Stroke…what an evil concept, but one I am all too familiar with–the stroke will likely be the thing that does me in one day, save for the freak car accident or possibility of getting hit by a bus. Which is actually not a bad way to go, though it does sound stupid: rationalizing dying through someone else’s careless actions, though I’ve done nothing to do this to myself.

Yesterday I had one, but I downplayed it for most of my reading public. Even my boyfriend isn’t entirely aware that it was an actual stroke. I recognized the issue initially while I was in yoga–I probably should have walked out as soon as I felt the funny-but for fear of offending the teacher who is also someone I know outside of class I decided to stay. This involved me not recognizing my right arm as my own during a side stretch up, me getting aggravated the girl next to me was in my space, and then I realized that foreign object was MY actual arm and I pushed through to the end of class without recognizable incident.

Then I got home and that’s when the real fun began. In the midst of poaching eggs I realized something was amiss and recognized my language center was, for lack of a better word, fucked up. I couldn’t translate the words in my head to a complete sentence out of my mouth. I heard the disconnect, though, so I am happy to still maintain that coherence, even if it’s just in my own mind. It’s like not having a voice in a different way–but no amount of practice or slowing down over those hours really made it easier to understand what I was trying to say. Then I starting having right hand issues and dropped everything I picked up and generally couldn’t control it. And then I kind of freaked out a little bit, but I was probably acting way less freaked out than I was. Probably? No, I definitely wasn’t making a big deal of it, because then that would make it real and something I couldn’t pretend was not an actual big deal.

I do know this: I am mortified and horrified that I might actually leave this plane of existence in a less than whole state. To be incapacitated due to my brain dying or being mottled with black dead spots, not able to form the words in my head out my mouth or to be unaware of general reality is the most awful thing I could possibly imagine. To leave without that awareness, or to leave with that awareness but not able to communicate to people in any way they can discern is scary scary scary. In fact, I kind of hope when my time is here that I go quickly, no matter how violent it is. I am pretty sure everyone I know would want the same for me…too many have already seen me half-dead in the hospital, and I certainly don’t want to be dying inside one.