Wednesday March 31 – Connecting and Connections

Still a busy signal on your phone – first thing in the morning. “It must be off the hook, who else would be calling you at 7am?” I call the nurse’s station and it was off the hook. I finally reached you and you were worried when I didn’t call. You feel the need to connect every day. You are craving real relationships.

You were worried that I had left you for someone else! This has been a worry for you over the last few weeks. I find it frustrating to talk to you about this. “Where would I find the time?” I ask you. “Life is far too complicated as it is, I have no interest in making it more complicated.” My logic doesn’t sink your fears. I guess irrational fears are … just that irrational. Logic has no effect. I try different tactics. Still no success. Perhaps this is something that time will heal. I hope so because this is a conversation that I don’t enjoy at all.

Your PT timed you today. She timed a lap of the PT floor. You walked, alone – you think, down the hall cut across by the elevators and back up the hall to the PT gym. It took 9min 45sec. Not a fast pace but it is a good baseline to measure yourself against.

You like your new OT. With most of the medical professionals who have helped you and you like, you would like to get to know better. She would rather keep the relationship professional.

Pre-stroke, you always had a knack of asking probing and often personal questions of people you want to know better. This has not changed. This is your way of reaching out and connecting to others. The problem with this approach, in a hospital setting, is that the medical staff want to keep their relationship with you professional. This relationship is a one way thing. They get to know all about you but you don’t get to know much about them. This makes relationships rather artificial and as a result they are not rewarding.

When you get home you will be able to invest yourself in real relationships with family and friends that are rewarding and healthy.

Today I connected with an amazing family from Tatamagouche. Joan, the mother, is very involved in brain injury recovery. She has two very good reasons to so passionate about brain injury recovery. Her daughter had major brain surgery that left her with half a brain and her husband had surgery last year for a brain aneurysm. Like you, he is a runner and has run in twenty-five marathons!

Joan’s idea is to help brain injured survivors help their recovery by using their talents that they have and allow family, especially children, assist in the recovery. I made a promise to visit when you get home and we find a rhythm to family life again. I think that you will want to be involved in this project.

Once again, I am in awe of the frequency that people find us and we find people who wish to share their inspiring story with us. I picture us as neurons, making new connections with others and building an amazing machine that will make a difference. New connections every day.