The stroke has given me another way to serve people. It lets me feel more deeply the pain of others; to help them know by example that ultimately, whatever happens, no harm can come. 'Death is perfectly safe,' I like to say.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.
I feel a sense of sadness and joy. Mostly sadness though about what I've experienced and sadness about what others have experienced in reference to the stroke.
I feel vulnerable because my mind - because of the stroke, my mind doesn't focus. And then I feel vulnerable because I don't understand the world around me.
A massive stroke may kill you instantly, while a series of mini-strokes may disable and kill you over several years.
In my business, if I get too close to you and you die, it hurts me. And so you develop a natural inclination not to be close to the patient, so that if things don't work out ideally, you can still get up the next day and care for the next patient.
I've worked very hard to become comfortable with how death works and why it happens. I now know that death isn't out to get me.
I had a horrible heart attack and still have symptoms of that sometimes. Then cancer, which is in remission. But the stroke is the hardest thing because I just lost my ability to speak and to write.
Whether you like it or not, you're forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don't fear death, I'm a fatalist. I believe when it's your time, that's it. It's the hand you're dealt.
My father had several strokes and heart attacks. I was with him when he died, and it was a horrible death. He had been a very articulate man, and to lose that, never to be able to speak properly and to be unable to move - he had always been a very vigorous man, so to be in a wheelchair and mumbling - was terrible.
I'm constantly in fear of having a stroke.