One of the things that stroke patients experience that there is no amount of PT or OT or any other kind of therapy for is the fatigue. Not the kind that you get when you've done yard work all day or pulled a 12 hour shift at work, but the brain fatigue. You see, my brain now has to work even harder at keeping up and remembering things and following simple evolutions in conversations that previously I may have been light years ahead of. Prime example was a few weeks ago I had some relatives visiting from out of state and there was a family get together at my grandmother's house. Any normal time pre-stroke, I would have been able to keep up with the conversation between Aunt A and cousin B and the one with Aunt B, Aunt C, Uncle D and grandma in addition to whatever conversation I was personally having with the person right in front of me. It's always a carnival of chaos when these family members get together because everybody is talking all at once and every body is loud but I could always manage to communicate with them all. Guess that's a nice way of admitting that I have a big mouth too. During this particular visit though, it was too much. Too much noise, too much chaos. I struggled, and struggled is the true word in this instance, to keep up with the one conversation that I was having with a loved one sitting next to me. I can't handle the carnivals of chaos any longer. My brain shuts down and says, "it's closing time...exit here".
I joke that I've become a hermit but in reality it is my own way of protecting my brain. After a handful of outings to loud, energy-filled places (the grocery store, Wal-Mart...which is a story all in and of itself.., other family gatherings, etc...) I've realized that God doesn't want me to be part of the carnivals of chaos. I think that He wants me to focus. Focus on what is right in front of me. Not what is happening in the half-mile radius to every single person around me. But just what He has placed right there square in my lap at the moment.
I fear that my new reclusion may turn some people off and make them think that I'm being rude. Realized this the other night during our first outing to a local sporting event. I had a hard time keeping up with the game, the conversation of the people we were with and the entertainment provided by the team. It was another a-ha moment when I found out that I can either have a conversation with somebody or I can watch the game, but I cannot do both any longer. When we left, the whole drive home I felt bad because I am sure that I missed parts of conversations because I was focusing on the game at the moment.
One thing that this brain fatigue is causing, other than the one-track mind ability, is lots and lots of naps. I have no choice any longer. Yesterday after a particularly peaceful outing, but one in which we met a lot of people that I hadn't seen a great while, I came home and within 20 minutes of being in the door fell asleep...for 4 hours. I would probably have slept the entire night had Tommy not woken me up and asked if I was hungry (I fell asleep before we even ate lunch). Then I was awake for about 3 hours and then fell back to sleep for another 7 hours. My mind, in the peaceful setting, was overloaded with names and faces and the beauty of the place that most take for granted.
I remember growing up, we were always out of bed at the butt-crack of dawn it seemed on the weekend and the mantra was "you can sleep when you're dead there are things to do now". Let me be the first to tell you....that's overrated. There is nothing so important that rest should be deprived. I'm still battling with the fixation that if you sleep or nap you must be lazy (again one of those mindsets that is planted deep in my brain from sometime long long ago) or if you are awake you MUST be doing something productive. It's just not how I'm programmed. Needless to say, we (my medical team and I) are doing some reprogramming in the next few weeks. We have to. It's the next step in rehab.
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