I got off
very lightly regarding the negative effects of my stroke. My vision and hearing were unaffected, and
the lack of sensation on my left, affected, side is more of a nuisance than a
handicap. My balance came back quickly,
as did my control over my left side. And
that enabled me to swim and work out with weights to the extent that my left
and right sides are roughly equivalent in terms of strength. Except for the spasticity, I’m physically
about the same as I was pre-stroke.
Similarly,
my cognitive abilities were not impacted to any significant degree. I didn’t get off completely unscathed,
though, and the ways in which the stroke did affect me were very interesting,
and odd.
Left
Neglect Evidently this is common with right hemisphere
strokes, because the therapists began mentioning it to me the first day, even
telling Polly to stand on the left side of my hospital bed in order to
force me to take notice of what was happening on that side.
I didn’t
really understand what the fuss was all about until I got to inpatient
rehab. Each time the therapists or the
nurses got me in the wheelchair to take me anywhere, they would ask me where
was my left hand, and each time I would have to look for it, usually finding it
dangling perilously close to the spokes of the wheel. Even after I was able to use my left hand to
assist with propelling the wheelchair myself, I would often bang it into door
jambs or other barriers.
It’s not
that I had any problem seeing what was on my left. I didn’t have issues with my peripheral
vision, or experience a vision “cut” on that side, it was more like my brain
didn’t register anything on my left side until my attention was called to
it. Once it was, what was on my left
appeared just the same as what was on
my right.
Soon after I
returned home, Polly and I went to our son’s last home swim meet, when the
seniors are honored. We were seated near
the starting blocks and were discussing whether or not the high school
principal would attend. “There he is,”
Polly said to me. I asked her where he
was, because I didn’t see him. “To your
left,” she said. I looked to my left and
the crowd on the other side of the pool appeared, including the principal who
was talking to a group of parents. It
wasn’t that I hadn’t seen them, it was more like that entire side of the pool,
and all the people there, hadn’t existed to me before it was pointed out to
me.
Another
manifestation of my left neglect occurred numerous times when I was in the
bathroom. The hot water in all our
bathrooms is controlled by the handle on the left, and I would often leave it
running. Polly learned to check it when
I came out and point it out to me so I could go back and turn it off.
Neither of
these examples constituted anything serious, of course, but they did indicate
the possibility of dangerous situations, especially when I started driving. I never had any problems, though, because I
was aware of the danger, and made a conscious effort to look left, then left
again, then again, then again, before I pulled out into traffic or changed
lanes.
The left
neglect gradually faded away and was completely gone within a year.
The
Condition I Don’t Know the Name of It wasn’t until I
came home and started doing some research that I read
about an effect of right-hemisphere strokes that was described as the inability
to place specific occurrences in the context of a whole. As soon as I read it, I realized I had already
experienced it. In inpatient rehab, I
would make it a point to watch my beloved Kentucky Wildcats basketball team
whenever they were on television, which, owing to their excellence, was
often.
During that
four-week period, though, I knew something was wrong when I watched the games. I knew I was missing something, but couldn’t
quite identify what it was. After
reading about this stroke effect, I
immediately knew what the problem had been.
As I watched the Cats play, and almost always beat, their opponent, I
wasn’t able to place the game within the broader context of conference
standings or national rankings. I was
missing how the particular game I was watching fit into the big picture. It was this deficiency that I was sensing as
I watched the games.
Another
instance of the Condition I Don’t Know the Name of occurred the first time I
had to get up early to drive to KHC, which is located two hours away in another
time zone. I hadn’t set an alarm to wake
me up, because I don’t use one. I’ve
always had the ability to wake up when I want to. This time, though, there was a problem. I woke up at 3:00 am and for the life of me
couldn’t figure out when I needed to get up.
My calculation had always been Time of My Meeting at KHC minus Two Hour
Drive Time minus Half Hour to Get Ready adjust for Time Difference equals Time to Get Up. But this time I couldn’t make that
calculation no matter how hard I tried.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the math, it was that I couldn’t account
for the fact that time was passing as I lay in bed trying to figure this
out. I couldn’t place the time where I
was in a larger context of the time as it existed anywhere else.
I finally
drifted back to sleep and the next time I woke, I got up and hoped for the best
without trying to make the calculations.
And it turned out to be right, and I got to my meeting on time, and never experienced any further problems with it.
So, I throw
those thoughts about two of the relatively minor, but interesting, effects of
stroke out there, and maybe someday someone who has experienced a relatively
small, right-side cerebral stroke will come upon this post and will be helped
in some way. 