Mind of my Stroked Brain

The reference to the Tobii device a few days back, made me reflect on my communication saga and thought i'll share it with you all. Keen to know any other stroke survivor's story, and and ideas which we all could benefit from... When I had the stroke and got back to clear and coherent understanding of what had hit us, it was about 5 weeks. It was a complétely unnerving feeling and what made it worse was the inability to communicate and express it in any way. Very early on, folks realised i could move my eye balls vertically and blink. Very soon I had two words in my vocabulary. I was asked to look up for Yes and Down for no. It was a good start but the most frustrating as well. -------> I had no way of asking or knowing what I wanted. I could only respond to what everyone wanted to know. Besides, i realised soon its not easy for everyone to frame questions that were closed ended. Most end up having to be Maybe, and other variants, so i chose to keep quiet. Next was a very br

Since i don't/can't do anything else these days (except numb my head with tv), i just watch everything (which i can see), and observe. I could be overanalysing things and concluding wrong things also, i don't know. That won't stop me from sharing my thoughts...😜 One of the biggest challenges i face everyday (it's definitely better than anything before), is the absolute lack of articulation, intonation, expressions, body language in what i say on WhatsApp. I can only be selective abt the words used and hope it's understood as intended. No making amends later if not. But then, i notice pretty much everyone crippled by this disability nowadays, thanks to various devises. Yes, people are speaking, but absorbed in devices at the same time. In this, they have a voice no doubt, but can't pay attention to the words being used. I have seen miscommunication and sometimes folks talking about different things thinking they are talking about same time. In the evolutiona

When they finally removed the trac tube, everyone was thrilled. Not that i wasnt happy, after all, we have all struggled for so long for it. Entire Mumbai circus was for it.  While there are physiological benefits, it didnt do anything to me psychogically. The real breakthrough has been being able to weild the phone and Whatsapp. All the while there was so much crap going on in my brain , and i had no idea how to express it. It also gave me the strength to stay in the hospital... Now, i can eat all your heads even if i cant eat anything else.... I remember the days when it was look up for YES and look down for NO. That was hellish as most people didnt manage to frame closed ended questions, and most often the answer had to be a MAYBE... Then, thanks to my good friend, came the morse code chart. It was a big step up. But the challenge was most people could not understand it and would turn into a guessing game.. i would get even more frustrated, drive anyone trying to help crazy , and fi