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.

CHALLENGE and GOAL

Before I found the second tumor, I had been a very active person playing tennis maybe three times a week, being treasurer of the St. Andrews United Methodist Women and treasurer for the church cookbooks, singing in our church choir and busy drawing floor plans for Jack's and my new house. We finished the house, moved in July 4, 1982 and Jack and I were doing our own house and yard work. But, now, everything was different. My world had turned up-side-down, and I was on the bottom side.

My first challenge was to get well and get to feeling good again.
And my ultimate goal was to return to the useful, meaningful, normal life I had had before. I wanted, so badly to be able to play tennis again. So badly to be able to lead a normal life! I surely didn't want to have to be dependent on others for the rest of my life, for my family's sake and certainly for mine.
I hadn't realized the ''parts of me not working right” would not be working right for such a long time. I remember asking my daughter, Eleanor, in my special way of talking, how long she thought it would take me to get back to normal. (1 was thinking in terms of months.) She kind of shrugged her shouldered meaning she didn't know, but thinking it would be an awfully long time. She could tell.

The challenge and my goal were the only things that mattered in my life now. I, not being able to think very well, thought of little else. GET WELL! GET BACK TO NORMAL! It was my one and only motivation and was of paramount importance to me. My family and friends had encouragingly told me they were sure I could do it, so I, wanting to believe them and wanting to live up to their expectations of me, believed I could...... not realizing that there was still that 15% chance of my speech and/or motor problem to be permanent.

Julie, my second daughter, provided my second big challenge when she bought me a stand to hold material for counted cross stitching to get me started learning to use my left hand. In my limited mental capacity, not only was I having trouble thinking, but definitely having trouble counting. But I tried hard and stuck with it, and soon I had that wonderful feeling of achievement, of productivity, of victory over mastering something.

It's so good, so important to have challenges for the handicapped so they can feel the pleasure of accomplishment, of progressing, of moving forward, instead of the boredom that sets in. But be careful not to make a challenge unreachable. Most of the time the handicapped person's life has been changed so completely and everything they had known and loved doing before is gone. But don't GIVE UP! You'd be surprised at what you and the Lord together might accomplish. Encouragement, too, is so necessary.
Make it sincere, no matter how small the progress.

Seizures: My Personal Experience

Seizures: My Personal Experience

Sometimes a seizure may be so slight that no visible signs are seen in spite of the fact that the nerve endings in the elbow and arm are producing feelings of violent tingling, extreme heaviness and feels awful. Sometimes this ''focal sensory seizure'' moves into a more severe seizure, known as a “focal motor seizure'' with the visible results of jerking fingers. These same sensations may slowly ''march'' upwards until the whole hand, wrist, arm and shoulder are involved. If the seizure worsened it might run on up the muscle in the back of the neck and might even make the head jerk back and forth.....maybe even causing breathing difficulties. It's scary and no fun to have one! A light seizure may last only a few seconds but a really bad one lasts several minutes......which seems like an eternity. Then it ends naturally as special chemicals in the brain bring cell activity back to normal.

I have found that having seizures definitely has a stigma to it, but please don't be afraid to be around me. If I should have one of the very few seizures I have, you can't do anything for me nor are you expected to. I have some pills to do the trick.

Brain cells, unlike other cells, will not regenerate or replace themselves when destroyed, but by some unexplained yet marvelous process, other parts of the brain can establish circuits to take over the functions of the damaged area. Over time, injured cells can sprout new branches and connections and help the brain shift important functions, such as control of movement, from the damaged part of the brain to undamaged regions. As a patient recovers even small amounts initially, over a period of time it will add up to a significant functional improvement.

What are seizures?

What are seizures?

1. Seizures are a physical condition, not an emotional or a mental state. They are more apt to occur if the person is under stress, is greatly fatigued or has missed taking the medicine that controls seizures.

2. Seizures are recurrent sudden changes that are beyond voluntary control due to episodes of overactivity of brain cells.

The brain is the control center of the body. All human activity is made possible by the orderly discharge of electrical energy between brain cells. Normal electrical signals between cells make the brain and the body work correctly. In this process, the normal electrical function of the brain, breaks down, then an electrical storm or overactivity occurs in the brain and the visible result is a seizure.

This will shock you, but there is not a person living who is not capable of having a seizure if there is sufficient stimulus to goad his brain cells into overactivity. However, the brain cells in most people have an innate resistance to becoming overactive. But there are persons who have a lowered resistance to the irritation of cells that lead to the occurrence of seizures.

