Feeling a bit nostalgic😔

Me and My Mom ride to the river

Good afternoon. I had a busy day yesterday, so I didn't right a blog post. To be completely honest, I could have made the time between my busyness to write something. However, a feeling of nostalgic, for the way my mom used to be before her major stroke, hit me hard.
It was a heart-wrenching morning that seemed to carry on throughout most of my moments of the day and still now while writing about it.

My mother needs help to take care of herself. The stroke that deadened much of her brain, left her with what they call Aphasia. If you're not familiar with Aphasia, like I wasn't before my mother's stroke, it means that a person with this has lost the ability to understand or express speech. The speech therapist did not realize, nor did the neurologist, what I found interesting about my mother. I showed everyone what my mother could do despite their conclusions.

I decided to see if my mom could understand what she reads. In the past, in my psychology class, I studied a little about the different parts of the brain. Therefore, I did a test to see if my mother understood what I wrote. Although some parts of her brain are damaged, others are not. My mother understood what I wrote! My twin brother could not believe it!

While our mother was in Healthsouth rehabilitation, she went through motor skill exercises, speech therapy, and fitness exercise.  But, the rehab did not speak to her like I did on the whiteboard, nor did they speak to her on a piece of paper, or other tools for reading and writing, like maybe Notes on iPad. The speech therapist had note cards that instructed Mom to do things. I noticed the way my mother was acting. I knew that my mother felt like the therapist was treating Mom as if Mom was stupid. Mom didn't like her intelligence being insulted, being treated like a little kid. After I showed the therapist, (and everyone concerned) that Mom understood what I wrote, they could not believe it. The speech therapist changed her evaluations to my mother's brain damage as NOT being global as she initially suggested. The doctor there said my mom was, "unique."

I just wondered if this was true for other patients with Aphasia and it could be that the doctors do not know to explore this communication through writing to their patients to see if they understand. They know that Aphasia patients do not process information through their ears to their brains. This process goes through a different part of the brain than seeing something. With Aphasia, Mom cannot process some of what she hears. I say 'some' because her brain does process some things she hears (BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY around my mom).

It makes sense to me that testing to see if Mom understands by reading, going through a different part of the brain, might work. The language processing or Broca's area in Mom's brain is damaged, and seemingly her Wernicke's part of the brain, which is responsible for the comprehension of speech, is not working correctly. My mother knows what she wants to say, although her words are mostly mumbling. Some sentences come out perfect. And after my test, I see that Mom comprehends what she reads, at least simple sentences. Her Occipital Lobe did NOT get damaged. Therefore, in my summation, when my mother reads, her Wernicke's area seems to work for the comprehension of words written. My mother even writes pretty good, when she tries. She gets frustrated and doesn't do it much. If she only would, she would grow new neurons.

Mom didn't see a neurologist until after she got out of rehab. I did not see my mom's MRA "(magnetic resonance angiogram) or MRI scans, magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to provide pictures of blood vessels inside the body" (https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/aftercareinformation/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=ug6636). I would not understand them if I did. I still do not understand everything about the brain or Aphasia. All I know is what the therapists, doctors, and what I have witnessed about my mom.

The doctor from the rehab explained what Aphasia meant and wrote it out in a book pamphlet. I added to that pamphlet that my mom understands what someone writes on the whiteboard. It seems that anyone, nurse, I tell this to has never heard of it.

I am doing my best to adjust to the way things are now. I miss not being able to pick up the phone and call my mother. I miss that with my dad, as well. He passed away in 2002 at the age of 65 from lung cancer. My younger and only sister passed away two years after him. Loss is inevitable. Getting to the acceptance part of grief is getting faster on some days when feeling nostalgic. But, today, today was a nostalgic lingering day, all day with tears escaping from my ducts. I decided to let them flow as long as they needed to flow. I feel better today.