I was channel surfing the other day. I came across "Living After Stroke: Conversations With Couples". I could not find anything on the internet about it, other than it was a show. I watched it and an interesting wrinkle was exposed. It showed or told how hard it is for the other person to deal with the stroke, and how the person with the stroke feels guilty for having so much put on the other.
I can't agree more, I know that the rest of my life is "borrowed time" and that it would have probably been easier if I would have died. I know this, it isn't easy to type, but true all the same. My wife would argue otherwise, I have no doubt there, but it's a moot point anyway, since I'm alive.
Another thing that kind of bothered me is... The people in the show have had to deal with stroke a lot longer than me, and they aren't any closer to finding out what to do or how to be than I am. I'm not quite a year into this, I wonder if I should mark the event... Happy Death Day or something. I'm trying to not be overly morbid about it, but the person I was died, what's left very closely mirrors him. I only had a mild stroke, if you are pregnant you can't be just a little pregnant, it's all or nothing.
Anyway I'd recommend seeing the show to anyone who might wonder about what's involved with caring for someone with a stroke. Though I can't tell when or if it will be played again.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Borrowed Time
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2 comments:
It is true. It is painful, embarrassing, and debilitating for the person with the stroke to feel like a burden on his/her loved ones, and it is hard for the loved ones to adjust their lives. Now imagine what it would be like if you and your wife hated each other, disliked the very presence of each other - and then you had had the stroke. That's what happened to my father, and for the next 10 years my mother refused to care for him, letting him get worse and worse, with him feeling not only like he was a burden (he was a very vital and active man) but having her say it to him, twenty times a day.
Or imagine living with someone who is so physically damaged that the medication they take gives them the mental acuity of an Altzheimer's patient, slowly sinking into incomprehesion, repetitive non purposeful behaviors, and further into pain... with occasional clarity and the full knowledge and humility that they are 'a burden'.
You're not alone. There's a lot of humans out there who suffer as you; some to a lesser extent, some to a greater. And feeling like you do - that the glass-eyed dogs in wheelchairs should be put down and not be a burden on society - only exacerbates it. We all accept the burdens of life; of partnership, of love, of work and stress and everyday things, but the impacts of the unexpected are what drag at us the most.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger. You can't decide that your wife would be happier without you - she might meet an abusive guy who puts her in the same condition as you, she might get Altzheimer's - none of us can predict what will happen, all we can do is deal with it like adults. (Or, in my mother's case, not.) But dealing with it makes us into better stronger people, more appreciative of what we do have. Sounds cliche but it is true. I wouldn't have wished my father another 10 years of constant pain - but I do wish he was still here occasionally.
MH:
You have survived because it was simply NOT "your time", and since were not allowed to know when "our" time might be, we are left to make good on whatever time we have left.
You still have work to do here, but even you might not fully know "what" that work might be.
None of us may.
But perhaps along the way, we might be made aware as to what that "reason" we were spared actually was.
If we don't see it now while we're alive, then most definitely it will speak to those we leave behind from beyond the grave.
And even that isn't all that bad a legacy...
Keep the Faith.
B.G.
((And Wiley...there's not a day goes by I don't want an afternoon with my folks...just one more time.))
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