Connie,

I'm very sorry to hear about your mother.  I know it's hard to see something like this happen when your mom was so used to talking so much!

I can tell you what I experienced.  After my second surgery, I was not able to speak at all.  It took a couple of days for me to even be able to speak or say anything that made sense.  I used to lay in bed in ICU and stare at my identifying tag and try to mouth my name.  Nothing would come out.  They would come in and ask the famous questions they always do like your name, where you are at, your birthday and name the object they were holding in their hand.  It was so frustrating to not be able to say anything.  I would just shake my head that I did not know.  I even had pen and paper for me to write things down because I couldn't get it out of my mouth. 

When I did regain my speech, my mom and brother were still concerned when I was released from the hospital.  I would get words mixed up and seemed a little confused sometimes.  In fact, they took me back to Steinberg's office for an appointment because they were concerned.  Theresa told me the same thing....to keep my blood pressure up.  It has seemed to help, but I still have a hard time grasping for the right word that I want to use.  It's quite frustrating. 

I have also noticed that the two times that I have had a TIA, it has affected my speech. 

Hopefully, the therapy will help and she will regain it all back with a little hard work and some time.  I will keep her in my prayers for you. 

Michelle

Connie,

Yes, that is the best advice that you can give her.  I know that if I hadn't gotten out and went to physical therapy, then I NEVER would have regained the strength in my foot and ankle.  It's not just about physical strength but stimulating my brain to fire those muscles that weren't working.  I've learned to try and stimulate my brain for those muscles that aren't working.  It's the same with speech! 

I remember just laying in bed and trying to stimulate my brain to say my name.  I believe it really helped.  And then I just kept working at it when I was released from the hospital.  One thing that I know that has helped me is that whenever I come up with a word that I know I'm trying to think of that is not the actual work I'm looking for, I grab a thesaurus.  Usually, when I do that, I come up with the word that I was looking for. 

Hope this helps!  Tell your mom that I am thinking of her!

Michelle

Thanks Michelle and Shari, that is good advice!  I'll tell her about this and tell her it's very important to try these things.  I also like the crossword puzzles, though she can't read much, I think a child's crossword could really help.  My dad could help her read it, she is getting better with her reading which is very good.  I'll have her try these, thanks again!!

-Connie

Does anyone have any experience with inabililities to speak for longer periods of time after post surgery stroke with Moyamoya? Our daughter Kelsey suffered a terrible stroke after the surgery, and has not been able to talk for two years now.....  We are still hoping though and work with her daily

Hi Everyone,

We're going on 2 1/2 months of no talking.  It started wtih no talking at all, just head shakes, but we are slowly, (emphasize on the slow part) getting little bit better.  Some of the words my husband is able to say are still really garbled, but some he can say come out really good.  He is starting to get fluent with some choice curse words, which is ok because he is trying to talk.  He doesn't seem to have any problem understanding us or saying sentenced, he's just unable to get a lot of things out or clearly.  He had a small machine similar to a TTY device for the deaf, so when he wanted to ask a question, if he couldn't get it out or clear enought, he would just type it in, but that was a loaner and had to be sent back.  So...now he is back to pointing to letters to spell out a question.  I can't imagine how frustrating it must be not to be able to speak.  Good luck everyone.

Canadian_Girl,

Everyone here gives wonderful advice!  We are always thinking of you and your husband and praying for the best!  I know, it's so frustrating for them and for the family when their speech just isn't coming out correctly.  It's so difficult to wait, but keep working with him and tell him to continue working hard and something will happen! 

-Connie

Dear Canadian Girl,

What a great update on your husband!  I'm happy to hear he's making such good progress.  The road to recovery is often slower than we would like, so it's definitely a lesson in patience and perseverance for all of us! 

I think your comment regarding confidence is absolutely right.  In my daughter's case, the beating her confidence took has affected some big decisions -  she's staying home for her first year of college, instead of going away somewhere.  We're hoping that after her first year (with some smooth sailing), she's feeling confident and secure enough to go away, if she wants to.  (Of course, as far as I'm concerned, she's welcome to stay home with us forever!!!!!)

Anyway, keep smiling, keep up the good work, and please keep us posted, o.k.?

Hugs from California,

Jill

Kahtleen lost just about all of her speech after her strokes,it's been very slow getting it back but steady.She also has down syndroem so her speech will probably alwasy be comprimised but a lot of ehr problems now I think are from the stroke.Although word retrieval can be a common problem in down syndrome this is what I wrote on another thead about the subjectI don't know if it's the same for others or if it will help any, but it did help us to understand a little..I read something that explained how this feels...Your brain is full of "baskets" with words and thoughts and memories.Typically a person will have the same word in many baskets(because they have an old memory or experience with it that's how it got there),like pumpkin, may be in a basket with holidays,halloween,pie,orange etc. but with Down Syndrome( and I'm thinking it may be similar with someone who has a problem with word retrieval) it may only be in one basket, say... halloween, this makes it harder to "find" BUT if you can talk about it till you help them find the right basket it's in it may  help, ie.also offering many different experiences and conversations around it it will help store it in other "baskets" for future recolection.I hope this makes a little sense.... It helped me understand what she may be going through and help me to find the patience to help her through it. This also may be why reading helps her,it gives her a lot of"experiences" in language that she may otherwise not get.We too do a lot of flashcards with pictures,there's even flashcards for verbs which I found was harder to learn that nouns(this made sense because it's easier to talk about something tangible).Singing helpd too, she LOVES music!!!.In general anything that can give someone more than one way to remember the language seems to help.We also did some signing when she was little it helped her soooo much and was pretty easy to learn some basics.She loved it too. She actually used some right after the strokes.
Mary Grace