Welcome.

This page took me five months.

I typed it with my left hand. One letter at a time. My granddaughter Dawn helped me. She is seventeen and very patient. Most days.

Please be patient with it too. I was.

I taught fourth grade for thirty-one years. I always gave the homework first. Then the story.

My story

On Saturday, March 14, 1998, I was making coffee before choir rehearsal.

The cup fell out of my right hand. I did not drop it. My hand let go.

I tried to call to Dawn. She was staying with me that weekend. The words would not come. Only sounds.

Dawn looked at my face. One side was wrong. She called 911 right then. She did not wait to see if I got better. She did right.

I had a stroke. I was 70 years old.

What a stroke is

Your brain needs blood every minute.

In a stroke, the blood stops getting to part of the brain. Sometimes a clot blocks a blood vessel. Sometimes a blood vessel breaks.

Without blood, that part of the brain is hurt. Then the part of the body it runs is hurt too.

Some people call it a brain attack. That is a good name. It is an emergency, the same as a heart attack.

Call 911 at once. Do not wait. Do not drive. There is a medicine, approved in 1996, that breaks up clots. It can help some strokes, but only if it is given within three hours. The doctors have to find out what kind of stroke it is first. That takes time. So every minute counts.

I had high blood pressure for twenty years. Some days I forgot my pills. Some days I did not want them. Do not be like me. Ask your doctor about your blood pressure. Take your pills.

Losing my words

My stroke was on the left side of my brain. That side runs the right side of the body. For most people it also runs words.

The doctors called it aphasia. It means trouble with language. Talking, understanding, reading, writing.

It does not mean you lost your mind. I knew everything. I knew my daughter Ruth. I knew my pastor. I knew what I wanted for supper. I could not get it out.

Think of a word on the tip of your tongue. Now think of that all day, for every word. That was me.

Singing

Two weeks after the stroke, three ladies from my choir came to the hospital. They sang a hymn I have sung since I was a girl.

And I sang with them. Every word.

I could not say "water." But I could sing a whole verse.

Everybody cried. The nurse cried. Then my speech therapist, Karen, came in and smiled. She said singing comes from a different part of the brain. She said we could use it.

So we sang. Karen had me sing short sentences on two notes, high and low, while she tapped my left hand. "Good morning." "I want coffee." "Thank you, Lord." Sing it. Then sing it slower. Then half sing, half say. Then say it.

It is called melodic intonation therapy. It does not work for everybody. Ask your speech therapist.

It worked for me.

The hard work

Speech therapy. Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Every day at first, then three days a week.

Arthur, my physical therapist, taught me to walk again with a quad cane. That is a cane with four little feet. First to the door. Then to the mailbox. Then to the corner. Then, in August of last year, up the steps of my church.

My right hand is still weak. My right leg drags when I am tired. I talk in short sentences. I read slowly. I type with my left hand.

And I am back in the alto section. I sit on the end of the row, by the aisle. Nobody else gets that seat.

The Tuesday Club

Every Tuesday at ten I go to the stroke club at Bayou Oaks Rehabilitation Hospital, where I did my therapy. We are about fifteen people. Some walk, some roll, some talk a lot, some talk with their hands. We have coffee and cake. We tell what is hard. We tell what got better. Wives and husbands come too, and they have their own table.

If you had a stroke, find a club like ours. Ask at your hospital. You are not the only one. I promise.

The National Stroke Association can help you find one and can send you information. Ask your doctor or your library how to reach them.

To the families

Talk to us like grown people. We are not children. We are not deaf.

Give us time to answer. Do not finish our sentences unless we ask.

Sing with us.

~ ~ ~

God brought me back one note at a time. I am grateful every day.

Mrs. Lenora Dobbs