Mind of my Stroked Brain

I have been in this state for 3+ years now. I have been unable to do much , but try to overcome the feeling of uselessness by doing something or the other, what I am able to, using the phone and online. It is probably superficial but helps to a certain extent to get over the feeling. However, the really low points I feel is when someone else in the house falls ill. Ith inability to do anything to give care, comfort and help in any way is an absolutely useless, helpless and hopeless feeling...

When we consume something, if it is cold we can and do gulp it down. If it is nice and warm, we chew it a few times and then swallow. If it is very hot - we sip it slowly or we spit it out if it is too hot to handle. I think it is nature's way of moderating the temperature amongst other things.  Chewing or sipping will bring down the temperature quite a bit in the mouth. When the swallowed food or drink goes down the oesophagus, it further cools down. When it enters the stomach - it is "Goldilocks" right temperature. With a peg tube direct to the stomach - that moderating function is lost. It's about a foot length, but rubber/ synthetic material and a heat insulation material. The nurses are very careful - the feed is tepid ( almost body temperature) and it is not discernable. Once in a while, it is a notch cooler or hotter. It is very distinguishable because the stomach reacts. It handles a drop in temperature alright - but can very much feel the cool fluid settling

I have a temporary nurse currently. My usual nurse is on leave for a few days. Today the temp nurse got a call from the agency confirming her next duty. She looked a bit tensed after the call. So I asked (with my usual indication) as to what happened. She told me her next duty will be for a 1 year old. The baby is still in hospital and will come home in the next couple of days. I don't know what happened to him (or her - I don't know), but he has a trachiostomy (tube in the throat for breathing) and I am guessing a tube for feeding as well. She has worked with adults with these tubes but an infant is a very different ball game. I have had a tracheostomy for a while. It was a horrible experience. I still have a tube for feeding. It doesn't bother me much now as it is direct to the stomach. I don't know if they do a peg to small infants. It will likely be a tube running from the nose through the throat all the way to the stomach for feeds. I have had that too - for about

I was recently in the middle of a conversation/ discussion/ debate. The key point was many if the well known books by well regarded people/ gurus/ wise folks whatever you wish to know them as. The point was - most of the time (generally speaking), these books are very wise, practical, informative for upwards of 90% of the book and there is usually about 10% of the content which is leaning towards miracles/ fantastical stuff/ unbelievable things. For rational and practical thinkers, this 10% is hard to digest and invariably the whole book (although most of it is very good) gets discredited because of this 10%. Why do wise folks include this content and lose the rational followers? The counter argument was very simple - folks who experienced these things and write about it don't really care wether some folk believe it or not. It is real/ true as far as they are concerned. The discussion went all over the place from senses, perception, meditation, siddis, chakras, etc. It was an inter

I was seeing something on TV today. Something very simple. What is "time" 🙂 Apart from the physics of scientists which I completely understood 🙂, I started thinking. How does the body keep time? Not the short term duration - that is probably a complex mechanism of sun, moon, planets etc (both optical influence and gravitational). I wonder about the long term. How does it know that it should start to let go at some time? Yes, there are theories and scientific information about cells dying, the organs becoming weak etc. But all of them have to know it is time right? They are all probably chemical messages and hormones, but what tells the glands that it is time? Not just us, every single creature comes with this timer. Might not be the same for everyone in the species, but a range nevertheless for everyone. How does it know it is time?

When I started to write, it was very new to me and was via WhatsApp to a handful of very close people. It was more a compulsion - that was the only way I could convey what was going on in my mind. It was a very small group on WhatsApp. After a while, I got some courage and included a few more people. Still on WhatsApp. I had to create a broadcast list for that. This, while it was to share my random thoughts and share what I was going through and thinking, was mainly to generate conversations. I badly needed them. Encouraged by many of the folk, I put it up on a blog. I don't know why I did it, it was a painfully long job for me. I think I did it mainly to prove to myself that I can do it. No bells or whistles - just a very simple one. I knew nobody was seeing it because it gives stats, but for some reason kept it updated. It was just there. Nobody really visited it. Recently, I decided to post it on social media. Simply because I wanted to get a better readership reach on one part

Short while ago, I wrote about the bottleneck for the brain. But seriously, why did we evolve this way? Almost all land animals have a big body, a reasonably big head and a narrow neck connecting the 2, with the head controlling the body. I get the utility of the neck which allows us to look around, but isn't it an expensive trade off to have such a narrow point of failure? What was it on land that it was necessary for us to evolve this way. Most aquatic creatures have no neck - fish, sharks, whales, dolphins, etc - the list is very long. Surely having a robust link between the brain and rest of the body has its advantages. I think the octopus is one of the most neurologically advanced creatures. Its entire body is connected to the brain via multiple links - so much so that it can change colour to match its surroundings without having to see. It basically sees from its skin too. What is it on land that needed us to evolve the neck???

