Skip to main content

Support Groups


Are my strokes 6 1/2 years ago, I attended some local stroke support groups. As my brain cleared through the months, I became more aware of my conditions.

I wanted to explore "me." What is Aphasia? What are the statistics? How can I reach out to other survivors?

I started to do some online research about strokes and aphasia. Though reading was still difficult, I researched as much as I could. I wanted more.

"More" in the sense that I wanted to reach out to people like me: Younger stroke survivors with Aphasia. When I would attend stroke support groups, most of the time the survivors were much older than me. I craved interaction with people who could understand my issues.

And I had many issues. I lost my career and my income. I had a young son. Lost my identity in a sense. How was I going to fill up my days? With Aphasia, not even pursue my hobbies such as reading and woodworking.

I do love my older stroke survivor friends, but most of the people who attend stroke survivor groups are all retired people. Several of my younger survivors talked about decades of illness, boredom, worrying about money, etc.

I was 50 years old when my strokes happened. I was on the top of my game and in one instant I crashed and burned. Was I going to deal with this for another 35 or 40 years?

I needed something different to look forward to. I wanted more resources to help me.
Again I searched the Internet. Out of the blue, Facebook I found out that there are so many stroke and Aphasia support groups online.

Though the survivors are essentially strangers to me, we have been connected through this exclusive club that nobody wants to join: survivors.

Despite Facebook flaws, I have joined so many stroke and aphasia support groups on Facebook. I often get tips and support.
O
ften, I support others are going through tough times.
At the same time, Idaho State University conducted intense two week aphasia workshop. I was a participant in June of 2012. It was a great program with one and one and group activities. The eight participants had different degrees of Aphasia.

Two years later, ISU asked several participants to start a new local stroke and aphasia group. Four of us are grade and with the university’s resources we started. Three months later, we were on our own.

I became the chair of the group several years ago. I was committed to use technology to help people. I started the Idaho Aphasia Facebook page.

Every week, try to put more content on our Facebook page. Most every day, I have posted videos some sort.

Often the content is through other aphasia and stroke support Facebook pages.

Through my own Idaho Aphasia stroke support group on Facebook, I have reached more people then I ever could’ve imagined.

Last week, I did my own presentation at our group. I go to school sometimes talk about stroke, aphasia, recovery and hope. I put my presentation on YouTube and posted it on many other Facebook stroke groups. As a result, more than 800 people throughout the world have watched my presentation.

Stroke and Aphasia are lonely conditions. Especially with Aphasia when you have trouble communicating in many ways. You feel trapped in your head.

Through technology, online stroke support resources, and YouTube videos isolation of stroke and aphasia is better than I thought.

I’m so grateful that I have these friends all of the world share my same story.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Two Faces of the American Dream

The massive wave of Norwegian immigration to Minnesota from the 1850s through the early 20th century wasn't a casual choice; it was an escape from crushing land scarcity and economic desperation.  My ancestors, the Dunhams, arrived in 1851 and built a life in Otter Tail County in Minnesota. My great-great-grandfather, Jens Christian Dunham, didn’t just survive—he thrived. He served in the Minnesota legislature as a Republican from 1888 to 1890 and later became a staunch advocate for President Teddy Roosevelt. He was the literal embodiment of the American Dream: an immigrant who fled poverty to become a lawmaker in his new home. Fast forward a century, and a new wave of immigrants—this time from Somalia—is following that exact same blueprint. Like the Norwegians before them, they fled hardship to build a future in Minnesota, and many have run for office to serve the state that welcomed them. Yet, the political rhetoric surrounding these two groups couldn't be more polarized. Don...
Post a Comment
Read more

Phantom Blindness and Taking a Break after Strokes

I met with my eye doctor last week about taking some time off from my vision therapy. I have been doing therapy since my stroke almost two and a half years ago. I am tired, and a need a break. My doctor said, “This is completely understandable. Take some time off.” At the appointment, my doctor tested my vision. Because of the strokes, my vision was affected, and I have a problem in my field of vision on the right side. I have a deficit with my right side peripheral vision. However, it is getting better. During the test, I told him that I “sense things on the right side of my peripheral vision.” It seems that I know that something is there, but I cannot really distinguish what it is. He told me that there is a body of thought describing phantom vision or phantom blindness. A Polish researcher, L. Bieganowski, described this phantom blindness this way:    “The subject of the paper is the phenomenon of phantom vision. It occurs among the blind (or almost blind...
Post a Comment
Read more

Greek orthodox and Catholic‘s

Being a history buff, I’ve always understood that the Catholic Church was split in about 1000 A.D. Our Greek tour guide mentioned the differences a little bit yesterday, but she did not capture the full history. Today I saw a small Greek orthodox by the roadside and I’m going to insert about the history. Eastern Orthodox Catholics and Roman Catholics are the result of what is known as the East-West Schism (or Great Schism) of 1054, when medieval Christianity split into two branches. The Byzantine split with Roman Catholicism came about when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as Holy Roman Emperor in 800. From the Byzantine viewpoint, this was a slap to the Eastern Emperor and the Byzantine Empire itself — an empire that had withstood barbarian invasions and upheld the faith for centuries. After Rome fell in 476, Byzantium was the only vestige of the Holy Roman Empire. Charlemagne’s crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and...
1 comment
Read more