The primary reason I am able to keep working after having a stroke is that my cognitive abilities were barely affected at all, and the small amount of damage that I did sustain got better in just a few months.  My speech wasn't affected, or my hearing, or my eyesight.  It seems that, like Garrison Keillor, the area that was damaged was equivalent to Wyoming:  nothing much of importance going on there.   Except that I was affected physically to some degree, so my area of damage corresponds more to Nebraska, maybe Kansas:  a few things were going on, but, evidently, nothing I can't live, or work, without.

I read of other survivors' struggles with impaired memory, with decreased hearing, with diminished eyesight, with aphasia, apraxia, dysarthia, paralysis, pain, and the myriad other conditions that a stroke can cause, and I am  reminded anew each time of how very lucky I am.  The spasticity that has gripped my left side and feels like iron bands around my shoulder, arm, ribs, and legs that are fitted with some kind of screw device that some evil spirit gleefully tightens every morning, is irritating and physically limiting, but doesn't compare with the suffering of so many others.  I'm lucky because I'm able to earn a living with what I know, and that primarily comes from having worked in my field for thirty years. But even with that, I wouldn't be able to continue my role as consultant to agencies and nonprofits if it weren't for the technology that allows me to telecommute and interact without having to travel from one end of the state to the other.

I'm not saying that cognitively I'm exactly the same person I was pre-stroke.  The primary difference, at least in my own view, is that I can no longer indulge people like I used to.  This pertains to both people that I work with and to friends and family.  Pre-stroke I would force myself to listen when others prattled on at length about kids, grandkids, movies, hobbies, pets, jobs, politics, sports, and a host of other personal interests and passions.  Because I would indulge them, I often found myself trapped at social gatherings, and at work, listening to seemingly endless monologues by people that others avoided like the plague. 

But I just can't do that anymore.  It's more than just a lack of patience, I no longer have the physical or mental stamina to indulge people when all they want from me is to listen while they talk about their favorite topics.  Oh, I'm not mean about it, I don't tell them to shut up and go away, but I do avoid them when I can, and if I do get trapped, I'm no longer shy about extricating myself from the situation.  I've instituted a 50% rule when it comes to conversations.  If I find myself in one and I'm not talking roughly 50% of the time, then I end it, because it's not really a conversation, it's someone who wants me to listen while they talk.

I think this change in me was primarily caused by the stroke, but it could be part of aging and a brush with mortality that has caused me to realize how little time is left and what remains is  a precious resource not to be wasted on those that would take it without giving value in return.