3. Most Seizures Can Be Controlled with Drug Therapy. Drug therapy is by far the most common treatment for seizure control used by doctors. A drug won't work properly until it reaches a certain level in the body and that level has to be maintained so that there is always enough of the drug in the patient's system to quiet seizures and prevent them from happening, without causing too many side effects. The doctor ideally tries to bring the dose to just the point where the side effects and the seizures both disappear.

It is estimated that about 100% of the population, now more than two million people, have epilepsy. 100,000 new cases develop every year. Many people get complete control of seizures so long as their medication is taken regularly. I take Dilantin as my anticonvulsant medication and if I keep just the right amount of Dilantin in my blood stream at all times, the drug controls my seizures........instead of a seizure controlling me.
But I have found it to be extremely difficult to keep just the right amount in my blood stream. My level seems to see-saw and most of the time is either too high or too low. So every few weeks I have to have my blood drawn and tested by the hospital outpatient to keep a check on my level. My brain suffered permanent neurological damage with the removal of the second brain tumor so I will have to take an anticonvulsants for the rest of my life.

SEIZURES

Soon after I got home I was told by somebody that I needed to have on hand tongue depressors in event of having a seizure. This was the first I had heard anything about having seizures! I had not been told that Dr. Dial and also Dr. Clark had said that due to the location of the tumor and the fact that “there had been so much manipulation in that area during the removal of the tumor” that I would be very likely to have seizures. I had no idea what having a seizure would be like, but to me, it was a terrifying thought! I was so afraid, I put a tongue depressor in every room in the house, in case I were to have a seizure in that particular room.

I'm so glad I never had an occasion to use one because not until years later, when reading “FIRST AID FOR SEIZURES” put out by The Epilepsy Foundation of America, did I learn: ''DO NOT force a tongue depressor or anything else into a person's mouth while he is having a seizure.
It is NOT true that a person having a seizure can swallow his tongue, and efforts to hold the tongue down can injure teeth or jaws.” I can't remember who told me I needed to have tongue depressors on hand, but that person was certainly misinformed and had surely scared me to death.

Very few people realize that there are many different types of seizures. Most people think of a seizure as being the grand mal convulsive type with the person unconscious, jaw muscle clenched, back stiffened and arms and legs jerking in muscle spasms. But the few seizures I have had are very different from this. I have a warning when a seizure is about to start. I remain awake, can think, talk, and am aware of what is going on while having the seizure. I never fall or pass out, but I do like to find a place to lie down.

When I started back singing with the church choir, I had a horror of maybe having a seizure one Sunday while sitting in the choir where all the congregation could see me. So I worked out a plan with Jack to please sit somewhere where he could see me in case I were to start having a seizure and would need to remove myself from public view. He was to leave church as soon as I did and meet me in the church parlor which was about the only place I could comfortably lie down. I have thanked the Lord many times for my not having to go through the embarrassment of ever having to leave during the church service.

Jealous: Adjusting After Brain Surgery

JEALOUS

I was certainly glad to be home, but things didn't seem like they had before I left. I had been ''the lady of the house”; I had bought our own groceries; I had taken the responsibility of running my own home. But now things were different! There were two other ladies taking my place! I understood the necessity of having them but..........

There had been so many changes; everything seemed different now.

More and more I was realizing the wide gulf between what I could do and what I no longer would be able to do. I still couldn't read or enjoy TV and not having yet learned to do anything with my left hand I had nothing to do. I mean absolutely nothing! I was so bored and was getting weaker and weaker, first from the operation and over three weeks stay in the hospital, and now, from lack of exercise.

As I sat around the house with nothing to do in those tight, white, support hose with my leg propped up, my mind blank and just staring into space,, I could hear Jack and his new part-time secretary laughing and talking with each other in his office and sounding like they were having such a good time. As the days went by, I continued to hear them, day in and day out, talking and laughing while they worked together. I wanted so badly to be able to ta1k....... and laugh. It seemed that without speech I had lost contact with the outside world.

Back in my bedroom, by myself, I felt so lonesome and alone.

I began experiencing that same ''excluded'' feeling. I felt..........

