Being needed

OK, I am a blogger, so things must appear on my blog, even though the words are now typed with one finger. I am apparently the sum of my own history and I work best when I can type. That helps me organize my thoughts, even if it's much slower than vlogging. So here I am, finally blogging again. The big advantage now is for the slow readers among you, because things are now written much slower.

Well, it's time to let you know how I'm doing, a few months after my cerebral hemorrhage. The situation now is that there is permanent damage in my brain: the hemorrhage destroyed a part of the motor center on the left, which explains the problems with my right hand. On the right, I still lack a lot of strength in my wrist and fingers, and fine motor skills are almost non-existent.

But I am certainly no longer so clumsy. My left hand has become better at many things and and you learn to do many things with one hand. And there are also things like elastic laces, but I refuse to shop on assistive device websites because I want to oblige myself to continue using my right hand. At the moment, besides elastic laces, I only use a knife with a piece of insulation around it so that I can still cut my own meat, provided the chair to my right is unoccupied. In the other case, it isa black eye a quasi guarantee for my right-hand neighbor.

Mentally, almost everything is back to normal, except that I now have a very hard time in busy environments with many simultaneous stimuli. So I prefer to avoid large gatherings, and sometimes even in smaller groups, I have to say that I'd better go home or find some quiet. Watching TV also remains a challenge, especially with rapidly changing images. And stress doesn't slide off me as easily, which also makes me tired more quickly. Going to sleep at nine o'clock is not unusual for me. Seeing the clock strike midnightis non-existent. For those who knew my former sleep rhythm, this will come as a surprise.

Glue work in my brain

Initially, the cause of my cerebral hemorrhage was a mystery. I lacked the normal risk factors such as old age, blood pressure or diabetes. But thanks to a professor, befriended by my sister, they looked better and deeper at UZ Leuven and found a AVM found at the location where the bleeding was.

This must of course be repaired, otherwise the chance of a new hemorrhage remains high, so high that it is almost a certainty that, given my age, it would happen again. After a series of examinations and second opinions, I chose to undergo an endovascular treatment in Leuven.

Simply put, a catheter will be guided through my groin to the superfluous blood vessels, and these will be filled with a resin. Minimally invasive but still a risk because it will alter the blood flow in my brain. It is an operation that will not make me better now – I will still have to rehabilitate my hand for more than a year – but it should make the future better.

For me, it is mentally tough at the moment because there is a risk that I will wake up less functionally. Perhaps I will be more paralyzed again or unable to speak (because that part is nearby).

Through my faith, I have asked the doctors to dare to continue. After all, I am not afraid to die because I know that I will then go to a better place. My fear is rather to still have a bad life. Although I still believe that life is a gift from God, I now have a more nuanced view of people who ask for euthanasia. If I had to live permanently with a severe disability and had no faith, then there is certainly a personality trait in me that would also prefer to die. Moreover:my faith perhaps strengthens that feeling even more, precisely because death does not frighten me.

What really keeps me going, however, is my family. Their care and love are fantastic (I don't find enough words to say how super my wife is), but what really helps is that they make me feel that they need me.

Being needed is necessary

Let that be the lesson I certainly want to share with you. If someone becomes seriously ill or in need of help, it is certainly necessary to help and have compassion. Those reactions are very natural for us as Christians. But also need that person in your life; let him or her feel what value he or she still has. That might just be what the person in need most needs to persevere: to be needed themselves.