I had a third stroke, a really bad this time. It came as an surprise when recovering from the mild, second one, in a rehabilitation clinic. What saved my life is that I was surrounded by medical staff and doctors when it happened.
I was a couple of weeks in a very strange situation. Lying in the stroke unit in hospital, I was almost all the time conscious and aware of everything, but unable to communicate and almost completely paralyzed. After waking up, some 4 days after the stroke, I could see and hear, think and understand, but I didn’t get a word out of my mouth. It was like living in a B-class, surrealistic road-movie; life and world goes on around me but I was not able to participate.
I’ve been at home 10 days now. I’m unable to move without help, even getting to wheelchair from bed I need help. Although therapy is going well, at least they keep telling me that, it’s going to take maybe months before I can cope alone. I am still almost completely unable to speak, especially German with Angie and English with my friends who come to see me. Strange enough, somehow the communication between my brain and mouth works better when I try to speak my native Finnish; it seems the Finnish words are at the moment easier for me to produce. I can think quite clearly, but to express myself, I need to write it with the trackball and on-screen keyboard to laptop screen, for Angie and / or a friend to read. The grip in my right hand is not strong enough to hold a pen or mouse, but it goes with trackball. Using my thumb, phone lying inThank God for Windows 7 Ease of Access-tools!
The thing that frightens me most is that my memory does not work as it should. I can remember things from last spring quite well, something from the summer but almost nothing since mid-August. It’s like a two month wormhole in my brain. Last week or so I have been trying to get those memories back by reading through my old mails, text messages and postings on several forums.
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Waiting eagerly for your return :)