Sunday Stroke Survival:I Just Figured It Out, DOH!

For years, since my first stroke in 2012, I've found it hard to explain my right foot's response to touch. Whenever I or some else touches my right (affected) foot up to just above the knee something goes haywire with the response to the sensation. Unless the foot is in full spasticity mode (weight bearing), it moves away from, or behaves badly in extreme movements (think violent bouncing ball type motion) until it ultimately goes into a clonus tremor. That's with a light touch, because with a firm touch it goes into solidly spastic mode and won't move at all. My response was cockeyed. Other than that, I couldn't figure out how to describe it effectively with my aphasia.

I finally figured it out. It's called a hypersensitive response to light touching. I didn't realize that hypersensitivity could happen post stroke. I only knew of feeling nothing and have feeling was possible. Chock it up to something else up they never taught me in nursing school or find anywhere else. Just like a sudden drop in blood sugar was a sign of a stroke. Or, at least it was for me Ms Abby Normal.

Reinforcing a new relearned word.

By writing about it, it helps me reinforcing the relearned word into my memory. It's one of the "tricks" I used with my youngest daughter after her TBI. Say it three times, write a sentence about it, and use it in a sentence. Her last thing to reinforce it was to use it properly for a week three times, this could be verbally or in writing. Sometime in the next month, I'd ask her for the word giving no clues. So I do the same thing for myself when dealing with my aphasia too. Makes sense, right?

(I decided to emphasize tools that helped  me conquer my limitations due to my stroke. So from now on, it will appear like this)

Getting back to my hypersensitivity. Now, I can talk about my limitations, or responses to what's happening using correct words rather than cockeyed, goes nuts, or goes wonky. Although those words describes what's happening. I wonder if I used hypersensitive with my chiropractor eight years ago, would he have tested my knee reflex differently? Would he have rolled backed up a bit on his stool so he wouldn't have been kicked in face? Hmm, I wonder!😘I wuv u Mr. Dr. Crowley! His wife is a chiropractor in the office too. This is the way I distinguished between them.

A lot can be said for having the proper word for a symptom or expression. The other words I used in place of hypersensitive although they meant a similar thing, didn't quite mean the same thing. They weren't descriptive enough in the above case. This was especially true because the person in question was used to me being medically trained. Even though he was told that I suffered with aphasia from my stroke, the words I used, goes nuts, didn't prepare him for what was about to happen. He didn't understand aphasia-speech or thought he did.

So now I own "hypersensitive" again and can use it properly. I own it until another stroke knocks it out of me again. In the future, doctors testing my reflexes are warned. Therapist also! I feel better that I've regained a correct, more descriptive word. With one word at a time, I beat my aphasia back another notch.

Nothing is impossible.