New and here to help..7 year stroke survivor

[writeleft]

I am new to this site, having been a member of another Stroke forum for the last 3 years or so. When I started there, I was re-learning how to think and type, which was a huge challenge. I found the forum to be a great place for me, and wanted to come over here to meet up with some more stroke survivors.

I had 4 strokes at the age of 43, which left me with end stage renal failure, and quite a few deficits. but nothing that can compare to the depth of this experience, and on how much better a person I am today. I love to support others going through recovery from stroke. I hope can be of some help here, while learning all the while.

[kristine24]

hello, my mother(66) had 3 strokes and she had TIA 2 weeks ago. Just this June, we finally discovered the real cause of her recurrent stroke and that was her atrial fibrillation. I am really worried about her. Right now, we are already in our home, she can still walk talk and do her activities of daily living except household chores. She has mild expressive aphasia and unable to read most words. I believe that prayer can help a lot. I just experienced this during her TIA. God already answered my prayers even before i started asking Him for help. God's miracles really do happen. Instead of complaining that everybody can have afib but why choose my mother, the most important personto me? And then after the discharge, I realized that  I should still be thankful to God because he gave us the chance to identify the cause of her stroke and be able to prevent it. Another thing is her cardiologist told her that she is plannig to change her clopidogrel to Coumadin, which is very dangerous when it exceeds and has a narrow therapeutic index. So, I prayed that night that He would give us a drug between Clopidogrel and Coumadin. The next day, the cardiologist told us that there is a new drug called Pradaxa(Dabigatran) which could be as effective as coumadin without any blood test requirement. Just pray and believe in miracles. P.S you also have to work your way/give extra effort in the healing process such as tender loving care and giving her fruits and vegetables everyday. Never give up. I just read in the net about someone who shared his life as a 20  year survivor of failing heart, atrial fib and more diseases that i forgotten. It goes to say that whatever our trials are we just have to be brave and face it.. While we still have our loved ones we have to fight for them. If we give up, that's the only way we could fail. God bless to all of us!

[sara12345]

I was interested in your comments.  How did you become a better person from your experience?  Also what other site did you share comments on?

I had a carotid artery dissection 3 years ago. Maybe you had a far better recovery than I have.  I got Stage 3 renal failure from all the dyes in the CT scans which hasn't been a problem--yet.  I have difficulty using the right side of my body which was paralzyed.  Can barely handwrite.  Loss of appetite to the dangerous point--still struggle to eat.  But that is nothing compared to my 24/7 migraines which often get terrible.  I also need 11-13 hours of sleep a night since my stroke and can't do much physically or the headaches get terrible.  So I'm quite disabled and often have severe depression from it.  

Still, I think that you must have something to offer to me from your experience.  Thanks for writing.