My mind disappeared. When it came back, it was not the same…
October 26, 2011 10:36 AM   Subscribe

 
Her posts are being regularly collected and featured on the Hairpin. It makes for a slightly easier read than mindpop's format. Her accounts are, well, simultaneously terrifying and hilarious. This one will never leave my head, just as a testament to the bizarre plasticity of the human brain:
At the hospital, they showed me a picture of a shawl. I couldn’t remember its name. I identified it as “pashmina.”

Stroke Fashionista.
posted by griphus at 10:41 AM on October 26, 2011 [5 favorites]


The posts are a good deal more surreal for the fact that there is no sense of who Nina was before the stroke, and it makes it difficult to find context (or at least context at the solid and comforting level we might be used to otherwise). I would be interested to know if this was an intentional decision as it surely must mirror her own experience to (an admittedly far lesser) degree for the reader.

I particularly liked the wryness of the brain surgeon post.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 10:54 AM on October 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


i want now to hear more about hte concept of your pre-strokin' self as "wicked stepsister". also disturbing to hear that more youngins are having strokes these days. this is a good blog.
posted by beefetish at 11:05 AM on October 26, 2011


My aunt worked in an ER head trauma unit, and I remember her telling me when I was young about a patient that had a head or skull injury and was being worked on. The surgeon touched part of his brain during the course of the procedure, and the patient yelled out, 'Orange!'

My siblings and I thought this was hilarious.

Of course, when it's a young person who conjures up the completely incorrect names for months and objects, it's not quite funny.

Thank you for sharing. This is a really interesting but sad look into a growing phenomenon.
posted by glaucon at 11:10 AM on October 26, 2011




I got the same amount of help, mind you, just fewer people pretending I didn't have a problem.

I'm sure the awareness of the 'I'm just as capable, don't you dare think of me as disabled/blind/deaf/etc' mantra may have had something to do with it as well. Tell people you don't want pity long enough, they stop offering...
posted by FatherDagon at 11:23 AM on October 26, 2011 [7 favorites]


Like a firecracker on the fourth of Jodie Foster.
posted by dr_dank at 11:38 AM on October 26, 2011 [5 favorites]


infinitewindow: "I got the same amount of help, mind you, just fewer people pretending I didn't have a problem."

I think people don't do it because they're dicks, but because they don't want to accidentally demean or patronize a competent disabled person. It's a really tough balancing act. Someone who's temporarily disabled hasn't learned, and won't have time to learn to overcome it. Someone who's permanently disabled is a completely different story as the disability is part of that person's identity and learning to live with it is part of that person's self esteem.

Personal anecdote: There's this blind guy in the neighborhood I live in (Yorkville in Manhattan). I see him walking around all the time in the usual neighborhood joints I also go to: the nondescript Irish pub, the nondescript diner, etc. He seems to be extremely independent. So, one day I was coming back from the home at about 2 a.m., streets basically deserted (city that never sleeps my ass) and I see him quietly standing in the corner, facing the street. I pass by him, didn't think too much of it. Two blocks later, it occurred to me that he could be waiting for someone to help him cross the street! I raced back, he was in the same spot. I asked if he needed help, he said yes, and I helped him walk back home.

When I first saw him, knowing that he was a fairly independent guy, it never occurred to me he was concerned about crossing the street at that point. But turns out he was - perhaps he was worried because it was really late, or he had some drinks that night and wasn't feeling his sharpest, whatever.

So, yeah. There's a lot at play there. But it's a set of social rules, like etiquette, that our society lacks and that maybe someone should develop and publicize. People would feel better knowing what's the right thing to do.
posted by falameufilho at 11:41 AM on October 26, 2011 [27 favorites]


I was coming back from the home at about 2 a.m.
posted by falameufilho at 12:03 PM on October 26, 2011


Wow and what a visual sense, gorgeous little images all from the Library of Congress, have you guys noticed?
posted by Tom-B at 12:52 PM on October 26, 2011 [3 favorites]


At the hospital, they showed me a picture of a shawl. I couldn’t remember its name. I identified it as “pashmina.” Stroke Fashionista.

This is reminding me of an actress I've met once or twice here in New York; she was working on a show some years back -- a lengthy one-woman show, directed by her husband -- when a sudden...it wasn't a stroke, I'm not sure what it was, but it was how they discovered she had a brain tumor. A spell of unconsciousness.

She had a couple of these; after the first one, when she was coming to in the hospital and they were doing the evaluation, one of the questions they asked her was "who's the president?" And she said, "unfortunately, it's George W. Bush." Apparently her husband cracked up and said "yeah, she's fine."

Then she had another spell a week later, one which gave her some aphasia. Apparently, though, all she could say was "Yes", "no", "okay", and -- the entire complete text of her one-woman show.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:11 PM on October 26, 2011 [4 favorites]


Carson McCullers was about the same age when she had her first stroke.
posted by rhizome at 1:56 PM on October 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Wow, that really made me tear up, remembering the first year post brain-damage, fun with aphasia, and the general weirdness of the post world.

But I was saved by loud laughter at this:

At my first rehab facility, they had a hot pool, and I was eager to try it. Until one therapist told me about all the incontinent patients who used the pool. Skip.

Oh, man, she's the therapy buddy I always wanted.
posted by _paegan_ at 4:50 PM on October 26, 2011


Big things are not the problem. The menace is toddlers running straight at me; they disappeared into thin air.

The whole blog is like some sort of weird philosophy lesson from left field. Wow.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:17 AM on October 27, 2011


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