About The Book

I was full of life and laughter and them suddenly struck down and fragmented by stroke, both physically and mentally. My foggy journey of strolling through heaven, living through hell, losing my mind, and discovering Self. The long often lonely journey to take back my life and reconstruct the pieces of what I recognized to make the whole of Me come together again. I have used the real names of people in my life as they were to important in my recovery to simply group them as family or friend. I am confident that without their constant love, devotion, and support I would not have survived. It is my sincere hope that others will find some peace and understanding in how the survivor may often feel so others may aid them in their recovery and in their day to day interactions. Understanding what fragmented part you may be faced with is the first step.

Doctors don't necessarily explain that damage is more than physical. Brain damage goes far beyond the physical. To validate one's life by any expression of interest is paramount and makes an awesome difference in recovery and frame of mind. The affected are always having thoughts the brain doesn't stop, there is no down time, dead cells creating a dead end forcing the brain to switch in place to monitor thoughts or control a response. This condition is as new to the affected as it is to you. Decisions made prior to stroke concerning physical participation or mental ability may not be doable now. Patience must be your partner to understand the newness of their capabilities. It may take a few minutes or months for the affected one to reach thoughts of acceptance of the newness of their situation and how it applies to the moment.

Understanding their difficulties and loving them is something that you can't overdo. In talking to others affected by brain injury a thread runs through out all of them. It's a feeling that there was no feelings or limited memory of physical touching. This may be in part due to loss of feeling allover. However, touch and be sure it is felt, touching affects every cell and part of the body. You can't know how they feel if you have never been there so don't say you do. This new found reality exceeds horrible and awful.

I have made every effort to question others involved in my perspectives. However, I became defensive and couldn't understand the whays of my feelings. I have relied on my journals and notes to validate my feelings at the time. Please know these are my perceptions and mine alone. An incident may not at all have been as I saw it. God bless you in any effort you make to aid a brain injured person regardless of how the assault occurred, stroke, surgery, accident or whatever. A brain injury leaves a brain to work as hard to heal itself as to work to heal any injured body part to get well. A cut finger when hit against something causes the brain to yell, "that hurts, stop it," sometimes visible bleeding occurs if a wound is opened.

The brain injured stay in a state of healing showing no physical pain, signs of bleeding or scabs. It's only course of action is to reach out and find another way, in the meantime making responses neither they or others understand while trying to heal and find the correct connections. Be patient, the person you care for is coming together and coming back.