Mind of my Stroked Brain

In the initial months after my stroke. I could hardly see anything that was moving.  It doesn't have anything to do with my retina, optic nerve etc. in order to focus, our lens have to either bulge or thin out to focus incoming light properly on our retina. This action is controlled by "ciliary" muscles. No points for who controls them - completely by our autonomous nervous system whose seat is in the brain stem.  So, I couldn't see anything that moved. At one thing in one place, it would slowly settle down and focus but couldn't deal with moving things.  This was very exasperated when I was taken somewhere in the car. Couldn't see anything from the side window. Everything was constantly moving and what I saw was just a haze.  Over time, like most things in my body, it started very slowly getting better.  If I describe it as a line , it was an upward moving line with a very small upward gradient. This was a line driven by the work of neuroplasticity. In the pa...

When I had my stroke early in 2019 I was in the hospital's ICU for a little over a month. I don't remember if they gave me a bath in the ICU. It didn't matter to me anyway as I was unconscious there mostly and hallucinating all the time.  Later they shifted me to their HDU ward (high dependency unit). It was at the end of a long corridor of atleast another 20-24 wards/ rooms.  That made it miserable!  Why you say? They have very skeletal staff for the night shift (nurses, attenders, doctors, everything). It is the duty/ responsibility of the night shift staff to give a bath to the patients and handover to the day staff.  Usually 1 nurse + 1 attender (ward boy) had the responsibility of giving bath to all the patients of one side of the long corridor.  They did a quick namesake job (ಕಾಟಾಚಾರ ಕೆಲಸ). Even then, it would take 15-20 minutes per patient - disrobe, bath, enrobe, teeth cleaning, etc).  They had to finish this for all the patients before 7:30AM (whic...

 Couple of weeks ago, I had mentioned about my teeth condition and the possibility that I might have to knock 1-2 as well ( https://mindofmystrokedbrain. blogspot.com/2024/07/20240728- pain-that-can-be-borne.html ). I went to the hospital yesterday for it. You might be wondering why I went to a hospital when I should have been going to a dental clinic for it. ​i) That's because in my condition, there are many emergencies that can happen and a dental clinic is not equipped with all the facilities that is required to cope with such emergencies. ii) More importantly, it is  because I didn't see a dentist but a " maxillofacial surgeon ".  "maxillofacial" - I came across that term only recently. ​  ​ I have always had a limited vocabulary in English... I wouldn't say it was poor, it was just adequate and limited to words used in regular speaking stuff.  I have always wondered what is the necessity of using complex words when we...

Ever since I have had my stroke and became bed ridden, I sleep on a mechanised hospital bed so that I can be inclined and reclined to different levels and heights. It is needed both for me (as my muscles don't support me and I can't get up on my own) as well as the nursing staff to be able to do many things needed for my care). The hospital bed, as you may have noticed in hospitals, has a mattress which is made of rexine upholstery (usually blue in colour - I don't know why). It needs to be a non absorbing upholstery to be able to wash/ wipe the mattress clean as it is very common to soil it for bed ridden people who are in diapers. That makes it hard unlike usual mattresses. Most importantly, I have been lying on an "airbed" on top of the mattress since my stroke, the airbed is also a very common feature for bedridden people (especially strokes like my case). Since we have absolutely no ability in our muscles on the back, waist, hips, etc., we can't turn arou...

I wrote sometime back (a while back actually I think) that I used to have a very good teeth set but it has become more like a shark teeth set after the stroke. (https://mindofmystrokedbrain.blogspot.com/2021/11/20211125-my-teeth-set.html) One more effect of the stroke was that I couldn't open my jaw much for almost 3+ years. I could Max open my mouth 1-1½ cm. So for all that while I have not brushed my teeth. Though I was not consuming anything orally, i still used to have a mouthful of secretions from the lungs and the saliva. All of this would become a thick fluid because I can't swallow. Imagine it stagnating for hours together. Apart from the small of a septic tank, the other thing is what all this stagnation would have done to the teeth. From about 6m back, I have been able to open the mouth wide enough for a toothbrush head to sneak in (the electric toothbrush). I still can't open it wide enough to reach the back of the molars but I can get to the front of them  Recen...

I keep getting a lot of stroke surveys to fill up from time to time.  I fill these religiously and provide the information the survey asks for. I fill them genuinely as I don't know what it is going to be used for generally.  Do you know the biggest underlying problem I find in all of them (I have not come across an exception till date). They all assume a stroke is a stroke is a stroke.. surely, we can draw conclusions with generalized assumptions.  Unfortunately, a stroke is not a stroke is not a stroke. If we get a headache, stomach ache or any other illnesses/ diseases they somehow can be generalized and we can understand the symptoms, causes and consequences thus having generalized treatments and care.  However, the only thing common for every stroke is that the root cause was deprivation of oxygen to the brain cells causing the cells to either weaken or die.  Where the stroke happened in the brain, for how long, how much impact did it cause and to what func...