.............jealous, I reckon. I had never been a jealous person before, and I didn’t want to be jealous now. But I guess I was ........... jealous of them having such a good time together. Jealous of anybody able to talk and laugh and feel like having fun. I certainly was no fun! Nor was I young.......... or good looking. I was bald headed and had a big scar left from the incision. I couldn't think or talk or comprehend well enough to even follow a conversation, and I didn't feel good......... and I looked even worse. I would cry at the drop of a hat; in fact, there was just a fine line between my crying and my not crying. And I hated myself for feeling jealous.

I wrestled with my guilt; I didn't understand my feeling myself. I should have been happy that they could enjoy one another. That's what Jack would have said to me. But I was not happy. I felt isolated, afraid and alone. With not being able to communicate with others and not able to express my hurts, I found myself in a lonesome little world..................a1l by myself.

Household Help after Brain Surgery

Myrtle was to literally be ''my right arm”. She was more than just a maid, as evidenced in time, by the many extra kindnesses she did for me and the family. She met me at the ear to help me get out and then, while Jack was parking the car in the garage, she slowly led me up the front walk and on through the front door. I was still very weak and the trip from Columbia had exhausted me, but it was so very good to be home again! Myrtle had turned the cover back on my bed so it would look inviting and I, being tired, headed straight for it. She and I would soon become very good Christian friends.

Jack was to be responsible for lining up nurses to administer the Heparin injection in my stomach in hopes that the clot in my leg would soon be dissolved. I was so glad now, that I had drawn the floor plan with Jack's office in our house; it made it much easier for him to see that I was taken care of. Between the secretary from nine to twelve and the maid from twelve to four and Jack in the evenings, I would have somebody in the house with me most all the time to answer the telephone and the door.

SO MANY CHANGES

I remember humming to the radio as Jack drove me home to Orangeburg. I hadn't used my vocal chords in such a long time I was afraid they might not work anymore. So I was relieved to find that I could still carry a tune even though I couldn't sing any words. I had sung in our church choir ever since our church began in 1956 and music had always been such an enjoyable part of my life. I wouldn't be able to play the piano anymore so I clung to the hope that I might still be able to sing.

So much had happened me in the past three weeks-.....so many changes for my life......so many things I would no longer be able to do. As are drove along I learned from Jack that he had hired a part-time secretary who was to work from nine in the morning until twelve noon to help him in his office in our new house. I remembered now having heard Jack talking to Eleanor about somebody being young and good-looking but I had not understood what they were talking about so I hadn't made any connection.

Jack told me also, that he had hired a maid, to work from noon to four o'clock in the afternoon, to take care of me, to do the bookings to buy the groceries and run the house since I could no longer do these things. (So that's what Eleanor and Jack were talking about at the foot of my hospital bed when I overheard .....secretary ..............maid!)

DISCHARGED after Meningioma Surgery

I became so bored, and so lonesome....just lying there hour after hour........day in and day out. Some visitor, other than family, would come every now and then, but not being able to converse, the conversation still had to be all one-way. I found out that Harry A., from Orangeburg, was in the hospital room right next to mine, but there was no question about going over to visit him; I had to stay in bed with my leg propped up in those tight, white, support hose!

At last, after three weeks and two days, on March 15, 1983, I was told I could go HOME..........but with the understanding that I would keep my leg propped up and would continue wearing the tight, white, support hose. And that Jack would be responsible for lining up nurses to give me the Heparin injections.

THE DISCHARGE SUMMARY from the Richland Memorial Hospital read:
PATIENT: Ashlyn Gray
She underwent a craniotomy.....with the removal of meningioma.
Tumor had invaded most of the skull on the left side. Craniectomy was required to remove all of this bone involved with tumor. Also the dura was sacrificed. ....she developed thrombophlebitis and was seen by Dr. Love who began the patient on Heparin....improved to the point that she could ambulate with minimal assistance with most of the deficit being in the arm and in speech.
CONDITION: Improved
PROGNOSIS: Good

Getting Better, Then a Setback

Finally, the bulky dressing was cut off of my bald head and the drain tube and the sack were both removed. In its place I was given a soft little skull cap like the one I has been given with the first brain tumor. Now I could hear better and it would be much easier to move about, to get up to sit in the chair, and to go to the bathroom, all without having to hold the sack. By this time I was able to walk almost normally.

Several times Avery H. came to visit. He would help get me in a wheelchair, roll me down the hall, down the elevator, to the front door and on out to the fresh air, green grass, and well people. Those outings were delightful and meant so much to me. I was getting better and better all the time!

