Bart Cox - stroke rehabilitation

Kei te ora tonu ahau! 😜 It’s International Stroke Day today and I’m still alive, yeah boi!

Shout out to the beautiful people who are the survivors and those who have passed too, from stroke, the whole messy heart wrenching scary beautiful dissolving reckoning insightful hard difficult emotional struggle despairing and enlightening all of that in one single day at times. So all of my love to the families the partners who miss them terribly and those who are still supporting and loving their loved ones who struggle with disability, depression and adjusting to our new lives❤️

Amazingly, having a stroke helped me to gain so much insight into mums life. I love these moments with Mum [81] who has Alzheimer’s and her son me [43] we both have brain damage but look at these smiles 😜 they are testament to the enduring spirit of human beings that’s us that’s all of us. Hug each other and say “i love you” literally every moment is a gift. #internationalstrokeday

In honour of international stroke day i like to say something about the experience itself. It can be a lonely path to tread. After stroke people can lose friends, relationships can end, people can take advantage of you, it can be too hard for the support people the family, can lose their lives, job, house, security, mobility, identity and young stroke survivors still have to live out their lives often times with no chance to work or look after themselves for the next few decades............

So ask a stroke survivor [we don’t bite😅] to tell you about their experience [of course everybody is different so be tactful] because the thing i have found the hardest is feeling alone in my experience and a lot of disabilities are invisible to abled people. It is a thing that people don’t like to talk about the fragility of life I suspect you have to want to be curious, don’t forget that they aren’t stupid they just probably have aphasia Connect with them they’ll be so grateful to feel their experience valued and to feel connected well that’s how it is for me. When somebody takes the time i often leave that moment reduced to tears and that is the best healing. Thanks for reading my post. Mauri ora x

(Reposted from Facebook post by Bart on 29 October 2020: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10157378777386034&set=a.45581251033)