I am a divorced white female living in Milwaukee Wisconsin with my 2cats. I am attempting enrolled in school this coming fall. I will be taking classes to become a health unit coordinator in a hospital or a nursing home. Then I will decide if I want to get a degree in computers or possibly even nursing. I just can't make up my mind so I figure if I do the HUC training at least I could be working while I figure everything out.
I keep pretty much to myself. My best friend lives in another state (Michigan) and I only get to see her a couple times a year, which I hate, but have learned to live with. Fortunately we talk on the phone at least once a day if not more.
I am recovering still from a stroke that I had in 2002. Things get easier daily, but there are still things that I can't get back the way they were before the stroke. I was disconnected from life support 3 times and thankfully I came out of it. The doctors told my family that I would be a vegetable and probably end up in a nursing home for the rest of my life. Once I was stabalized I was transfered to a rehabilitation center called Sacred Heart...It was horrible, I had to learn how to walk all over again, take speech therapy, and be moved around by wheelchair. The staff had determined that there was nothing wrong with me other than depression, which they treated with paxil and ritalin. I fell several times and the therapists decided that I was falling on purpose to get attention . They gave me several personality tests and determined that I was playing a game and not cooperating which was the furthest thing from the truth. My mother and aunt came evey day to visit me in the hospital and in rehab. But the time always came when they had to leave. I cried everytime because I didn't want to be there alone, but I had a brain injury and had to be there becasue I could not live alone...I couldn't even walk...I had therapy to help me learn to walk again, but I culdn't stand any of the physical therapist, and their rehab program just wasn't the right one for me. I was told that I would be in a wheelchair forever and since I couldn't be alone and take care of myself I was destined for a nursing home. The worse thing that happened to me at sacred heart was when they gave me a shower 2 times a week.The nursing assistants would take me into the shower room and bath me. The aid that was the hardest to deal with woul shower me, but when he was rinsing trhe soap off of me he would hold the hard spray of the shower head in my face so i couldn't breath. I had extremely long hair that got horribly tangled when it was washed, and the aides did not rinse all the soap out of my hair, so I would go about my day itching like crazy because there was still so much soap in my hair and all over me.
So the doctor that ran the rehab place decided that they weren't doing anything for me and that I had to find somewhere else to go and he referred me to a psychiatrist that was affiliated with a different hospital in the city. he took me on as a patient,and had me transfered to the hospital he worked out of.
It took awhile to get used to this new place but the move was the best thing that could have happened to me. The entire staff at the new place treated me with respect and encouragement.Within a month I was walking with a walker, then a cane and then nothing at all, but I honestly believe that all the progress that I made was because I didn't have people putting me down and saying things just loud enough for me to hear. At this new hospital I was put into the psych ward which sounds horrid, but it wasn't I wouldn't change my experience there for anything.
The therapists, doctors and support staff were very professional. They allowed me to recover at my own pace without negative pressure. I new I would get better because I felt safe there. We had group therapy everyday which was incredibly helpful.
A neuropsychologist came in and gave me the same test, but more extensive (it took 2 days) that they gave me at Sacret Heart. She spent a lot of time with me and she was the first person that seemed to be on my side and she listened to what I had to say and I knew that she cared. Well she left to go analyz the tests and came back a few days later and met with me and my family. She said the test revealed what parts of my brain had been effcted by the stroke. I had a lot of vision problems, which they new about at sacred heart, but didn't take into consideration. I told her about sacred heart and what they did to me and she reported them because according to her, they were not trained to give me that test and that with my brain injury and vision problems there was no way that I could have gotten the results they were looking for and that they never should have even given me the test. I wasn't faking anything.I wasn't stubborn and refusing to do what they wanted me to do. I had a brain injury that effected not only my emotional and psycological, but also physical limitations that could be conquered with determination support and encouragement.
I went into freodert hospital on Dec 12 2002 unconcous in an ambulance. I was transfered from there to sacred heart (I refer to it as hell)spent a couple miserable months there. My friend Mary helped me get thru it tho...She didn't even know me before I had the stroke, She was just trying to be there for my mom because they worked together. Mary came every single day to visit me. She was there when I was in a coma playing her guitar and I truely belive that the music is what brought me out of my coma. She would go home at night, take care of her mother and learn new songs to play for me. Songs that my family and friends told her that I liked and she would spend at least an hour playing and singing to me. She would bring me milkshakes from Lixx and she would come around 7 or 8pm when my family had gone home and I was alone. We would sing, watch television and talk. She would stay with me until the nurses brought my night medication and wait til I was ready to fall asleep and visiting hours were over. After I was released we became very close friends. I can't imagine my life without her. She went with me to concerts,plays, festivals, even just long car rides to cedarburg and madison.She took me with her to a writing meeting with a group of women that get together 2 times a month and I participated in there writing circle. She showed me that I could still have a happy active life, and for that she will always be very special to me, she will always be part of my life.
Once I was back at my mom's getting home therapy and learning how to do things that I used to do without even thinking. It took some practice, but I did it. I didn't give up no matter how many times I wanted to. I completed outpatient therapy at Columbia St. Mary's hospital. That's when I started to be a little more independent. I had to book rides for transportaion to get to my therapy and when I went I didn't have anyone there to help me so I had to do things for myself and little by little I started to get back to being myself. I lived with my mother for awhile and when I didn't have therapy I took the transit bus to Mary's apartment and spent my days taking care of her mother while mary was at work, Her mother and I became extremely close and I had the opportunity to use the skills I had learned being a certified nursing assistant for 8 years and it made me feel a little more normal. So after several months Mary's mother Lucy started to get sick and fell a couple times. Mary and I took her to the hospital several times.Usually to calm her down because she had extreme anxiety and both Mary and I needed a break so she would stay for a couple of days and then come home, but it would just happen all over again and I knew from being a CNA that she was going downhill. One night she was incredibly nervous and not feeling well so we took her to the hospital, they admitted her and Mary and I sat on both sides of the bed holding her hand.after awhile I took mary's car and ran to my mothers house to shower and change, I was gone for an hour at the most .When I got back to the hospital it was too late...Lucy was gone...She was with her husband and all her miscarried babies up in heaven,watching over us. I promised her that I would be there for Mary, So I moved into her apartment. We stayed there for a few more months and then we found a duplex for rent across the street from where my mom lives,split the finances down the middle and we both got a fresh new start. A very good friend helped us move in and because we had the room,kind of lived on our couch.We lasted for a year at this house and then I started looking for a place I could afford alone.Luckily I got approved for a studio/efficency apartment on the east side right in th heart of everything. So I am on my own...friends come and crash here and there, but this is my place, and I am very happy here, it truly feel like home and I feel like a whole person again...now if I could just find a part time job, I would be set...
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