LifeFocus.ca is my my website. I’ve had it for a couple of years … Since 2000. For the first 6 years, I made it a Performance Coaching website.
In the last 7 years, I had a stroke in London. It was bad. I was just surviving! I lay in hospital, curled up in bed. My right side, all the way down, was numb and heavy from loss of feeling. I rolled over, and my right side flopped beside me. My head was pounding. My face was swollen on the right side; I could feel the stitches in my mouth along the back teeth and, again, my face was cut beside the eye. I was attached to a catheter. They removed it eventually but they wouldn’t allow me to get up.
I didn’t know what had happen to me except that I had had a stroke. I lay there feeling silent; there were no thoughts in my head that I was aware of. I woke up and it was night; I woke up and it was day… after day after day after day and I didn’t have any thoughts about it.
Aphasia: this is an inability to produce speech (I talked in gibberish; I understood a bit of what I wanted to say, I just couldn’t produce it). I had trouble understanding language. I couldn’t read except for the titles in the newspaper and those didn’t make sense to me. Also my sense of smell, taste and vision were impaired and my balance problems, trouble walking, and loss of balance and coordination were plaguing me.
I spent two months in Parkwood Hospital getting out just before Christmas. I rode in a wheelchair a bit through the first month and had speech, occupational and physiotherapy. In speech therapy when asked for a word, I knew what the thing was but I searched my brain for it and didn’t come up with it; it was blank! We went through animals, furniture, eating and the climate outside. Still, it remained a mystery. In physiotherapy, I was learning to walk, turn circles and climb stairs; all on my limp leg. Everything that was 10 feet away seemed impossible.
In occupational therapy, I learned about about puzzles and about cheques … how weird! Putting all the important information in and working with my left hand. It’s harder with numbers, times and dates! I’ve struggled with that one … even now!
Four years it’s taken me to feel like I belong here and eventually, three years ago, I moved from London to Toronto. I feel very centered and focused; I love Toronto! I started walking rather than driving. I walked everywhere, up the stairs and down to the subway; it became easier and easier. I move with joy!
To behave normally, I laugh when I’m amused, and I say things that need saying in my world. No one notices that I hesitate when I’m speaking; nobody even knows that I had a stroke. I’m interested to read and write and to fit in with the world. I join in conversations.
And so LifeFocus.ca has become my website … again! Recently I’ve learned to use WordPress; it is terrific! I have been studying WordPress at George Brown College and I have adopted it because it makes so-o much sense for my blog …