Sometimes I think there is a creator. I don't know either way but ever thing is beautiful, symmetric and perfect in nature (except the human mind maybe!) It's very hard to accept everything got the way it did through consequences of mistakes over time - irrespective of how long. I think there is a creator who built/ created everything - like in a game where we can build stuff. Kind of a metaverse of the creators (well, it is likely to be multi-player).  After a while, he/she got bored and took their hands off to see what would happen. Unfortunately, nothing happened. So he/ she got another creator (who was equally bored), and started playing a game. They could change everything in the original creation, except they could not do it themselves. They decided to give us a mind and had to do everything through us by controlling the mind.  Like a game of chess, one was playing bright thoughts and the other was playing dark thoughts. both are creators just playing a game. One was sup

When the nurses give me my glasses, it takes about 2 seconds to reach for it, 2-3 seconds to position the fingers correctly on the frame, and another 3-4 seconds to place it on my face properly and adjusted. Now, that is not the speed at which the brain is thinking of the action. It moves like anyone else. The body doesn't. That is just an example. Almost every action is in slow motion - left hand of course, right still is asleep. I would like to attribute it to the limb and muscle, but I know it is not. The left hand started to move almost 3 years back and for the last year or so, it has been exercised everyday and gets enough movement to be ok I guess. But it isn't. Everything happens in slow motion compared to the corresponding thought that drives it. I have wondered often why that is so. I have a theory (not medically backed up of course) Our big bulk of head - the brain - controls everything about the body. Just absolutely everything...  The big hulk of the body - as wonde

I got a bunch of responses via messages and online - so I couldn't help myself from preaching - although I have not been very successful in practicing. I am trying, very hard, but not there yet. This has been said several times in online gyan, in frameworks, models, case studies, books, etc. So it is several+1. I have realised, procrastination till the time comes - "deadline dependency", is a dependable motivation for most things. However I have also realised that only "urgent" things get done. "Important" things keep getting put on the back burner. At some stage they become urgent too and will get done. However, I am unable to think it through sufficiently/ plan for things in detail enough/ etc. Things will get done for the sake of getting done basically. The "urgent" and "important" model for "things to do" is nothing new. How we define timeframes (urgency) or impacts (importance) is up to us and will be different for e

I will be going for a laser show tomorrow. I don't know if I can see it though! The venue is my throat. I was hoping to see it. It is an endoscopic procedure. They will definitely have a camera in the throat. I was hoping, with some luck, the screen would be visible and I can enjoy the show. I have made a bigger draw instead. They have asked me to be on a empty stomach from tonight. They only do that for administering general anesthesia. I was almost forgetting and missing the lovely feeling of going under. Looking forward to that feeling again. Although there is some nervousness. The last time they put me under and did an endoscopic procedure, I woke up with a tooth missing! I hope everything will be intact tomorrow. The procedure for the throat - I don't know much about. I have been tempted several times to ask dr. Google and find out more about it. I have somehow and surprisingly managed not to. I know what they are trying to do though.. Over a very long time, since I have h

I am an electrical engineer by training. So these are crazy thoughts from the electrical engineer in my mind 🙂 I have always assumed everything we think of is some sort of energy transformed into signals in the head. It might be whatever it is, but it gets converted to electrical signals in the brain. I guess that assumption got reinforced over time due to the prevalence of many sorts of scans that respond to some form of electromagnetic detection. After my stroke, I have realised everything below the neck is pretty much useless if these electrical signals dont pass through from the brain to everywhere else (actually everything above the neck on the face also!). The nerves are basically like wires - optic fibre grade++ and the brain is like a very complex super chip. The rest of the body with its 5 external senses - are basically sensors they have receptors (the sense organs) and transducers. They may be chemically or mechanically or thermally triggered or whatever triggered, but hav

After my stroke, from about the last year maybe, I tend to do things quickly. What I can do is very very minimal anyway, but what I am able to do with the help of the phone, I tend to do it quickly. Stuff I would regularly put off for later, for tomorrow, for afterwards usually. Procrastination basically. It's probably the 2 odd years of absolute inability to do anything that gives the drive. Maybe there is also the rude realisation that later may not happen, tomorrow may not come or it may be nothing like I imagined. Whatever it is, I tend to do stuff then and there. I get pleasantly surprised about it and how much gets done (maybe very minimal from a normal person point of view, but quite a bit for my situation and standards). As I said, what I can do is very minimal - but things I would normally put off gets done. I have often wondered why I was not doing this earlier. Why would I lean towards procrastination instead of acting on something. I was fundamentally active and not laz