Living With A Brain Injury

So 3 days a week I began therapy sessions and I slowly built my sessions to starting at 8am. Each day was different to keep my body (and brain) guessing. My sessions all focused on three of the following: speech, occupational, and physical. 

Speech sounded like a walk in the park but it was a big test for me mentally. There I learned so much about how this affects not only how I talk but how I think. In regards to talking I learned how dysarthria, aphasia and ataxia affect me. Dysarthria caused me to have slurred speech which is caused from damaged brain cells. Ataxia is the difficulty of talking due to weak muscle control.  

Occupational therapy was literally about learning to be an individual again. I learned how to fold clothes, brush my teeth, brush my hair and other things relating to my personal hygiene.  I also learned there, how my left side was affected. So due to the area of the stroke, I experienced muscle weakness and became unbalanced and uncoordinated. 

Physical therapy is where I realized I have to learn how to walk again. I learned to turn my body, distribute weight a bit more evenly, walk with medical support and more. I understood that, the neuroplasticity is what my brain needed. I learned over time that although brain cells died I can grow new cells but it would all take time.