just said that happens because it was a near death experience… maybe who knows…
i think it’s a subtle shift in thinking, and a shift in the balance between the 2 hemispheres of the brain.
I just seen your first post of the forum that was in the dusty corner and said hello to you on that - you should get a notification .
In that post and the post above you mention looking for a magic wand. the magic wand is peer support and purposeful determination to push back the capability boundaries focused on your life goals.
It seems reading your two posts you’ve bested a great many goals the idea of a one-legged Gibson playing world touring self-piloting dog owning criminal defence lawyer is quite mind-boggling.
I hope you find good companionship here and begin to share. Cuz the community is enriched by the contributions that it’s members make. That takes up a variety of outlooks, interests, backgrounds etc and leads to a variety of interactions that serendipitously generate insights and constantly provide support belonging warmth camaraderie for everyone to enjoy sometimes as a drawer and sometimes as a contributor .
When I read your reply SimoninEdinburgh, It made me feel that I had lived a hectic life and the way my working life had taken me around the world which does yet not in a way relate to mini strokes. I was saying in a clumsy sort of way that is why does it wait until a period of life that is less hectic to hit me. The life of an on call duty police station attender meaning get out of bed and drive for amour hour at the pre dawn hours to administrate the rights afforded to all those that have found they have been arrested and now in a police stationer what ever they have done or not done. All my clients were innocent (I can only really help if they the client has not carried out the offence that had them arrested and in custody. If they admit to me they carried out the offence I can only offer up a submission by way of an admission in a legal way in the hope the magistrates will accept it if not it moves to the crown court so hence often my first words to this stranger over the police telephone not me is I do not want you to tell me anything, just listen to what I am going to to tell you then I can offer a possible defence. So much more exciting than a boring stroke. Or fighting a cross wind as you approach the active run way at Biggin Hill which is already 800 feet above sea level. Trying to land without hitting the tarmac hard. Again more stressful that a stroke I am sure you will agree. Or sitting on a cabin deck at the rear of the Celebrity Constellation from 07:00 with the North American continent to my left and the Southern Americas to the right. The river sections connecting up the lakes is very small or it seems to me these days it was small and it drizzled rain and the 12 hours it took to get from the Caribbean sea to the Pacific Ocean and getting sun burned and remembering I had not eaten much as I did not want to miss a moment of this ships inaugural crossing. the little trains pulling us through the canal and all the life as we passed tiny settlements beside the passage of the crossing. Much more pleasant that a couple of strokes. I was so much more lucky despite my disability which started in 1959 with an amputation of the left leg above the knee the many times to follow under the knife and ending up with the hip being removed, so no left leg or hip being left behind. Add it to two heart attacks, being diabetic and many other issues all boring but not as scary as what happens when your voice goes in to fee fall and your wife keeps saying Bob talk to me and nothing happens and you feel a bit strange on the left side. Thankfully the wheelchair controls are on the right hand side so I could still go where I wanted to or so I thought. But after being rushed through A&E in to the wonderful stroke unit at Maidstone Hospital in Kent and was given my marching orders (wanted my bed) to having spent Friday night until Monday night being poked and all sorts of things being done to me I seen`t home to have another minor stroke two days later like a minor earth tremor - I am scared of hospitals and needle phobic so I was treated by a ambulance cred in my lounge with Bear (my helping dog - St Bernard just short of 100 kgs) trying to understand what was happening to his dad. All ambulance crews want to meet him and given the number of 999 call ambulances that come to me these days BEAR is a legend to the local dispatch centre at Paddock Wood. He has had more photographs taken that I could remember. But it helps me and I often end up staying at home. Within 2 hours my voice and other areas all came back to normal or seem to have. I have avoided the word stroke as much as I can, but now I have to discuss it. Why in retirement have I had them and not the time that was stressful when I traveled as part of my job or so much more interesting playing chess with the prosecution with a client sitting in the dock facing time being sent down. Exciting and stressful. Great excuse for not going shopping as it is not good when a client that did not get off and had been sent down for a few years was no free but he was keen on renewing his acquaintance in a very loud voice much to my wife’s displeasure. Hence I was not dragged around shops that often.
But I still do not know why when I have retired and less stressful time of my life I am having the worse possible time. I am so worried that anything I do could bring a stroke on and what if it is like my sisters stroke that is now home in a hospital bed. That is fed with tubes and has limited speech and seems to text everyone through the night… well a lot of garnish or nothing. Her husband has to remember to remove her phone at night. I dread the thought that I could be in that situation. I have tried to read others experience in the hope I can understand more but so far there is no magic wand. Please if you have one of these wands do share where you get one from please.
