(QM's note: I wrote this essay for Gannett Newspaper's In My Own Words column that has people discuss obstacles they've overcome. Just thought I'd share.)
I’m used to people not liking me because I’m black. I wasn’t prepared for people not like me for a different reason. Two years ago, I suffered a stroke. I didn’t have any warning signs: no headache, no numbness, no speech loss or vision problems. It struck me as I took a nap to prepare myself for a long night of writing. I’m a writer and my plan was to finish up a freelance article. So much for best laid plans.
When the ambulance arrived at my home and the EMT’s came upstairs to my computer room, they looked at me and scratched their heads because I looked and sounded fine. I complained about a tingling sensation on my left side, but I could still move my arm. My leg wouldn’t move at all. Everything else was normal, my memory was intact, I answered every question they asked me, but my blood was way too high and they decided to take me in to be safe. Their next challenge: getting me down the stairs on a stretcher to the ambulance because of my houses’s split staircase. I remembered the worried looks on both my daughters’s faces and how they tried jumping into the ambulance to be with me. My sister’s hands gently pulled them back.
When the doctor finally confirmed my stroke, I couldn’t stop crying. I’m too young, I thought. Who would take care of my family? I had worked hard all my life. Why was God doing this to me? I decided that I would do whatever it took to reclaim my life; no matter the cost. I had to do it for myself and my children.
At home, I went through physical and occupational therapies, changed my diet, and started taking medication to get rid of the clot at the base of my brain. The back of my hair fell out because of the meds, but I had to remind myself this was “temporary.” I endured a year of painful shoulder spasms that would appear without warning and no known medication could dull the pain.
No one could prepare for me life’s cruelties and people’s “stares”, as I walked with a leg brace. Most thought I broke my leg. My teenage daughter always asked me to remain in my car at her lacrosse games because one of the boy lacrosse players taunted her and said, “At least, my mom can walk without a cane.” I wanted to smack him and his dad with it.
When I tell people I’ve had a stroke; they don’t believe me. One of my friends told me at a church function “it doesn’t show on your face.” Most people are afraid of having a stroke because when they hear the word “stroke”, their first imagine is of someone with a twisted, distorted face. I have had to tolerate people putting limitations on me without even asking. I’ve learned that our City better start addressing the needs of its disabled citizens considering that nearly 50 percent of Rochester citizens will be over the age of 55 within the next decade.
I have made strides towards my former life…almost. Even though, I’m labeled “temporarily disabled”, I took my daughters to Disney (finally), got two books published: Love Begins With Truth and Win Win, still bowl with my teammates, and lived to see the first African American President elected by our country. While I may have lost some former friends; I don’t care. What I know for sure is that I didn’t let this silent killer win.
Posted By: Marsha Jones
Wednesday, June 2nd 2010 at 8:04AM
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