Stroke in a new eye

Very有缘with stroke these few days.

Get stroke as the topic for both assignment

Visited a stroke center today.

Before this, I wanted to show off a bit.

So proud of myself as I managed to find the way to NASAM without sesat although I just Google Maps the location once the night before. =D

Seems like my luck with taxi drivers improve as well. I get discounts, haha.

Found this when I was doing background research before the interview.

So touched.

They just want to let you know,

There are life after stroke.

But of course, after proper rehabilitation.

People may think stroke patient are useless old people and it is okay to leave them with paralyzed body and wheelchair.

But if you came here and take a look at how much effort they spend to regain their independence

you will definitely change your mind. 

Everyday they came for therapy

Repeating movement that were once simple for them with great difficulty

Spending minutes to recall how to spell tomatoes

Staring at those picture cards till their eyes burn a hole on it but still failed to recall the word

Writing school kid level word like ball, egg like little kid

You can see from the paper, how hard it took them to write a four alphabet word

They had to stop and think, erase over and over again because they forgot

Because they couldn't hold the pen firmly

Because their hand don't move the way they want

Even though it took them like a century to retrieve the word

Frustrated yes, sometimes they laughed at themselves

They never stop trying 

Once they were engineer, successful businessman, dedicated housewife
They welcome you with warm smiles
They were so eager to communicate
They want to tell you their stories,
They don't reject questions
But they were stopped by a barrier that was erected inside their brain
They tried to jump through the barricade
Search for words on the scattered floor
Reconnect the wire for motor control
The most saddening part is they are aware of their condition
They know
They were glad to see improvement
but on the other hand they also aware that this is only 10% of what they could really do

I actually feel like crying in the first session we observed
Not only when you see how hard the patient tried
But how their partner support them wholeheartedly
So sweet <3
How they keep their notes and diaries
Copying the words over and over again like we copy vocabulary in primary school
Smiling like a shy kid when they were praised for their art work
When they told you about all the efforts they did
Really feel like want to salute them

Stroke is such a mischievous devil 

You never know what it might do to someone.

It can took away your speech, your freedom, your ability to move and on top of it

YOUR LIFE

You never know when it strike

A man we interviewed get his stroke in the middle of a heart scan in a hospital

How was that even possible?

But when it done its trick to you

You have to deal with it

Real life is always different from the textbook.

Aphasia, Apraxia, Dysarthria

Effortful speech, word finding difficulties, agrammatism, memory retrieval difficulties

It does not bring any meaning when you just want to memorize the definition to answer exam paper

and every people exhibit different characteristic even they have the same problem

It is never the same and that's why observation is so important

In a way, these patients are lucky

Although we might think the center is small,

The condition of the therapy room was not very conducive

The resources are limited

At least they get proper treatment

At least they were given the chance to fight to regain their independence

At least they were not left to rot on wheelchair or sick bed with a maid

They have a center with well-organised administration and dedicated volunteers

They could even go outing and play bowling as outing activities

The center is going to start another hard times without speech therapist once again

Really impressed by the spirit of the volunteer

They can come twice every week for years

and ensure the continuation of the speech therapy even without a speech language therapist

and they do this for free

seriously I thought these type of people extincted in this world

But miraculously, these gems still exist and shining more glaringly after years of polishing 

They are humble. They said they were just helping around and not properly trained

But what they did were way more than this

Sometimes you don't need to gain the title to do the work

And you don't do the work to gain a title

Anyway, we only managed to see the mild patient,

how about the severe case where they have no respond at all?

I asked senior, what should you do when they couldn't respond to you

Lower your expectation, they answer

Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that status quo doesn't allow you

Somehow I feel that we are lucky to miss the afternoon session

I dislike the helpless feeling

When you have to surrender to the devil

and satisfied if they can point and made gestures

You'll say, at least they can communicate

But still, this is not enough

Still learning to accept the fact

Thanks to all these assignments which give me a chance to really get in touch with stroke patient

Starting to view strokie from a whole new perspective

Seriously I feel like want to be a volunteer there!

Friends, they are having a fund-raising carnival at 26th Jun

Do go and support if you can! ^^