So I was debating most of these days whether I’d blog at all about my mom’s stroke. Most of my friends on Twitter and Facebook already know what has happened, and for it is helping me by updating posts and seeing the great generous feedback I’ve been getting from my friends and family. The support is truly amazing.

My mother suffered an ischemic stroke on Friday. An Ischemic stroke is occurs when there is a blockage of blood to the brain cells. This could be caused by buildup of plaque (either fatty tissue, calcium or scar tissue).

The stroke affected my mother’s left side of the brain and thus affected her right side of the body. She has limited movement on  her right leg currently and no movement at all on her right arm. Since the area of the brain also deals with speech, she has suffered from aphasia; when she speaks words sound mumbled and only a fraction of the words that she says are recognized. She doesn’t suffer from reverse aphasia where she hears us speaking to her in mumbles. We still don’t know if her ability to read or write is affected at this early in the game.

I have to say it the staff here at York Central Hospital have been awesome. They have placed my mom in a specific wing that deals only with stroke patients. I am surprised at the differences in the stroke patients here and sadly think that my mom is the worst of the lot currently here. That said, this is only day 5 of her post stroke and with the improvements that I’ve seen in her these short few days I know she will get better.

The hardest thing for me personally is the fact that my mom has always listened to her doctors, always took her medication, always went to her appointments and still she suffered a stroke. I don’t blame anyone here, what I’m saying is that one never knows when these health issues might happen, one never knows when it might happen to you.

This has opened my eyes on making sure I become healthy and stick around longer. It has made me thankful for the time I’ve spent with my mother and the rest of my family and friends. It makes me think long and hard that we have to live every day to our fullest and if we are not, we are just cheating ourselves in the end.

I’m grateful that I’m here during this time and that my family has really stepped it up. I’m so proud of my sisters for their amazing drive and spirit, I’m proud of my nieces and nephews for being here when they can and bringing a sparkle to my mom’s eyes, I’m proud of my dad who is our protector through this time, I’m proud of my brother-in-laws who truly love my mom like their own. My family totally rocks!!

This little exercise for me has helped me and I hope you as my readers, whomever you are, will take something with you from this and hopefully you too will live your life.