Stroke victim turns tables.

“God squeezed you so hard because he loves you so much, but He’ll make you better again!” was one of the things, my sister, Anita, remembers our mother telling her when she had a stroke at 47 years old, in 1972.

The American Heart Association claims more than ½ million people have strokes every year. Anita is one such statistic. She suffered a stroke, which in simple terms means blood flowing to part of the brain is blocked, and that part of the brain stops working for a time.

Anita, at sixty (when I interviewed her), fought her battle to speak, see, and move on her own will, once again, and proved her mother’s prediction right. Not only has Anita fought her own personal battle, but she helped others along the way. Anita volunteered her time at Berks Heim Nursing Home several hours a week. She was also involved in caring for an invalid mother who suffered a stroke in the 80s.

Anita spoke to nurse aide classes, who deal with stroke victims, in the Berks County area. It is there she told “her story,” so these nurses had a better insight to the feelings of a stroke victim.

I asked Anita if this didn’t bring back many painful memories. She asserted, “Yes, but if it helps others give the attention, care, and respect to these patients who are not physically and mentally alert, it’s all worth it.”

Anita was babysitting for 3 grandchildren, as well as, her own 11 year old son, the eve of her stroke. She recalls walking into a wall, losing her balance, but yet not comprehending what was happening to her. At one point her son questioned, “Is anything wrong, Mother?” You’re talking funny.”

Not realizing anything was serious, not wanting to frighten her son, Anita laughed it off stating she was fine. After watching her actions a length of time, her son decided to call her sister, Dorothy, who lived nearby, and his father, to say he was worried.

Once family arrived, she was rushed to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed thrombosis of right internal carotid artery, which means motor weakness or paralysis on one side of the body and a sensory disturbance, incoordination, double vision, and slurred speech.

In the first hour after her stroke, Anita, felt as though the one side of her body wasn’t there. She would ask what was lying in bed with her. It was her own limbs. The long word for this is somatotopagnosia, and generally lasts only a few days, according to notes by “Rehabilitation of Stroke Patients” by Trainex Corp.

The hospital was not equipped to give extensive therapy, but she was taught to pick up things with her hands, although they were generally unresponsive. She also learned to walk, “I did drag my leg and I’d lose my shoe, but I could walk.” Anita stressed.

Her speech was slurred but she could mumble enough to be understood. Recalling those days, she laughs, “I did talk funny, but thank goodness I didn’t lose my speech. I would have gone crazy. I like to talk.”

Having been hurt by some unintentional, overheard remarks from visitors, Anita told me, “All stroke victims are different, but most times we can hear, think, and know. Be careful what you say in the patient’s room or in the corridor. We can be hurt very easily.”

After a two month stay in the hospital, it was decided Anita would go home. Today, she feels she would have had more help by entering a rehabilitation center, but being ignorant of the seriousness of her condition, and having an 11 year old son at home that needed attention she went home.

She doesn’t remember crying in the hospital. After her return home, she states, “I cried bucketsful. I’d cry when I couldn’t do something. I’d cry when someone looked

at me. I assumed when the doctor said I could go home, I’d lead a normal life. I was in total shock. This was reality.”

“Over and over” was constantly in Anita’s vocabulary. She practiced working on straightening her mouth, even trying to smile was hard. She had not looked into a mirror until she returned home. “You’re really touchy about your looks. You know you don’t look good. I’d rather they talked about the weather; anything but my looks.”

She’d practice getting her eyes in focus, by encircling her arm in back of her head, and pointing a finger towards the eye, until she could see it. “Over and over again,” was her mantra. “I’d squeeze balls, pick up cards and buttons, over and over again. I learned to do things my own way, but in time I did learn.”

There was a time Anita thought of committing suicide. She remembers holding onto the patio posts, so she wouldn’t run to the railroad tracks behind her home. One day she recalls vividly, overhearing a conversation between her husband and an older daughter, about the daughter raising her son. It was at this point she became more determined then every to get better, “I raised five others and I was going to raise this one too!” she told me.

“I didn’t eat at first. I

had to be told or I’d forget. I’d use a chalk and blackboard to check off if I took a pill,” she said. She had lost some weight during the hospital stay and was down to 87 pounds and didn’t gain for quite some time. “But,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “You can tell I can eat now, so I don’t complain.”

“I even forgot how to cook. Luckily my sister, Dorothy, lived nearby to call and tell me how to do things. She’d call back in a few minutes to check if I started the meal, and I’d already forgotten. And so it went on like this for months,” she said.

Self image is very important. Anita told me she was expecting company one evening, so she washed her hair with her good hand. After the job was completed, she realized she couldn’t curl her hair, and immediately burst into tears. Her husband called a neighbor, who was a hairdresser to fix her hair, so the evening wasn’t totally ruined.

“Sometimes you have to be strict with a patient who isn’t trying,” she said. “I had been hurt when a daughter came to visit and said today I’m to do bedding. She insisted I had a good hand and should use it. There were many time I was grateful for the extra push, when my incentive wavered.”

The first time Anita had to go shopping she became depressed, and several times after that. Her coordination wasn’t that good, but she had to learn. She told me she’d go into department stores, quickly buy something, only to end up returning it the next week. “It was a new experience and I just had to buy something. One sales clerk remembered her constant returns and questioned me. I decided it wasn’t any of her business and told her I suffer from a phobia of some kind.”

It was two years before Anita drove a car. One day she was home alone and came upon the car keys. She was sure she could drive around the block. “And I did,” she laughed. “It felt so good, I drove around one more time.” Later, she told her doctor of her driving incident and he, too, felt she was ready for short drives.

I told Anita she didn’t seem to have any residual effects from the stroke any more. “Oh, it’s there, but not as noticeable. If I’m upset my mouth droops and quivers a bit. If I’m tired, my hand and foot feel heavy. I don’t like it, but it’s certainly better than 12 years ago. Besides the doctor told me to expect this and not to worry about another stroke.”

Five years after her first stroke, she had a cranial operation to help prevent another stroke. Though she doesn’t do patchwork quilting any more, because she doesn’t have feeling in her fingertips, her hands can embroider. She also helps her youngest son, now a woodcarver, paint some of his figurines. “It’s a feeling of accomplishment,” she says elated.

I think I can close with the words of Anita Wildhaber, RN, a stroke victim herself, in her essay, “The Silent Patient Speaks: “It is you nurses who give us hope and courage to try to strengthen our minds, to establish nerve pathways that will make these useless shells of muscle, bone, and tissues respond once more to our commands and in time return into the world of speaking, seeing, doing, functioning beings.”

NOTE: Anita, at 91 years old, died peacefully of natural causes, in her own apartment on June 18, 2016.