My second husband was an active, we thought healthy, 53 year old, over the road semi truck driver.  He wasn't over-weight, hadn't drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes in years and was a very healthy eater.  He ate very little "junk food" except ice cream and pop corn. In May, 1994, he had a left frontal lobe cerebral hemorrhage (stroke).

This day changed the lives of our entire family and some can never be the same.  A stroke doesn't afflict just the individual who has sufferered the stroke, it affects the entire family, all your friends, and all those who care. It doesn't matter, young or old, when somebody has a stroke, everybody is affected.

The frontal lobe, in part, controls our impulses, motivation, social interaction, communication, and voluntary movement. A stroke victim can have partial or complete loss of understanding language or speaking. They can hear something other than what you said and they can have trouble picking out words and understanding the meaning of the words they are using. It can make a person incapable of saying what they mean.  They can have decreased attention span, impaired thought processing, including decreased problem solving ability, poor judgment and an inability to see their own mistakes.  It can make a person easily frustrated and agitated and impulsive.  They can have lack of insight, confusion between left and right. It can make a person incapable of generating new thoughts or plans. They can have decreased memory. It can affect language skills and cognitive perception.  They can become very depressed.

I found many stroke impacts that affected not just me and but our entire family...

It was PHYSICAL. All of our energy was focused on him.  The role reversal had taken place. I had to make all the decisions, right or wrong.  There were daily trips to the hospital for rehabilitation.

It was PSYCHOLOGICAL.  A feeling of guilt to depression sifted through the family as we all felt guilty that we could go to work every day and do all the things we all take for granted.

It was EMOTIONAL.  Our emotions, within the family, changed from day to day and from hour to hour.  From ambivalence to anger, from love to hate, from frustration to anxiety. What we endured in the privacy of our home was not what other people saw.

It was SOCIAL.  Our normal social patterns were interrupted or ceased. Isolation sat in as our friends and family members returned to their normal lives. Some family and friends who first came or called now didn't have time for us.

It was ECONOMIC.  The financial stress became more obvious. There was a large loss of income with increased uncovered expenses. There was only one income until he started receiving Social Security Disability.

It was SPIRITUAL.  I, for one, began to question my faith. God, why on earth is all this happening to our family? From the youngest to the oldest, our thoughts were, "Why me God?"

It was MISUNDERSTANDING.  Young grandchildren couldn't understand. Why was Grandpa not doing and saying the things that he had just done the month before. Why was he saying and doing all those mean, cruel things to all of his family.

There were devastating aftershocks to his stroke.  It was silence. His inability to perform ordinary routines. He would become depressed over such a simple chore as changing the oil in a car because he couldn't remember how to go about doing it. My inability to understand him and his inability to make me understand. After a short period, he was able to function with feeding, bathing, personal grooming, control of bowel and bladder, dressing, and walking, and routine home chores.  But his congnitive skills of comprehension, expression and problem solving definitely took a bit longer to improve.

The depression was so deep that my greatest fear while driving home from work at night was wondering if he was going to be alive when I got home. My job performance was becoming affected...He became angry with me. I didn't have to say or do anything to make him angry, it just happened..I began to walk on egg-shells when I was home. The silence became unbearable. The communication was gone. I had feelings of guilt and didn't know why I was feeling guilty.

He went back out on the road in a semi, on a temporary basis, to see how he would do. This lasted for about six months and he decided he couldn't cope with the stress and confusion and stopped driving again.

He became angry with the children. "Had no use for them".  These were the kids that sat by his bedside while he was in the hospital for ten days.  The kid who came in from from the Navy, the kid who took vacation time to be there for him. The kid that was with him in the pick up truck when he had his stroke, who helped him into a store and called the emergency squad that probably saved his life and eventually lost her own. These were the kids he "had no use for". When it was over, he turned toward the people who said they could care less whether he lived or died.

What happens to a person to get them to this point?  What happens to the brain?  What confuses them and causes them to hurt the ones that love and stick by them?  Nobody can be blamed for the actions of stroke victims, they have lost control in most areas, they are not responsible.

In May 1997, I too became somebody this strange man "had no use for". He asked me what it would take to get me out of his life. On August 4, 1997, my marriage of almost sixteen years ended in divorce. He was no longer the man I had married. He had been a total stranger for the past three years.

I don't feel guilty any more. I don't sit in silence and walk on egg shells any more. With the strength of God, my life has returned to "normal" and I am very happy with my life once again.

Are you or have you gone through any of what I've described above? Do you need or want to talk to somebody who has lived with a stroke victim. Please feel free to email me below and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

On November 11, 2006 he ended his life.