Distractions, Disablements, Displeasers, aka Aah! There Are Others, Too!

Joyce Hoffman

Mar 3, 2014

I have my contact info in my blog. So I was not surprised that I recently received an email from a lady named Grace, and this is what she said:

Hi - I like your blog, but it's hard to read because of the "ink stain" (the wallpaper of your blog). As a stroke survivor, any visual distraction can be hard to deal with.

Thank you, Grace, for that comment. In an effort to satisfy all my readers, I changed the wallpaper.

Here is what my blog looked like before:

Here is my blog now:

I chose the first wallpaper because it made me feel like I was a columnist for the newspaper again. I chose the latter wallpaper because of Grace.

But that email gave me an idea. How many other people didn't read my blog because of the ink stain? As Grace put it, "any visual distraction can be hard to deal with."

I don't have visual distractions in that way, from wallpaper with ink stains, but right after my stroke, my friend took me to "Avatar," the 3-D movie. When we sat down, I put on the 3-D glasses that the theater provided and the movie began, but I immediately had a headache and dizziness, and took off the 3-D glasses. My headache and dizziness stopped. After about 10 minutes, I put the glasses on again, testing myself, and the headache and dizziness resumed.

I sat for over an hour putting the glasses on--and off--at first, thinking it was an anomaly, but I couldn't chalk it up to a mere coincidence. The headache and dizziness always returned when I watched the film with the glasses. Eventually, I closed my eyes for the rest of the lengthy movie and listened, but I missed much in the high-action film. But at least, the headache and dizziness didn't return. The stroke, somehow, was the reason, disabling indeed.

I received another email recently that said: "I have no filters on what I'm saying. I always say something hurtful." The email was signed Anonymous and I won't reveal the address, but it looked ordinary enough, like joe@yahoo.com. (Sorry, "joe," if you're reading this post). So back to  Anonymous. I have that problem, too. If people brush too close to me in a store, I'll say, "Ex-CUSE ME!" Anyway, it's very displeasing to me, and to the person, if they even heard me.

Are stroke survivors having these problems? The question is rhetorical. Of course they are, about 800,000 a year worldwide. They may be not having the exact stroke "side effects" I just mentioned, depending on the extent of brain damage and where the damage occurred, but trust me. Hardly anyone gets a stroke and comes away unscathed. So Grace and Anonymous, and to all the other stroke survivors out there, onward and upward. Like I say in the description to my blog, I have two options: live with the stroke or... well, you know the alternative.

See the original article:

Distractions, Disablements, Displeasers, aka Aah!
There Are Others, Too!

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The Tales of a Stroke Patient