When someone goes through a life transforming event like a stroke, they are a completely different person afterwards. In that sense rhe previous person dies that instance and a new person is also born that instance. Others rarely notice or appreciate this death & birth transformation as its not a physical thing but a mental death and rebirth.  In that sense, I am 5 today!  Born on 6th Feb 2019! When I had the stroke, after I could think properly (maybe 6-7 after weeks), also fuelled by the assurances by everyone around that it's only a matter of 6 months or so, I came up with a 5 year plan in my mind. I bitterly realised soon that planning and such things are out of the window for good. About 6 months later, till about a year and ½, it took a lot to accept the reality and get adjusted to the reality that the previous me was indeed dead. Also, the frame of mind was that I was only dead still and there was no recognition of the rebirth (as I couldn't do anything, couldn't...

Some days back, I had written about why i feel the muscles have strands and each of them being connected to the brain separately... (https://mindofmystrokedbrain.blogspot.com/2024/01/20240124-balancing-equations.html) Come to think about it, I am guessing that there are such connections and strands for not just muscles but every part of the body - bones, ligaments, tissues, skin and every organ we have. Thinking about it, in orders of magnitude, it probably is in hundreds of thousands at least (maybe even Millions). Here is the most interesting thing. All of them are connected to the brain through the spinal cord. The spinal cord is about 1cm in diameter. Not only that, not exactly circular in cross section but it is hollow like a very long and thin cylinder. The centre of the spinal cord is filled with spinal fluid. It is not circular, but it's given that it cannot be very big with that cross section area.  What follows is the engineer in me speaking.... Well, the hundreds of tho...

It is fascinating to read and understand how muscles work. For all my life, (since I had not given it any thought earlier), I simply had assumed a muscle is 1 muscle. Ex, if we say bicep muscle, it was one muscle in my mind (I don't know why I imagined so, but so it was). The truth is very far from it . Each muscle is made up of hundreds of strands (maybe thousands). And the best part (I have practically understood, not backed by any medical stuff) - is that each strand is connected separately to the brain and not as one.  For mechanical enthusiasts, each strand works like a sort of rack and pinion arrangement, operated by a chemical reaction, triggered by the brain. Each strand has two separate connections to the brain - one to work the rack and pinion arrangement each way (to contract the muscle strand and the other to release it or relax the muscle strand). In short, that's how it achieves any movement. By selecting the set of muscle strands to activate (how many most probab...

Couple of days back, there was a "Homa" at my mom's place. I might not be translating right, but a "Homa" is a traditional offering to various deities using fire as the medium for making the offering. Needless to say, it involves controlled fire but a lot of very uncontrolled smoke. Especially because of the offerings, it's very irritating to the eyes and lungs - usually a lot of burning in the eyes and coughing. The intention was conveyed by my mom a few weeks ago since my sister's family was visiting all together after some time and it's an auspicious thing to do. I said ok and didn't give it much thought. Usually thoughts and intentions fizzle away for everyone when it comes to following through with actions. But, she was following up actions and it looked like she will get it done. Few days ago (maybe a week and ½), she asked me in case necessary, will I be ok to get involved in the same only when needed. I usually don't involve myself in...

Before my stroke, I was a regular bloke with lots of work, lots of goals, lots of priorities and lots of distractions. This was both office work and personal life at home. Like with any regular bloke, I had ample share of distractions, procrastination, laziness etc, etc  After the stroke, it has come down significantly . I am not professing to be above all these. It has come down significantly though. Very significantly. I keep getting the complaint from everyone about my very painful following ups, urgency with everything, pestering about progress as follow up to something or updates etc. I have thought about it. It's not like I was setting such crazy expectations and the bar so high earlier. I had assumed it was just natural because of the effect of not being able to do anything & understanding the value of time and abilities because I am like this. It made sense and I had made peace with that explanation to my mind. Some days back, I was watching a podcast type talk show, wh...

  ​ Warning : reading this may affect your belief and affect you adversely. Read ahead at your own risk. ____________________ Couple of days back, I had my bout of hiccups. I have written earlier about my hiccups after the stroke. It is quite bad. This time it lasted about 2½ days. Earlier it used to last longer and more continuous and more intense as well. It has gotten slightly better over the 4½ years. When I am in the "hiccups zone" now, it typically starts soon after I am fed, lasts for about 1½ hrs and stops . Soon it will be next feed time and the cycle starts again. Usually the nurses quickly become immune to it and they get the pattern. However, both my current nurses are new and I had not been in a "hiccups zone" after they had started. They both got replaced at around the same time and did not have the benefit of knowledge from the other person. Naturally, they assumed it would go away as per normal. When they saw it not going away quickly and it was comi...

Disclaimer :- these are my thoughts based on my observations. They are not backed by research or medical proof. Take it with a pinch of salt... _____________________________ This is not a recent observation but observed over the past 4+ years. I have not been able to make sense of it for a very long time and after I processed it in my head, I didn't know how to express it and write about it... Giving it a shot now... ________________ When I drove the car/ rode  the bike, I have always been very bad with directions and orientation. And I am a "man" - so I wouldn't stop to ask for directions either. And I was not slow either... Net result was, i usually over shot an exit, hit a dead end, etc and invariably I would have to take a U turn and go back to get further. When in Australia, my wife would be struggling to let me know the directions with a big and bulky map book only to witness the U turns anyway (these were the days when Google maps were not yet in).  After I had...