Sensation is a funny word; it has several meanings, one
being something fabulous. But I’m using
it now in the sense of feeling: specifically, the physical sensation of feeling
stimuli on the skin. My stroke affected
my ability to feel sensation on the left side of my body.
I had both a CT scan and an MRI on the day of my stroke, and
another MRI two days later when the doctors feared I might be having
another. Thankfully, though, I only had
the one. I’m pretty sure I was never
shown the results of either the CT scan or either of the MRIs, but I can’t be
sure, my memories of that first week are pretty foggy. After I came home and began to be curious
about strokes, I thought about asking to see my MRI, but the hospital is almost
100 miles away, and I never got around to it.
Polly was shown them, but her life was in the middle of a major
disruption and she remembers very little.
She does remember she was told the area of the bleed was the size of a
cottonball, but I remember her telling me it was the size of a marshmallow. Given my post-stroke brain fog, my memory
could be wrong, or another possibility might be that it was the size of a cottonball
at the regional hospital where I was first taken, but had grown to the size of
a marshmallow by the time they got me to the stroke center in Louisville.
I do remember the neurologist, during one visit to my
hospital room, telling me that my stroke was, ”about there,” and touching me about
halfway between my right ear and the top of my head. Based on that scanty information and my even scantier
research, I guess that my stroke primarily affected the parietal lobe, which
among other things, interprets impulses transmitted by the skin. From the very
first, I realized that something was wrong with the way things felt touching my
left side.
I told the doctors that my left side was numb, because it
was just too complicated to try to tell them how it really felt, and because I
didn’t have the vocabulary to tell them.
The best description of it came from another stroke survivor later
during my reading, but I don’t remember who it was, or where I read it. I wish I did so I could give
attribution. He said that it felt like
the skin on his affected side was gone, and what touched him on that side was
touching raw muscles, blood vessels, and nerves. And that, I suppose, comes as close to describing how my left side
feels as anything can.
Like everything else about stroke, it’s complicated. Except for the very lightest brush, I know
when I’m being touched on my left side, but I don’t feel it through my skin, I
feel the pressure of the touch, and it’s unpleasant, like I’m being touched on
raw muscles and nerves. A few weeks
after my stroke, my wife was gently stroking my left hand and I stood it for as
long as I could before I had to ask her to stop. Being touched anywhere on my left side sends
me up the wall. The only thing I can figure out is that the remainder of my brain interprets the existence of the dead spot that used to receive and interpret impulses from the skin on my left side as there being no skin on that side. So, I now “feel” touching as if it is happening to the layers lying below the skin. Even though it’s hard to understand, my left side is both numb and hypersensitive. Not only do I hate to be touched there, I don’t even like for anyone to stand on my left side. Try explaining that to a doctor.
Another weird thing is that the line of demarcation
separating my affected left side from my unaffected right side is clearly
defined. It goes precisely down the
center line of my body, front and back: on
the left, no skin; on the right, normal.
And when I say precisely down the middle, that’s exactly what I
mean: the dividing line goes down the
center of my forehead, my nose, chest stomach, and on down. Makes for some interesting tactile experiences.
I wonder if this lack of normal sensation on my affected
side is the reason the spasticity has affected me so powerfully on that side,
even though I have normal strength and control.
I think someone should research that. 