But, then, I developed thrombophlebitis (a clot) in my left leg.
I would no longer be able to move around freely but would, now be confined to the hospital bed.....and my stay in the hospital would be prolonged! I was started on Heparin and had to keep a pillow under my knee and wear some tight, white, support hose.

Speech test "METHODIST-EPISCOPAL"

One day Dr. Paysinger, when making his post-operative rounds at the hospital, came in my room and asked me if I could say ''Methodist-Episcopal''. I, being a Methodist and not able to hear very well with the bulky dressing over my ears, couldn't: figure out what he was saying. Being unable to ask, I thought maybe he was just joking around with me. I tried to cover up my bewilderment by kind of laughing, but was not really understanding why he was saying anything about my being a Methodist....... or, for that matter, why he was saying anything about Episcopal.

Then several days later he came in my room again and asked if I could say ''Methodist-Episcopal'' yet. I, knowing he knew full well I couldn't say it, thought he was just teasing me again. So once again I tried to cover up by kind of laughing and just smiling as if I knew what was going on.
Months later I learned from Eleanor much to my embarrassment and chagrin, that ''Methodist-Episcopal is a test used to check a patient s ability to speak. So that was why Dr. Paysinger kept asking me if I could say it! I felt so foolish then, the way I had responded to Dr. Paysinger. I reckon if you can speak well enough to say ''Methodist-Episcopal'' you can say about anything.

The Problem with VISITORS

I was so bored. I couldn't enjoy television because I couldn't comprehend well enough to understand what was being said or to follow what was going on. It sounded like one big jumble of words to me. I couldn't comprehend unless the words were said very, very slowly, one word at a time, in order to let them have time to sink in. Nor could I read. I would look at a word on a page and see it, but, like a person who has never learned to read, the word had no meaning to me. I enjoyed looking at the pictures on the Get-Well cards and being told who sent them, but being able to read or understand the messages on them was an impossibility.

Visitors would come and talk with each others and not include me.
If they would only glance my way occasionally, as they talked, so I wouldn't feel excluded. Once in a while there would be a word I could understand, and for a second I would think I knew what was being said. But before I
could focus my thoughts on the one word, the conversation would have moved on, and I would be lost again. I began realizing that if you can't talk yourself, you're no fun to talk to, so you will be left out of the conversation and you, in turn, will feel lonesome. It all went together......in my mind.

After Surgery: Struggling with Speech Deficiency & Paralysis

I was having a lot of trouble trying to manage with only one hand and that one hand being my left. I had always been right-handed. And because I couldn't speak and couldn't ask for help, it seemed I was always needing it. When meals were brought to me I couldn't get started eating until someone was sent in to help me open the packets. There were so many! A packet with the eating utensils in it, a little packet of salt, one of pepper, of sugar, a little packet of butter, of jelly. I needed my carton of milk opened and the butter spread on my toast. If someone came to help me, I could eat. If nobody came, most of the food was wasted. I, for the first time, was experiencing how it was going to feel to be wholly dependent on someone else. And I didn't like the feeling!

I was embarrassed to buzz the hall nurse when I wanted to use the bedpan because, try as I may, I couldn't think how to tell her what I needed. Many times I just lay there, frantically trying to think what to say to her so she would understand. But I could not think of the word. My mind was just blank. I pondered, and tried again and again. Then finally....finally, I thought of ''Pee Pee” the name Mother used when I was a little girl. So with great anticipation, I buzzed...............and waited...............and waited for the nurses station to answer....... Then by this time I would have forgotten the word I had finally thought of to say. I couldn't hold the word in my mind. (Even now in trying to write this story words don't come easily. I have been rewording and rewriting it time and time again for many years. Everytime I read it, I find that I am no longer satisfied with the way it sounds, so I rewrite it. I wonder if I will ever finish it!)

When I was finally told that from now on I could get up and go to the bathroom by myself, I felt that my woes were over. I would no longer have to buzz the nurse’s station and suffer the embarrassment of not being able to tell her what I needed. But I was soon to find out I had a problem equally as bad. To go to the bathroom by myself I would have to hold, with my one usable left hand, the sack that the incision drained into in order to keep the weight of the sack from pulling on the drain tube which in turn would tug at the bulky dressing and would rub painfully against the raw incision. So with the sack in my left hand and the right arm paralyzed, I had no way to tend to my toilet needs.

