Stroke.

My stroke happened two years ago this past Thursday.  I have told the story a lot of times to a lot of people.  It is a movie that will forever play in my head.  For example, I will never forget the Boss' face when I was trying to tell her that I was alright and that I would just go to work.  I will never forget the nervous girl standing in the corner of Clermont Mercy's trauma room.  How I wished she could just understand that she should take a moment to listen to my heart, it was a learning moment I could not convey.  I will member me desperately trying to tell the ambulance lady that I had a red dog named Jake who needed me to walk with him.  I will remember my Dad putting his arm around the Boss as she talked to the doctor from UC, how I wanted to make the decision for them, it was not fair that they had to make it.  Trying to get them to take me in aircare:) I will remember how, for some strange reason, when Dr. Yauck entered the room and spoke, all of the background clutter eased.  His voice seemed to stick out above the others, he talked to not only to my mind, but something deeper inside. 

These are the parts that are easy for me to convey when I tell the story.  "It was weird, my right arm just stopped working."  The parts that are hard are the parts like, I lost track of where my right are was, where it belong in the space it lived in.  How, when I was laying in the that trauma room bed, I had no idea where the boundaries of my body stopped.  I could look down and see myself but, it just didn't seem like it was me laying there.  They are the cheesey parts I don't like to think about.  These were the really scary parts for me.

A friend sent me this link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Although she takes to a spiritual place that I might not, and I did not think, "wow this is great", many parts of her story are exactly how I felt.