While having chai with a friend and my wife high in the mountains of India, I started talking gibberish. Doctors at the local hospital told me I had a cerebral hemorrhage and that I would be my old self in three months. They were wrong. When I got back to the United States a month later a neurologist told me I would see almost all my recovery gains in the first year. He was also wrong. I have worked very hard for almost 5 years to learn to read, write and talk again. I am much better. When I first came home I could not say “Tall Dark” to order my own coffee. Now I can talk to friends and make phone calls. But everything takes more time. Sometimes I lose words or my thinking is not clear. I still don’t have much confidence with some people. With others it is O.K.. My life is getting closer to what it was like before. I’ve even gone back to India to thank the people who helped me. I won’t give up.
The Aphasia Library
