Post Stroke Recovery--Dealing With Anger and Uncertainty

Not surprisingly, given how private most stroke patients feel about the progress of their recovery, most of the comments about my blog entries on my recovery come in the form of emails, one of which arrived about an hour ago.

            One of the readers had her stroke about a year ago, since then she’s experienced two TCI’s and now has a history of mal seizures. But what really came through in her email was anger.  She accused me of being “blithe about recovery” and went on to vent how she had lost friends, is feeling isolated and is suffered financially until her disability kicked in.

            Her email struck a very deep chord in me and touched on many of the things I experienced in my first year after my stroke

            I lost much more than my beloved profession when I had my stroke. I found myself angry much of the time, feeling unable to control my life and fearful that my friends would desert me.

            I think my feelings of anger were the worse after effects of my stroke.  I was pissed off for a long time. Where I was very fortunate is a family that taught me to get beyond t hose feelings and which gave me the intellectual and inner tools to do just that. I still get angry at what happened, but when I do; I step outside, look at my garden, grab my weeding claw and whack a few weeds. Then I watch the birds congregating at my newly erected avian resort spa. Pretty soon, I’m smiling again and the anger has passed.

            What I’ve not written about are other people in my life who have had strokes and let anger take over their lives. One guy, in particular, an attorney, stands out in my mind.  His initials were F.A. M and he treated his anger by self-medicating with alcohol. Looking back, I knew I didn’t want to go that route and I called on the one creed from my youth that I can remember just as clearly today as when my dad (Boardie Forbes) sat me down when I was eight and said forcefully: ”Don’t be a quitter!”

            It’s that saying that’s kept me going many times over the years, including during the darkest days of my recovery when I couldn’t see the point of ever trying to write again. Dad would be 92 now, and no one ever accused either of his two boys of ever quitting an important job. Ever!

            And that’s how I view my recovery: An important job that I need to continually work on, one section at a time.  And dealing with anger is a big deal for me. I can succumb to it and waste entire days, or I can deal with it and try to correct the things that made me angry.

            I deal with anger differently than other people. On some days, I garden. On others I go out and fish, either from the seashore or aboard my boat out in the ocean. My boat makes me happy, yet I spend as more time fishing from shore than I do from my boat inside or outside San Diego Harbor. And for me, it’s never mattered whether I catch fish or just drown innocent anchovies. It’s about being outside, watching seals eye my rod and bait tank, and listening to the gulls scream as they wheel and dive overhead. 

It seems impossible for me to be outside and remain angry. It’s just too counter intuitive for me to emotionally remain in such a place.

When I had my stroke, my financial obligations, didn’t change. I still had a big monthly child support obligation to fulfill and mortgage payments to make. The short version here: I kept current on all of my obligations and discovered a new way to save money (I never spend lose change and instead put the accumulated rolled change in my “mad money “ savings account every month. The simple act of saving money makes me smile while simultaneously providing a source  of unbudgeted funds to buy outrageous birthday gifts for my family.

Another thing I’ve down in recovery is stay in touch with my friends. I make an effort to let them know, I’m still above ground, laughing and ready to be engaged.  I go fishing, back packing, play cards, discuss books and encourage them to play skip work and see a first-run movie at a matinee. Truth be told, I’ve become quite the Pan to a far-flung collection of Lost Boys from the tribe of long ago, faraway, Azusa of the Fifties and Sixties. If they don’t want to hang with me because my attention wanders and I occasionally drool, I get over it rather quickly. But real friends have been there for me and I’ve been there for them, which is precisely as it should be for a kid who was told “Don’t be a quitter” all those decades ago in the shade of a earthy smelling backyard banana tree, by the real King of the Lost boys, my dad. Boardie Forbes.

When I decided to write openly about my experiences in recovering from a stroke,I wanted to make it clear that it was my experience, not  some sort of universal axiom.

            So to paraphrase Scoop Nisker from San Francisco’s legendary underground FM radio station, KSAN: “if you don’t like my stroke experience, go out and have one of your own.”

But remember, you don’t have to choose to be pissed off all of the time. And you really shouldn’t isolate. Get outside, tread a book in the sunlight, grow some radishes, make friends with garden mammalian pests or get a hobby. Just do something and try to do it to the best of your abilities.

Oh yeah, my stroke effected my depth perception and I’m not comfortable driving at night, and I still get really annoyed at some things.  But I’ve learned to get over the post stroke anger. I may be blithe, but I try to be honest.—Jim Forbes from Escondido, CA on a rainy afternoon.