i’m a member of several “stroke survivors” groups in facebook. the complaint i see over and over again is “ever since this happened, my friends abandoned me”. i can relate because in the early days of this happening to me, friends, one in particular, would visit me regularly, but abruptly stopped. i reached out to her three times, but i never heard from her.
another friend that i’ve known for years, comes to visit me about twice a year. he can’t be faulted because, unlike that friend who’s local, he lives about an hour away.
another group of friends visited me once when this first happened, and has never made an appearance again, despite writing to them.
a friend who lives in Massachusetts sends me a Christmas card every year, and i send an e-card. another friend lives overseas and visits every now and then.
i really admire my step mother, lucia discala breault, not for me, who she visits regularly, but a friend of hers had a stroke and she never gave up on visiting her and treating her the same. i know from experience this means so much. we’re not different people just because this happened to us!
i don’t consider what happened to me a stroke. i guess, yes, technically it was. but i consider it more of a surgical accident because i wouldn’t have had a stroke if i didn’t have surgery.
one time i asked my shrink why people avoid stroke survivors. he said because it reminds people of their own mortality.
i didn’t know along with everything else stroke survivors have to bear, we’re also pariahs!
all the more reason to admire my stepmother’s attitude.