How things can change in an instant.

  • Thread starter Thread starter War_in_D
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War_in_D

War_in_D

Well-known member
First of all, I'm not looking for any kind of sympathy. I'm doing great and I'm improving every day. About a month ago, I suffered a stroke that messed up my left side. Emotionally, I have accepted what has happened and I'm just looking to the future and what I can do to get better. Brain-wise, to coin a phrase from the late/great Mitch Hedberg, I'm still a little bit slow on the mental draw but some days are better than others (aren't they all??). I thank God every day that it wasn't any worse than it was and I give all the glory to God for allowing me to be here today making this post. I consider myself extremely lucky. My wife's mother died of a stroke, bedridden and unable to move. So in the grand scheme of things, I'm golden because I know how bad it could have been. However, this has brought several things to bear on me with regard to how quickly things can change and what I took for granted.
  • You don't realize how much you rely on your non-dominant side for every day tasks (I'm right handed).
  • Make time to play guitar. In the past, I haven't and I've recently discovered that there are few things worse than finally wanting to play, and being unable to.
  • Take care of yourself. I feel very fortunate to have gotten what I consider to be a warning and the ability to adjust course, many people don't.
  • Don't sweat the little things. I still struggle with this, but it's just not worth the time.
  • Don't discount the mundane. Being able to dress yourself and tie your own shoes without help weren't things that I ever would have thought I'd be happy about, but yet here we are.
  • Just be thankful. Don't wallow in the circumstances of today and don't ask what else can go wrong because you might find out.
I'm doing good and my brain is trying to rewire this whole mess. To just look at me, you can't really tell. Thankfully I'm able to continue to work and I can still walk (albeit with a bit of a limp) and have the use of my left arm. It's just overall weakness on my left side and the lack of fine motor skills that I have a hard time with. My strength and coordination have improved enough over the past month that I try to play guitar when I can. I can fumble through most chords (slowly), but being able to do the "weedly-wee" stuff is still a ways off but It'll come back. I figured that since I'm basically learning how to play again, I'm going to take this opportunity to try and "unlearn" some bad habits. LOL

Anyway, just some observations. I don't generally get too religious on here but I feel that my faith has really helped me during this. It would be easy to be mad at God but this is 110% my fault. I'm 55 years old and haven't taken care of myself like I should have. I'm overweight, ate like crap, didn't exercise, etc. and it finally caught up with me. There is nobody to blame but me. I just feel really fortunate and thankful that I have been given what I feel is a second chance and the opportunity to change.
 
Keep fighting the good fight, man and here's to a solid recovery and coming back better than before from this. Really sorry to hear you are going through this.

Hopefully some glean something from your message and this negative can be turned into a positive.
 
Good luck in your recovery brother. A friend of mine had a stroke about 8 years ago ( he's only 45) and he still can't talk where he makes any sense.
 
Floyd Eye said:
Good luck in your recovery brother. A friend of mine had a stroke about 8 years ago ( he's only 45) and he still can't talk where he makes any sense.
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Thank you. I feel really bad for your friend, I'll be praying for him. Hearing things like that are the reason that I feel so fortunate. Between something like that and seeing what happened to my wife's mom, I know it could have been so much worse. I really got off easy.
 
Wow, sorry to hear this! You are definitely added to my evening prayers for the forseeable future. May you recover quickly and be strong again soon!!! Faith is all that matters!!! ☦️

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Beautifully said brother.

"Close calls" are theoretically the most-effective "wakeup calls".

Your fantastic attitude (and faith) will stand you in good stead at this time and throughout your rebuilding process.

The well-wishes of our community won't hurt either... I hope, so with that, all the best brother. Hang in there. Be strong and of course continue to appreciate the little things.

As within, so without, as above, so below and... the way we do / approach the little things is indicative of how we deal with the big stuff. I've always believed that.

God bless mate and may you go from strength to strength.
 
Hey Warren - I am so sorry to hear this. Sounds like you have the perfect attitude though. I'm not so sure I could be as strong. Keep at it. You'll be a better person for it like you said. More appreciative if you will. My best of wishes for you my friend :yes:
 
I feel you bro. One day I woke up feeling really strange on the right side of my body. Not a stroke. Felt like my entire right side was wrapped in a tight ace bandage. They gave me prednisone and I instantly couldn’t use my right arm and started dragging my right foot. Weird. I had to learn to write and even wipe my ass with my left hand. Then I found out I was in stage four thyroid cancer. All good now though praise God! I’ll be honest I’m a shell of what I was but I’m okay. It’s fine. It could always be worse. You could be burying your kid today….just a different perspective. Trigger finger works great though.
 
JackBootedThug said:
I feel you bro. One day I woke up feeling really strange on the right side of my body. Not a stroke. Felt like my entire right side was wrapped in a tight ace bandage. They gave me prednisone and I instantly couldn’t use my right arm and started dragging my right foot. Weird. I had to learn to write and even wipe my ass with my left hand. Then I found out I was in stage four thyroid cancer. All good now though praise God! I’ll be honest I’m a shell of what I was but I’m okay. It’s fine. It could always be worse. You could be burying your kid today….just a different perspective. Trigger finger works great though.
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Oh man, I'm really sorry to hear that but glad you're doing good now. I'll be praying for you! I need to exercise my trigger finger a bit, I was just mentioning that to my wife the other day oddly enough.
 
Unbelievable and genuinely inspirational outlook and mindset. I will turn 58 in March - so we were of the same HS 'era.' It is amazing how quickly health and physical related things either slide backwards - or require exponentially more discipline than ever before to just tread water at and after age 50.

It is absolute truth that we take so many important things for granted - and we devote so much time and inner peace obsessing over things / people / situations that do not merit our attention.

I love the idea of capitalizing on this incident to 'un-learn' a few physical things about guitar that you want to do differently! Based on your current progress, you may be surprised how much more progress is still ahead! One day at a time. Eat clean. Stay active. Keep posting updates!!!
 
Finally got an MRI last Friday, and went over it yesterday. Good news/Bad news.. Good news is that they found no evidence of a stroke, everything looked normal. Bad news.. Doc said they don't have any answers for what happened. I continue to improve though, and I'm able to play a bit. Doc said that playing guitar is an excellent way to rehab as it works both the mind and the muscles, so I got that going for me. :ROFLMAO:
 
War_in_D said:
Finally got an MRI last Friday, and went over it yesterday. Good news/Bad news.. Good news is that they found no evidence of a stroke, everything looked normal. Bad news.. Doc said they don't have any answers for what happened. I continue to improve though, and I'm able to play a bit. Doc said that playing guitar is an excellent way to rehab as it works both the mind and the muscles, so I got that going for me. :ROFLMAO:
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Great news Warren
 
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