Mind of my Stroked Brain

  ​It has been a while since I have written anything. It is not that I don't have thoughts coming and going which can be shared, I just don't feel like it anymore. As is commonly said, I don't have " enthu " anymore. For close to 6 years after my stroke, I was carrying on with everything and all activities. While it was not overt/ explicit/ or much, I guess there was an underlying "hope". Hope for what? I don't exactly know. but there was some hope which was propelling me I think. Over the past 6m or so, things have gotten worse. Physically, I have become a lot weaker. It is probably not visible to others to perceive, but I am aware how much weaker I have become when I do daily things like sitting, physiotherapy, etc. probably my physiotherapist is the only other person who sees it. Whatever little gains in movements on my right leg and hand have almost completely become zero for months now. Even with my left side, I have become a lot weaker than ear...

Yup, 6-er today. 6 years since I had my stroke. I had the stroke when I was 43. If I make it to the end of this year, I will complete my ½ century on the scoreboard overall. I can certainly say this past year has been the year of regression in my rehabilitation - both physically and mentally.  Physical  fitness (unfitness actually) has probably dragged the mind in a negative/ downward spiral as well. Physically, there have been no real gains. Both my right leg and hand have become worse than they were a year ago. Been additionally having a nagging back ache for many weeks now which is not allowing me to do usual physiotherapy routines. I felt there was some gains inbetween with voicing but that has been lost as well for sometime. So, all in, not a positive year. Mentally, day to day mundane activities I am doing fine. But the deeper mind which deals with more existential thoughts has decayed a lot. I am not able to reconcile the need to exist. I think I have written about this...

 One of my nurses (attenders) went today after a while.  I have 2  ​" attenders ​"  now instead of "nurses" mainly because  (i) There is no point having a nurse.  There is nothing to nurse anymore. Just need someone who can keep the lights on ​... (ii) Nurses are much more expensive than an attender.  ​Nurses usually have a Degree in nursing, maybe experienced, at ease  GNM degree (General Nursing Management)  Attenders  ​on the other hand,  are usually 10th/ 12th pass, untrained and ​ usually  having some compulsion (mostly economic) to agree to do something like this job.  Anyway, getting one is not easy. It is a very quasi-organised industry and very chaotic at that!  There are many many sources (agencies) and it is very easy to get an attender, but getting someone who  ​" clicks ​"  and stays a while is very very difficult and usually takes a miracle. When an attender leaves from here, it is usually a re...

Critical life support systems... We have many needs in life. But not all of them are critical for life itself. Just an extension of "Maslow's hierarchy of needs"...  Ex., we need a number of things in life today - shelter, clothing, sense of security, etc., etc. you can even throw in electricity, internet, wifi, mobile nowadays. Most of us will die without it.  They are all needs, but not critical needs in my opinion. As per my opinion, there are only three things that are critical to life. i.e., life won't survive without these things: 1. Oxygen/ air/ breathing  2. Water/ fluids/ drink  3. Food/ Nutrition/ eating or consuming  1. Air - we breathe. It only takes a couple of minutes for humans without it to die. If we can't breathe, usually we are plugged in to some sort of ventilator machine. It's an external critical life support system. If one cannot breathe at all and has to be on a ventilator forever, how long is reasonable to keep them plugged in (assum...

There is rarely a channel I can watch nowadays for an hour without hearing AI or Humanoid robots. They are being manufactured by several companies to help us at home/ working alongside us , even make us coffee. Usually they are showing of its capabilities and how it moves and does this and that... And I can think about is how incredibly clumsy it is .  I mean, what is our obsession to make it look like a human being and limit it's abilities. For ex. It is struggling to stand, walk and balance on two feet. Any kid from high school will tell you that the most stable platform on and surface is with 3 legs. That's why we have tripods for cameras. So why not build a robot with 3 legs and see how it does. Same with hands/ arms. We (in india) have grown up listening to the great Gods with nothing less than 4 hands. Most have 10. So why limit these robots with just 2. I am sure they can get more done and more efficient with a few more. Looks like the limitations of our mind is being im...

Recently, I wrote about my feeling that my condition had started on a declining slope. ( https://mindofmystrokedbrain. blogspot.com/2024/12/20241201- two-lines-curves-and-their. html ) I got many kind folks telling me afterwards that it was going to be temporary, not lose hope, it'll certainly get better, etc. I think we, human beings - are inherently compassionate/ good. At least 99+% of us. I think so. As an untrained person, If I meet a stage 4 aggressive illness person, who has absolutely no chance and is in a palliative care facility, my first impulse is to offer kind words of "it'll be ok" etc. The feeling is real. very real. but devoid from reality completely. Same with me. I completely and 100% appreciate & understand the sentiment of caring by folks offering it. But as I said, it is completely devoid of practical reality. Even my therapists who work with me everyday don't know what is happening with me everyday. Due to their professional experience ...

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...