When I Realized My Brain Was Different

Coming home from the hospital wasn't a big deal.  I started driving right away, but for some silly reason, I had to use the GPS to get around, but I didn't think much about it.  When I was chatting with my friend, who told it to me like it was... "Nancy! You had a stroke!"  So I decided not to drive for my own safety and depend more on my boys, which was very difficult for me to do.

It wasn't until we went to the farmers market in Downtown Boise, that I realized I was a little off.  I couldn't remember the streets, the location of the Farmers Market, or even the Grove.  I got so frustrated, that I asked my hubby to take me home.

I didn't realize that I was a writer until I came across some of my work on my laptop.  I then remember that I use to have about a dozen stories playing in my head, but they were all gone.  I had only written a few of them, but the rest disappeared.  I read my completed works because I couldn't remember writing them.

I had difficulty finding the right words to use or describe things.  I would call a small cooking pot, a "baby pan."  I would stare at a vegetable and then ask my son what it was called.  When we went shopping, I would look at all the produce signs to remember what the items were called.  When I cooked, I could only do one thing at a time, which made the task of making enchiladas extremely difficult. 

I seemed to be angry, frustrated, sad, and happy all at once.  I couldn't listen to music and my son at the same time, it was one or the other.  One thought at a time, one task at a time, anything I did, it had to be done one thing at a time.  If I was talking and another thought popped into my mind, I would forget what I was talking about.  One frustrated day, I asked my husband if I would ever go back to normal, lovingly he said, "No."  Confused, I asked why, and he said, "Because you had a stroke.  You will have to create a new normal."

The first thing I started working on was my multitasking when cooking.  Every time I cooked, I would put a small pot of water on the stove so I could get use to running 2 burners at the same time, sadly, I would sometimes forget to turn one off... thank GOD for Smoke Detectors!  When I would home on the internet, I had 5 songs playing in the background, in a constant loop, so I could get use to the background noise.

One day, I was in the car with my husband on our way from Dutch Bros, when I saw a young man wearing a football jersey and his girlfriend, walking and holding hands.  At that moment, I remembered a story!  Small random events have caused my brain to retrieve some of my little stories, which I am grateful for.

As of now, I am learning to adjust and create a new normal... and I'm okay with that :)