She Thought Friend - Kate, The Cuddly Atheist, Has Stroke

Kate Holden-Laudig, The Cuddly Atheist

This is Kate’s husband, Jay, again. My last post was a bit short on information. It’s been a bit of a hectic week. We are now home fro the hospital, and resting comfortably in our own bed again.

To recap, Kate had a stroke on 19 November and as a result now has Broca’s aphasia. Broca’s aphasia is what is known as an expressive aphasia. It limits her ability to express the ideas in her head, whether in speech or in writing. She is still “all there”; she just has extreme difficulty in communicating. As you can well imagine, this is extremely frustrating, particularly for someone so rightly proud of her communication skills as Kate. She has shown some improvement over the last week, and I am also getting better at interpreting her.

There are two pieces of hopeful news. Strokes cause swelling in the brain as well as damage, both of which can lead to impairment. As the swelling goes down over the next two to three weeks, any impairment due to the swelling, as opposed to damage, should spontaneously reverse. Significant improvement is likely, though not certain, soon.

Also, Broca’s aphasia is generally quite responsive to speech therapy. She met with a therapist in the hospital a few times last week, and seemed to really enjoy her sessions. Monday, I will call the speech therapy clinic to set her up on an outpatient schedule. The therapy will last up to a year, depending on how well and how quickly her communicative abilities return.

Many people over the course of the last week have asked me what they can do to help, and several have asked to send money. A lovely friend at the JREF Forums is taking up donations on our behalf at her site. Be sure to indicate in the comments why you are sending her money, or she might just spend it on hookers and blow. If you decide to do this, know that we are very grateful.

Far more important than any amount of money, though, is support and encouragement. From everything I’ve read or heard from doctors and therapists this week, the effectiveness of speech therapy will be highly influenced by Kate’s attitude. Right now, she is very upbeat and excited, but it will be a long and frustrating process. Any little words of encouragement you could leave would be worth their weight in baby tears.

Thanks for reading, and thanks especially to Hemant Mehta and Heidi Anderson, who have graciously agreed to repost this.

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