Still no magic wand. I have had parts removed from first operation at age 4 when they were looking for osteomyelitis. Not found but the start of many hospital visits and operations. The left leg was now 1’ shorter than the right leg until at age 10 the leg was amputated above the knee. I have a fair idea of parts wearing out. The writs getting worn out from using them with on crutches or pushing a manual wheelchair chair (Power chair them days). So I have great knowledge of parts wearing out. But not why the fact you get a stoke with mild or major in your 70’s … I will continue to try and understand the issue as these days I try and carry on buying and selling toy soldiers made i Germany proud the 1939/45 war or the Dutch wall tiles made 1907 to 1967 ish Such wonderful colours and workmanship. Off many other interests I have. But when I research a subject I normally find out massive amounts of information but stoke is a world of its on. I just seem to get info that does not really answer any of the questions I have. I have found out just how many suffer a stroke, and our NHS resources lack of money / staff in the field. Lots of Un paid people trying to construct a puzzle with no picture or a large lego items where all the bits are the same colour. Frustrating. I Expect a lot of messages that do not really see what I am asking. Doctors do not have the answers so it is to be expected that this helpful site will run up against the same issues with no answer. Perhaps that is the issue that no one really nows the answer yet? But Emeraldeyes I appreciate your input.
A couple pictures of Bear to get some idea just how big he is. I had already written out and then found there was a word count limit. SO A MUCH SMALLER ONE Here goes. I am 74 married to Sue for over 45 years our lives run around Bear our 7 year old St Bernard male dog long haired. a bundle of cuddles and is in to everything. We live in Kent not far from Maidstone. I am a retired criminal lawyer. Having gone to Sussex University in my late 40’s. Before that I was in the travel industry and aviation sector in helicopters. I was lucky enough to travel the world. We also have been on a number of cruises over the years so 2 min stroke came as shock, I was already disabled in a power wheelchair having my left leg amputated at age 10 and various other times until the hip was taken.
Bear looks very content there @BobFage
Sounds like you’ve had an interesting life. Who knows why a stroke hits at the time it does. Mine got me when i was at my busiest and was a proper shock to the system when i was forced to slow down. I’m used to & happy with the slower pace of life now though.
Thank you so much for this post. It has given me lots of food for thought. I too have had to slow down and have been fortunate enough to be able to take early retirement. My pension is miniscule but fortunately my husbands is better and living a simpler life includes being economical (or is that mean?) I last had a dog when I was 18. He lived until I was in my mid twenties but when I left home (which was also near Maidstone) my father claimed him and I’ve never had a dog since my husband definitely being a cat person. Since the stroke though I have been able to borrow my daughter’s dog. Walking him gives my exercise a purpose and we enjoy the lovely countryside together - and as he’s a miniature Dachsund he gets a lot more steps in with his little legs than I do
Bore da @FionaB1, someone asked me a few months ago, why I walk around jollily singing. I replied that I sing because I am in pain. I don’t know if they understood but, for me, I try and see the best in a bad situation, only because it provides well-needed relief. As a caveat, I am not an overtly positive person, indeed, I am constantly in negotiation with the positives and negatives of life.
Yes, we all deal with adversity in different ways. You sing, I joke. 3 weeks post stroke, whilst still in hospital, I had my first attack of angina. Crash team was in attendance within 2 minutes, about 10 of them. God knows where they came from. One minute I was squirming in a chair, the next on a bed with IV lines, connected to a heart monitor, and all bells and whistles going off. One of the doctors made a comment about my rather bright, striped socks to lighten the mood, and I grasped the humour with both hands. and the banter that ensued between all of the team was like something out of ‘Monty Python’. My second attack kicked in while this was going on to the sound of “Woooeee… Here we go again. Hang on, and if I don’t come out of this, he gets my socks”
Even 2 hours later, when another hospital was in the process of placing stents into my heart, requests for an improvement of the contrast on the monitor for better viewing (they didn’t realise I could see the monitor). Almost falling about with laughter when the ambulance taking me back to my original hospital got lost and I was directing them there.
Usually there’s a funny side to most situations. Not disrespectful - no-no. Not in any way, but it helps ME get through stressful situations that I would otherwise despair and shrink into myself.
I can’t comment on music yet. Too painful. Pre stroke I was a percussionist (not just a ‘drummer’) But that’s completely out of the question. I’ll never be of the same standard, and I won’t accept second best, so I’m learning to live with the fact that THAT side of my life which started well over 60 years ago, is over. I can’t even listen to it.
Anyway nobody needs any more of my drivel.
Thank you for your time,
BobQ1.
I am of the same ilk, I don’t think I could tolerate life without my sense of humour. It has never left me, even in the most dire of moments, although I confess to having a more acerbic wit. I think this has evolved from having read many Russian authors as a child, and then moving onto The Goons, the combination is both absurd and fatalistic.
Thankfully, not anymore.
Anyway, my socks can stand up for themselves.
Starting to feel a little tired (as usual at this time) so i’ll probably sleep now until around 10.30, then I’ll be back and forth between my desk and bed until about 6 am.
Night-night all - for now.
Shwmae Mathew, as a youth, in my formative years of reading, I found that I was sympathetic to the satire. One of my favourite stories was a piece by Valentin Kataev called “Struggle Unto Death” about the endless circle of bureaucracy. A phrase by Dostoevsky, “There is pleasure even in toothache”, was something that struck a chord with my immature sense of the human condition at the time. In my later teen years, I came across Vladimir Mayakovsky whose work I enjoyed. The heavier Russian writers like Tolstoy are not my cup of tea.
