Mind of my Stroked Brain

Yesterday was "daughter's day". First time I have come across it. Anyway, it was an occasion and my wife took our daughters out for dinner. I was told where they went and also saw a few snaps with them around the table.. it was nice... But where did they go? What is the place? How does it look? I have no idea. 2 days back, our friends had come home. There were many a conversation referring to a building, a landmark, etc. I have no idea where any of these are. It's not an isolated incident. It's very regular for everyone to have conversations referring to a road, metro lines, flyovers, restaurants, pubs, other buildings, etc. Most of my trips out earlier have been lying down in an ambulance. Nothing seen. Few later have been in the car - when I realised I can't turn my neck enough and the little I could, the eyes couldn't latch on to moving images fast enough to make sense and understand. So, everything i remember, is from Feb 2019. Everyone will be having

When I had my stroke and got back to coherent thinking after a few weeks, I realised I had completely forgotten a few things. There was no order to it, like all things in a timeframe or some other pattern.. It was completely random. It was not like the feeling one gets when some details are forgotten about an incident. It was completely removed from memory like it never happened. Like it never happened in my life. At the same time, some things from memory, which I have never remembered, or paid attention to, became absolutely crystal clear. Eg, I used to spend a lot of time when I was very young, monkeying on my rooftop. Stuff would pop up from there. The exact branches from our mango tree, the shape and even the bristles in the wooden stick - which I would pretend to be a sword, the way the zinc sheets were bolted down atop the shed I would climb, the grill on the ventilator atop the kitchen, I even remembered the shape of the cobwebs on that grill. That amount of detail was unnerving

Many folks have remarked to me that I have become very pessimistic  and don't acknowledge the small progress I am making. I understand how it looks from the outside. Eg, when I started slightly moving my limb, I was not willing to accept that it was voluntary and not an involuntary movement. It was not possible to fake it. There are even videos to show and prove to me what I was not admitting. Few days back, my wife observed me sitting and remarked that I was sitting with my back more straight than earlier. Today, I simply struggled to sit, let alone straight. It was not that I was feeling weak or tired in my back, I had no clue how anymore to have control over my back to even try. The other day, my balance was so off, that everytime they propped me up to sit, I was feeling a strong pull, for no reason, and simply falling to my right side. So, when someone says, I am able to sit for sometime, without support, how am I supposed to affirm the same... Even if I know I can do it someti

After I had my stroke, I was in the hospital for something like 5 months. That limited visitors a lot. Even then, with whatever limited head movement I had, I made it abundantly clear (well atleast so I thought), that I didn't want to see anyone. I couldn't avoid a few very close friends and family, as they were doing much for me and for the family to help us I don't remember for how many months this lasted. I think it was some sort of shame. I think I was very ashamed of myself. For what had happened and everything that was going on around me. I don't know why it felt that way, but it did. It was like I wanted to run away... After sometime (again I don't know when it started and how long it lasted. Same for subsequent ones), I still refused to see anyone. I think it was some sort of embarrassment. I knew how I had been earlier. I remember seeing myself in the mirror in rehab. It wasn't pretty. I was very embarrassed to present myself to anyone that way, not if

After my stroke, rather a couple of weeks after, I have been able to feel almost everything in the right side of the body. I can feel touch. I can feel pressure on the skin- this was a little diminished earlier. I can feel irritation. I can feel the pinch. However the sense of temperature is all over the place. However, in many places, I can feel absolutely nothing. It makes me think that the nerve to each area/ muscle is not 1, but composite. Like the wires we get. One wire, but multiple strands. That's only for reception. Most areas there is absolutely no transmissions from the brain. However, as some sensation comes gradually, in some places I can feel the muscles. I can flex/ compress the muscle, but I can't relax it after. Makes me think its different strands to control as well. In all. There must be too many strands to all go straight to the brain. They may be more like a tree structure converging at many points finally converging into the information super highway, the

