The journey began here and continues in part 2 and part 3.
Dr. Google never went to medical school. Please visit an actual health care provider – a physician, a nurse practitioner, or a physician assistant – for any medical help.
My husband escorted me from our car to our front door, and I needed it. I’d been bed- and chair-bound for nearly a week, but more importantly, I was now a stroke survivor and I was learning what it’s like to feel post-stroke fatigue. This is common for many stroke survivors, and I found it almost as irritating as my right-hand impairment. The best description I came up with was “You know how you feel when you’re recovering from the flu? Fever’s breaking, but you still feel tired and sleep doesn’t help as much as it should? It’s like that, only without the fever.”
My cat Ash didn’t care about that. As soon as my husband got me to our couch, Ash was on my lap, his paws on my left shoulder (his favorite), burying his face in my hair and purring away. According to my husband, Ash had been very grumpy while I was hospitalized. But now I was home, and all was well in Ash’s world.
I envied Ash. All he wanted was his human back. I wanted my body back to normal, and that wasn’t a quick fix. Physical therapy can’t fix post-stroke fatigue; the treatment options include making sure your medication isn’t a factor, and not overdoing it. I’m not good at not overdoing it. The second day I was home, I started cleaning litterboxes before my husband caught me and demanded to know what part of “you had a stroke” did I not understand. I could take showers every day now, but I had to steady myself against the shower wall, repeating, “I can do this. I can do this.” I felt guilty that my husband had to cook.
But post-stroke fatigue takes no prisoners. Like it or not, I spent a lot of time napping. Ash enjoyed getting to cuddle closely to make sure I wouldn’t disappear again, but I grew frustrated with what I saw as my body’s failure. I hated feeling weak. I hated feeling broken. I hated dealing with all the aftereffects of the hospitalization: dealing with the bills, dealing with my company’s requirements for short-term disability, dealing with medications taken throughout the day when previously I’d never taken more than vitamins and ibuprofen as needed.
Most of all I hated that I’d done this to myself. I’d neglected my health and my body had been unable to take the stress any more. If I’d cared as much about my well-being as I had my job, my body wouldn’t have been pushed to the point of failure.
But here I was. There was no way to evade, deflect, or avoid the current state of my body. I would have to learn to live as a young stroke survivor.
Rachel
I'm a writer, a knitter/spinner/weaver, a young stroke survivor, and a type 2 diabetic.
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