Express Yourself - "What do you Miss Most?"

#1 · March 11, 2023, 3:28 pm

Some years ago, at my speech therapy class, someone asked me “Did you travel for work? If so, when and where?” “I sure did” I said, “do you have a few days for me to tell you about it?”

"The man I used to be" was a million-mile frequent flyer, but when my stroke and my Aphasia barged into my life, travel (like languages, friends and money) vanished. Do I miss it? Kinda. But I found other passions that occupy my mind & time.

So I ask you, survivors: What do you miss most? I'd love to know! Please express yourself and share!

#2 · March 11, 2023, 4:09 pm

I used to be a public speaker on Consumerism and a trainer for apps both in hospitals and legal firms. But no more. I had a hemorrhagic stroke, which lost my ability to move my right hand and a leg that has spasms constantly, that put an end to my career 14 years ago, but as a survivor, opened up new vistas that in my wildest dreams, I thought I couldn't accomplish.

I wrote a book called The Tales of a Stroke Patient and started a blog that was called The Tales of a Stroke Patient (because for a few years after my stroke, I still felt like a patient) to finally change it to The Tales of a Stroke Survivor. Then I, along with Sara Riggs, co-founded Brain Exchange for Brain Injury. We have over 500 members in a year and a half and Bain Exchange members around the world come from 6 continents.

I miss knitting, running, and travel, but now I and Sara have Brain Exchange to occupy our time. See, that's the thing. You can't give up on everything, just some things. I am writing my memoir, too, and I keep moving in my self-propelled wheelchair, because if I stop, even for a minute, that means I have lost hope in everything. And I won't let that happen.

I am looking forward to the Express Yourself Project because it will propel many Brain-injured people to achieve accomplishments, too. So as C.S. Lewis once said, "Onward and upward!"

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