I Am Still Me, Though My Brain is not Right

Monday morning early
Visit: Jack (my husband), and Eleanor
Eleanor’s notes:
“Dr. Clark, one of four surgeons in with Dr. Paysinger, offered to order Physical Therapy for Mamma's right arm. Would order Speech Evaluation too if wanted, but doubted it would help. Said there had been lots of manipulation in ''that area'' of brain so might have problem with seizures.
Too soon for friends to see Mama. Needs rest.”

_____
Mon. 8:00 A.M.
Visit: Jack and Eleanor
Eleanor’s notes:
“Auditory comprehension greatly improved. When speaking to Mother, she comprehends well if she is rested and spoken to really slowly. Recognized names of friends who brought food. Wrote ''SLIPPER” with left hand when wanting bedroom shoes. Sitting up. More alert. Robe and socks on. Shook head “no” 2 or 3 times.”

Later Monday morning I was moved into a private room, number 616 West. I had no idea I would still be occupying this same room for three more weeks. When I arrived on the stretcher, I was so very surprised to see that there, on the bedside table, lay my little cross! It was like seeing an old friend. It seemed to be welcoming me. I don't know when somebody might have found it in its hiding place, but there it was now, ready to help me through some very trying times.

Even though my mind had lost all words, I could respond to what I was hearing with my eyes or with facial expressions, with ''handtalk'' or “headshakes”. I was aware of the things going on around me and would see, from under the bulky dressing, my family moving around and about my hospital room but......... what are their names??! I couldn't remember to save my life. I would ponder.-.and try to think, 'out their names just wouldn't come.

I hadn't realized how bad off I was or how bad off I must have appeared to others. To me, seeing myself from within, I was the same person.... the same Ashlyn, the same Mama, same wife, the same mind, personality, values.... unchanged.... it was just that some parts of me weren't working right, right now. But I think those who looked at me from the outside found my condition to be very grave. I was partially paralyzed! Couldn't speak! Couldn't think! Had a mental deficiency! And nobody knew to what degree I would, or could, be able to make a comeback!

Brain Tumor Removal Left Paralysis & Speech Impairment

Sat. 11:00 A.M.
Visit: Jack (my husband)
Notes taken by my daughter, Eleanor

“Mama's condition unchanged. No speech.”

I had no rude awakening about the fact that I couldn't speak or that my mind was incapable of digesting words except ones that had been spoken very, very slowly. The realization of it all seemed so gradual.
Dr. Harvey Atwill and at another time S. Miller, came to visit me in ICU. I truly appreciated their coming, especially with them not knowing in what condition they would find me. I knew them, and recognized them immediately, but I could not think of their names. I smiled. They talked. But the words they were saying had no meaning to me. Both were speaking normally, but their speech was too fast for my swollen brain to be able to process the words fast enough to get their meaning. It, to me, was a lot of sounds. Sounds that I couldn't comprehend. I was moved Sunday from ICU to Intermediate Care. I still was so very, very tired and weak, but my thinking had broadened a little, from just realizing that I had already had the operation to wanting and trying to remember names of people and of things.

Sun. 11-1:30
Visit: Jack (my husband), Sally(daughter who is a nurse), & Eleanor(who is a speech therapist)
From my daughter, Eleanor's, notes:

“Tumor benign! Right arm continues to be paralyzed. Can stick out tongue, lick lips. Can say mmmmm and mamamama. Difficulty with tongue elevation. Mother is still very frustrated with her speech. Sensitivity on right side of lips now (jello). Tremor in right arm. Sally thought she felt some resistance. Worked on matching word-to-picture. Daddy is bringing glasses and gowns.”

My feelings about all this: Eleanor, honey, please let me be.
I don't feel good enough to be trying to say mmmmm and mamamama and matching word-to-pictures. My mind won't think and my brain gets so tired........ so quickly!

Largest Meningioma Tumor Doctor Had Ever Seen

Physician's Report

Fri. 2:30 P.M. Dr. Dial

Notes taken by my daughter, Eleanor

“The meningioma was the biggest one he'd ever seen. Strange growth pattern. Grew up and out, more than in, all in bone of skull.

Almost into brain which made it difficult to excise without causing deficit. Is not changing 15% odds on us, but won't know anything for 4 or 5 days when swelling goes down. Will have pathology report in 72 hours.

All we know is Mother is awake, alert, and recognizes us.”

Fri. 2:30 P.M.

Visit: Sally and Eleanor (2 of my daughters)

Notes taken by Eleanor

“Visited Mama until 3:10. Held her hand. Showed her get-well cards.

