SPEECH THERAPY for Aphasia

SPEECH THERAPY

It's something I took for granted.
I used it every day.
If I had a thought or an idea
I could open my mouth and say, “….
Now speaking doesn't come easy,
And I can understand why
I get so frustrated and embarrassed,
‘Cause on my speech I can't rely.


At Eleanor's insistence and my reluctance, Eleanor slowly walked me out from my bedroom to the table in our family room where she introduced me to my speech therapist, Henri C. We all sat down. Immediately my lower lip started quivering in my apprehension of what would be expected of me. I couldn't talk! And I didn't feel good....... and I didn't want to be there. Henri chatted a little to help me feel more comfortable with her while my eyes filled up with tears. Before long I was weeping and the session had to end. I was embarrassed. And the whole experience was very frustrating to me.

But the frustration and weeping didn’t last long. At the next session Henri and I became fast friends. She recognized that I had become aphasic and apraxic of speech in the removal of the tumor that was pressing against the speech area of my brain.

Aphasia of speech - the impairment or loss of the ability to communicate through speech or written language due to dysfunction of brain centers.
This caused:

(1) Loss of memory for words.
Example: when I tried to think how to tell the nurse I wanted the bedpan.

(2) the inability to name objects and people.
Example: when I couldn't even think of the names of my two daughters when they visited me in ICU. I finally got where I could remember the names of Julie? Sally? John, Jack but it was months before I could think of Eleanor's name.

(3)The inability to understand the spoken word.
Example: when Harvey A and Sally M came in ICU to visit me.

(4)The inability to understand the written word.
Example: when Eleanor wanted me to read the Get-Well cards and I couldn't read.