When you find out someone near you has had a stroke, you’re almost always surprised… totally blown away. It seems like they were so well. How could this happen? Yesterday they were fine, today they are not-so fine.

Imagine… As surprised as you are, they are even more surprised.

One of the weirdest things about having a strong hemorrhagic stroke is that you lose time (sometimes -like in my case to accommodate a brain surgery- you lose a lot of time) and when you wake up you are the last to know where you are, what happened, etc etc. In fact, people around you are often medical staff (i.e. strangers) and even your loved ones may have to explain to you where you are more than once. Yes, after a week or two your friends are coming to terms with it but if you are the patient, you won’t yet have a grip on what’s happened to your body, your career, your family… your whole life.

Of course I could spend this blog post telling you about scars and paralysis and other visible challenges. I could spend the blog telling you about cognitive disabilities… but while I have your attention I am going to tell you about something more insidious, more painful, and something no doctor can see or diagnose or even test. It’s the decay of friendships.

Since my stroke, I have lost quite a few of my “best” friends. At first, there was a pretty fast moving parade of people into my hospital room. This was mostly when I was unconscious so it was only my husband who would find out from a nurse who would say “So and so was by last night to see Jennifer. You know them, right?” Most he did know but some were not intimate friends (and this was while I was in the ICU). So he shut down the guest list to family and close friends.

Then I was having several visitors in the day and then more at 9:30 and 10:00 at night. It would be convenient for them on their way home from somewhere so they would pop by. The nurses would keep a distance and (somewhat ironically) suggest to me after the guest left, that maybe it was a bit late to have company since I really should sleep … as if I had a choice in the matter. 🙂

But they were right and the guest list got further ratcheted down.

From the ICU, you pretty much know the drill (and if not, the timeline is posted somewhere in here) and we went from first week of September to the second week of October and then I was moved from the Civic Hospital to the rehabilitation at the Elisabeth Bruyere Hospital. In that hospital they are very very very clear that you are on a pretty intense schedule so guests are best on the weekend (sometime I will talk about the incredible intensity of that program – in a good way). Result: we’re down to seeing my husband and my Dad and brother. My sons would come on the weekends and eventually I was allowed to go home for weekends to see if moving home was possible and what amount of supervision I would need.

Over the course of this period something amazing happened. Some friends sent me messages of caring and support via the Elisabeth Bruyere contact Web site (which was awesome and I stuck them on my room wall). A couple of neighbours and a couple of friends brought some meals over for my husband and kids (frozen chili, spaghetti sauce, casserole), and some sent get well cards. I was in the hospital for almost 3 months. Thank God for those people.

But on the other end of the spectrum, some wanted to get together. Wanted to catch up on the phone. Wanted to have a weekend gathering. Well I did try to do phone calls from my hospital room. I insisted. My nurses would sigh knowing how that would work. I don’t even think my husband knows this… but I would have to sit in my dark room and cover my free ear and my eyes and then do a call. Mostly my Dad or brother (sometimes a friend or my husband). When the call was done the nurses would come in and medically sedate me and rub my back. I would cry. Who could know this? No one… why? Because I smiled and chatted as if everything was fine even though deep inside my brain I was in pain and scared. Bottom line: I was stupid.

Before I went home, my Social Worker taught me how to say no (and I learned that very well) and it was important for me to be able to do that before I left. I haven’t truly used the phone in any meaningful way in more than two years.

But now, after my stroke, the saddest injury is to our list of friends. Amazingly a few even “unfriended” me on Facebook. In retrospect there had been unanswered email on my part. Birthday cards I didn’t get out. In their mind, that must have meant ‘it’s over.’ [writing, at this point, I sat for a while staring at the cursor blinking… half of me wanting to bawl, the other half numb].

How to proceed with the post…? On one hand I can hear some of you saying: “Who cares? What an idiot! You’re better off without them!” and of course I know you are right but it still hurts, especially because these are not ‘acquaintances,’ they were my true friends (btw, well-educated, faithful people… no “predictable” demographic, that’s for sure). I could post about how to move on with a head held high…

And if you are struggling recovering from a stroke you might be thinking “oh well, someday I will be back to normal and then I will show them” or “When I am stronger I will reach out to them and tell them how it made me feel and hug them, forgive them and we’ll move on better friends than ever.” But really, this post isn’t about predicting a floral, foggy future… it’s about the gritty here and now.

So as for the here and now, my journey has had some very painfully lonely parts where the only ones I might have let close enough were nowhere to be found. But there have also been some true friends who were persistent and understanding and patient enough to wait until I could manage a visit in person. It does tell you a lot about people.

But I’ll end this post by quoting one of my favourites: Eleanor Roosevelt. It was her wisdom that shared:

“Great people talk about ideas.
Average people talk about things.
Small people talk about other people.”

So I hope you saw this post for what it was, not ranting lists of names but rather sharing private and painful real events and things that affected me as a stroke patient. Maybe I can really summarize it with an idea (yeah I guess I must be aspiring to be a ‘great person’).

You cannot know what is in the mind of someone you care for so assume the best and don’t cut all ties and feel slighted. As tough as it is for you to miss them, maybe they are missing you even more.

Be well.