Auditory comprehension poor. No effort at speech. Very tired.”

I Couldn't Speak! after My Surgery

Very soon after my surgery, two of my daughters, Eleanor and Julie, visited me.

Eleanor’s notes describing their visit:

"Thurs. 5:30 PM after surgery – (Julie was with me )
Mother awake and very alert. Paralysis of both limbs on right side. IV in hand. Tube with blood drainage from gauze wrap around head running into sack. Urinary catheter running into another sack. Right lip drooping over teeth. Mother very responsive. No speech. Auditory comprehension for slow, simple speech. No articulation in mouth. Seemed aware of paralysis."

In ICU After Brain Tumor Removal

Then at 1:10 P.M., according to Eleanor’s notes, Dr. Paysinger, having finished the operation, came out to the waiting room to give this report:

7:30 A.M. – 1:10 P.M. Thursday surgery- My daughter Eleanor's notes:
"The tumor (the second meningioma) was much larger than anticipated even from CT Scan or arteriogram studies. Grew through the dura, up into skull bone and almost into brain so it was hard to remove. Thinks he got it all.
Could not put plate in. Surgery took longer than expected so couldn’t get plate in. Mama had been through too much. Will put plate in in 6 months-12 months. (Another operation? The surgeons would need to put a plate in as a substitution for most of the skull on the left side of my head. I was not even awake from this operation and I was already needing another one?) Mama is resting. Could see her 4-5 hrs later when she wakes up."

After the surgeons had sewn my scalp flap back in place, a large bulky dressing consisting of a kind of gauze wrap, about an inch thick was applied to my bald head and a drain, left in the epidural space, drained from the fresh incision and my swollen brain into a sack. The dressing came down over my eyebrows and partially covered my ears making it hard for me to hear.

When I awoke from the surgery I was in the Intensive Care Unit. I was still a little drunk from the anesthesia and kept dozing off… waking up… coming… going. I didn’t much care about anything… I was just so sleepy. There was nothing I needed to ask for; my every need was being anticipated so I was hardly aware of not being able to speak. There was, of course, no problem with the use of my tongue; the problem was with the use of my brain. It was injured and swollen and wouldn’t perform. My mind was blank. I had no thoughts… until I took one look at myself and my mind responded to what I saw.

My right arm lay limply on a pillow, as if dead. My right leg was propped up against a second pillow. The right side of my mouth was numb with my upper right lip drooping down over my teeth, and my throat was raw. I realized then that “I had already had the operation.” It had taken only four hours to turn me from an able-bodied, independent person into a completely dependent, helpless, disabled human being. This tumor had really done me in; I looked as if I had had a stroke. It would be a long, hard road ahead… bringing me back from the depths.

Eleanor and Julie, not even knowing whether I would know them or not, came in the ICU to see me as I was trying to regain consciousness. I immediately recognized them… my precious daughters! I managed a smile. (I didn’t want them to know that I couldn’t think of either of their names, or, in fact, think of anything. My mind was blank.)

Physicians’ Reports Preceding Brain Surgery

Physicians’ Reports – Sally Spends The Night

Neither did I know Eleanor was taking notes on what the physicians were reporting to her in private about my condition.

Tuesday – Dr. Dial

Risk of surgery – Greater this time than for the first brain tumor due to location and scarred tissue. Risk is damage to right side, anywhere from paralysis to poor muscle tone.

Lengthy surgery – Getting to it is easy. Excising it is hard. Surgery will be a lot longer. The longer it is the more chance of problems. Tumor is in the skull. Will require plate on whole left hemisphere. More concerned than at first. Probably after surgery will have speech and motor problems. He expects this.

Seizures – Frontal-temporal meningioma might cause seizures.

Tuesday afternoon – Dr. Paysinger

Expects speech problem and weakness or paralysis after surgery. Said Mama might not make it through the surgery. About 15% chance of speech and/or motor problem will be permanent. Probably plate on most of left hemisphere. He will operate Thursday morning.

It was thought I would be in the hospital for about a week, like with the first brain tumor, so plans were being made for Julie to come with her ten months old baby boy, Lane, when I got home from the hospital and stay with me while I was getting my strength back. I expected nothing but that my recovery would be like that of my first tumor… quick and complete.