This thought is not new. I've felt this way for a very long time. Just sharing it to see how right or wrong I have always been. Whenever I shopped for food items, I looked very carefully at the ingredients list - to see what all crap we were putting in. But never read anything about the nutritional information. Especially the calories. I always felt it made no sense. It's like picking up a litre of petrol because it said 100kms. What does that mean anyway. We will only know how far it will go, if we know the make/model of the vehicle, how old the engine is, it's maintenance/efficiency, Breakdowns in the past, etc. Sure, 1 litre will go 100kms, if you are running a moped maybe, but if you own a truck, good luck. All the nutritional information and calorific values are of the food, mostly in a lab.  No idea what amount of it one is capable of absorbing or converting to energy. We can only know when we know the age, the weight, the heigh, the metabolic capacity, condition - he

Today, school starts for my elder daughter - offline, physical school, after almost 1.5 years. I am very happy for her and the kids in general. But I am very sad for myself. Not because she won't be in the house, I wouldn't see the kids when they were in online class also.   I am very sad because I won't be able to see her class materials and submissions anymore. It was helping me to be involved in some way in her academics from this year. I used to enjoy the tour of the classroom everyday. I can't help but think, will other parents go through this withdrawal symptom caused by the sudden loss of visibility enjoyed for so long. Or will it be a celebration for it stopping… Will the children rejoice, for the parents can no longer keep tabs. Will the teachers be relieved -- no longer having scrutinizing eyes of parents with everything... For now, I will enjoy the same transparency with my younger daughter - while it lasts... 

Some days back, my high school friend contacted me on chat. I used to meet a bunch of them often. Social media reunion. It used to be fun. There used to be a overactive WhatsApp group. They were a bunch of very networked and informed group. So they would have surely known about my stroke. The language and tone of interaction made it certain that he knew. Yet the chat was dancing around the main thing. After so long, amongst so many of them in that group, he had mustered up the courage to make contact, yet the poor fellow was clearly struggling to ask the question how I was doing now. I remember, there was a Cancer Survivor in that group. He had a relapse sometime close to my stroke. I had met him a few times in the group. But I never had the courage to meet him alone. Never had the courage to ask him directly how he was and about his illness. But seriously, how do we do it, interact when uncomfortable? There is no training for it. All the time when we are growing up, mostly, these are

The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s. Or roughly, as we learnt in school, 3x10^8 m/s. That's awfully fast. Incidentally, the fastest we can also communicate today. Can almost go around the whole earth once in a second. They are planning to colonise Mars sometime soon. They have many challenges. One of the main ones is communication. You see, it will take a little over 4 Seconds to send a message back or forth. But thats the best case scenario - when Earth and Mars are closest. When they are farthest, it will be over 16 minutes. There goes the concept of "instant" messaging folks there. It's a different problem that the Sun will be inbetween to communicate anything. Another interesting challenge is how to keep track of time. Mars doesn't rotate in its axis in 24 hrs. Days don't match. They have 2 moons- so there goes the concept of months. The earth revolves around the Sun almost twice in a mars year. So nothing cyclic matches. Yes, we can give earth time, but

This has taken me the longest time to put it together - had to visit many dark and uncomfortable alleys along the way. It was not easy.   It is also my longest note till date.  If you are in the middle of something or just planning, good idea to deal with it first. ******* Sometime back I made a reference to my "Demons". I will attempt to describe them here. Some of them are well and truly slain, some dormant, lurking in the dark corners and make their presence felt unexpectedly, when I am least prepared for the fight . Some, I am waging an ongoing battle. And many more yet to be encountered in areas I have not yet ventured into. I actually feel many of them are not big burley creatures but single celled like the virus. It eats you up from the inside. No known vaccine also here . You simply have to get infected by each variant to gradually build antibodies and hopefully, immunity at some point. So what I have listed is a kind of unordered list - as I could recall. It's no

For the past 2 days, I have got some very bad headaches. After the stroke, I have rarely had any all this while. Few rare instances here and there. Very mild ones. Before my stroke, it was a regular feature. I used to have a strip of tablets with me always. I don't think I have not been having them, I have them just as frequently. I just am unable to feel it. The pain receptor circuitry is probably fried.  From a few months into my stroke, my right shoulder has been very sublexed due to the muscles having fully wasted and atrophied and the arm dangling without support all the time. I could see the arm away from the shoulder socket very much. It was excruciating. Only to see, for I could feel nothing and no pain . It looks much better now with my physiotherapist constantly ensuring it is supported and regular taping. But I look forward to the pain, when it comes... These aches and pains keep starting, with no change in routine, diet, sleep, etc. I can only assume it was always there