Seven Year Anniversary

Today is the seven year anniversary of me having an unexpected carotid artery dissection, which led to an aneurysm, which caused a stroke, which caused significant brain damage.

I had to undergo a risky surgery that involved having a stent inserted into my upper neck so that I didn't bleed to death.

I had to re-learn the alphabet, my family member's names, my friend's names.

I had to re-learn to read via children's books.

For a while, I felt very nervous that I might not be able to write poetry anymore, even though poetry had been my primary passion in life for years. Sometimes my own poetry doesn't make sense to other people, but for a while it didn't even make sense to me!

Fortunately, I think it was my genuine passion for words and writing and individualistic communication and creative expression and poetry that had a powerful impact on my recovery. I'm pretty sure anyone who met me these days would have no idea that I had underwent such serious brain damage.

I still have issues with some easy words, but since I'm a word-based person, I've gotten pretty good at replacing those words with other words. Actually, I think it's pretty interesting that the words I have the most trouble with are the easy basic words, but I'm fine with uneasy unusual big words.

Also, sometimes I can't think of a word, but I can think of its first letter and VISUALIZE the words length. However my brain healed itself from its neurological damage, I'm now more visual than I used to be.

The stroke didn't change my overall personality, but I do feel it made me more mentally prone to separating the genuinely REAL from the FAKE when it comes to friendship, relationships, and love.

***

Little update: The last paragraph above could probably be interpreted (or possibly misinterpreted) in different ways, in part since I got tried while writing it and lost the energy to elaborate, but I can say it wasn't directed at any one person, situation or relationship.

It was directed at various different kinds of relationships in general.

And sometimes it's hard for me to understand what "friendship" or "love" means to other people, because it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

And I think all of those things are fine, as long as they're genuine.

***

"Post-Stroke my words are not over-
ly obvious. Why on earth should my
non overly obvious poetry be dead?

1. Telebloodied brain cadaver with pernicious red limp.
2. Telebloodied drain dagger with growing open limbs.

3. My carotid swirling, awaited a dangerous blow torch
from the crotch; clicked in, rose up, added platinum mesh
deep inside my odd head. In spite of my almost annihilation.

4. A vicious new voice will slowly seep out of my skull.
5. Will spill more pretty crooked plucked out wordage."

***

the first poem from the first tiny little poetry chapbook I created after my stroke:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/69547229/post-stroke-by-juliet-cook?ref=shop_home_active_16

surgery

I had an awful little dream last night, in which I had to perform some sort of surgery upon my Boston Terrier. I had to use an implement that looked like a large pizza cutter to make an incision around the perimeter of his body, beginning at the white underside of his throat and then all the way around, along each of his sides towards the back and under his tail. I dreamed two consecutive variations of this same dream.

In both versions, Sockeye was not anesthetized, but neither was he squirming or squealing. I was just holding him in place as I cut and he was just looking at me with a fearful yet trusting, baleful expression, one of the most excruciating details of the dream. In the first variation, I performed the cutting procedure correctly.

In the second variation, I botched it, cutting into the wrong area of his body. I then proceeded to act casual, as if nothing amiss had happened, even though I was secretly aware that my bungled surgery might cost my dog his life. Even as he continued to balefully gaze at me, I failed to react swiftly to my own mistake, acting as if I pretended it hadn't happened, then this reality might not exist. It was disturbing and I wonder what this dream is saying about my real life.

I also wonder if this dream was at least partly catalyzed by my inexplicable failure to open a can of tuna fish correctly the other night. I spent at least five minutes and two can openers in my struggle with this can, thinking that my can opener was bent out of shape, then thinking that the can itself was somehow warped, before I solicited the assistance of my husband, who promptly informed me that my difficulty was due to the fact I had been trying to open the bottom of the can rather than the top. Then he asked me if I thougtht I should get a brain scan.

What do you think?