I had asked my daughter, Sally, who is a registered nurse, to please come st ay with me the night before I was to have my surgery. I thought I might need her in the nurse capacity but I knew for sure I would need her for support. She and I slept very well that night until the hall nurse came in and woke us up about 5 AM Thursday morning to “get up and start getting into the surgical gown in order to be ready for surgery”. I wanted so badly to have my little cross, that I had been carrying in my wallet for years, to be somewhere on my person during the surgery… but where could we hide it? I had been stripped of all jewelry and was jut about naked in that scrimpy little, split-down-the-back, short, no-modesty-at-all, surgical gown. Sally and I looked at me. Then we looked at each other. And then she made a real good suggestion… so, when the hall nurse came back about 6 o’clock to see if we were ready, my little cross was hidden, securely tucked long ways under my hospital bracelet and hardly even showed.

I, having already been sedated, was no sooner rolled out of the room on a stretcher than I was fast asleep. I didn’t know anything after that, not even when somebody shaved my head for the operation.

Jesus – Lord Over My Convalescence

“I’m scared to death to get up here before the congregation like this, but I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to thank all y’all for your many kindnesses and to thank my Lord for His healing. I love Him so and want so much to please Him. I pray this will be to his glory.

“Many of you know about my past experience of having a brain tumor removed May 30, 1974. It all started back in the fall of 1973 when I began suffering, off and on, from what I thought to be depression…” and then I went on and told them about the nine shock treatments, the removal of the brain tumor and having to miss Eleanor’s wedding. I reminded them that “some of you, while I was in the hospital, brought food to our house on a regular basis and continued to do so even when I returned home. Others of you came by and helped Eleanor with her wedding plans. Some even put up shelves and covered them with white material in order to display the wedding gifts. What an outpouring of love and concern! I know God comes to people through other people, and I thank you so much for letting our Lord use you… to help take care of my family when we needed you so badly.

The Lord certainly is at work in
Your hearts and we praise him for the
Works of compassion He has performed
Through you.

“Your many visits, encouraging letters and cheerful cards, the beautiful flowers, your wonderful thoughtful gestures all meant so much to me. As Bennett B wrote in a later letter to Jack and me before he died with ALS, Lou Gehrig disease, ‘Blessed are those who find ways and words to comfort others.’

“2 Corinthians 1:3-4 in the Living Bible says, ‘What a wonderful God we have – He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the source of every mercy, and the one who so wonderfully comforts and strengthens us in our hardships and trials. And why does He do this? So that when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them the same help and comfort God has given us.’

“I’m so thankful for caring people who are willing to take time out of busy schedules to do for others. Thank you so much. But most of all, I thank you for your prayers. When Gerry P, our church secretary, received word Wednesday that I was scheduled to have brain surgery the next morning, she passed the word around by telephone and many friends (about 100 I’m told), came here to the Sanctuary while the operation was going on to offer prayers on my behalf. When I heard this I was so touched! You cannot know how good and how loved that made me feel. I thank you for each and every prayer that was prayed for me, for I know prayer makes a difference. In fact, I often think, what if nobody had prayed for me…?

I feel that our Lord uses (not causes, but uses or allows) these difficult times of sickness or troubles to help us grow spiritually, for it is in times like these that we realize how helpless and inadequate we are without Him, and learn quickly how very much we need Him. As I lay up there in my hospital bed in Columbia, I felt wholly dependency on Him. I was completely in His hands. He held my future. Fear not, I, the Lord, am in control. I felt His nearness, and His love like I had never experienced it before. I felt a peace and a feel of being ‘taken care of’, a feeling of being ‘wrapped in His love’. It was so wonderful!

“I don’t know why it is that we sometimes have to almost lose something before we can really appreciate it. And I do, more than ever before, appreciate and am thankful for my life and for each day the Lord gives me to live in this beautiful world He has made for us. “I love to begin my day by looking out the window at the warm sunshine, or listening to a bird’s song and envisioning God out there and saying to Him:

Good morning, Lord,
This is Your day.
I am Your child,
Show me Your way.

Or sometimes say: This is the day that You, Lord, have made.
I will rejoice and be glad in it.

“I am trying real hard, for my family’s sake, to be a new and better Ashlyn rather than the old, depressed Ashlyn I was. Now Jack says he has a new wife! And then, I say ‘I have a new life’.

Could we bow in prayer please:

“I thank You, Lord, for this day. I thank You for these wonderful friends, who have let You work through them on my behalf. I thank You for my precious family… and for the privilege of coming to You in prayer. I utter this in Jesus’ name. Amen”.

I was so in love with my Lord!