Dreams Really Do Come True

June was an extremely busy month for me. I have some wonderful memories and quite a few blog topics I can write about. Titles include: Traveling with Aphasia and Apraxia; Preparing for and Surviving a Big Event (wedding) with Aphasia; Reoccurring Stroke Symptoms during Illness, Bullet Journaling for Mindfulness, Aphasia Moments and A Happy Chemo Angel Goodbye. But the best title from June and what I want to tell you about today is Dreams really do come true. I finally achieved a goal that I have dreamed about and worked really hard on for 4 long years.

A couple months after my stroke (in May 2019), I received a survey from the hospital asking me about my experiences. On that day, I vowed that I would someday share my story with hospital staff hoping that others might not have to experience what I did. As you can believe, because I couldn’t speak or even utter a sound, communication was the main issue. I was given basic care, but I couldn't participate in any healthcare decisions, let people know how I felt or even tell anyone about pain or discomfort. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was totally aware of what was happening the whole time. Even today I can vividly remember what happened and how I felt.

The journey of completing this project was a long one. I worked with three wonderful speech language therapists to get my voice back and be able to write and read again. With the first therapist, I didn't have any words to tell my story. In fact I was able to say only a few words and these words were very functional. I couldn't even say my name.

When I worked with my second SLP, she helped me with the words I needed to tell my story. In fact it was with her I began writing my blog in which I attempt to share what it has been like for me to live my best life even with aphasia and apraxia of speech. And on my last day of speech therapy with her, she invited a speech therapist from the hospital and one of her students and I was able to share some of my story with them.

But the project of sharing my experience with hospital staff really began when I started to work with my third SLP, Lucia. I had been keeping the survey I received in a safe place and looked at it often, not really knowing what I was going to do with it. Just completing the survey as it was, was not going to tell the story the way I wanted to and certainly not the way hospital staff could learn from it. Lucia and I decided that we would use some of our valuable speech time to talk about my experiences, then we wrote my story down and had plans to eventually do a video. Lucia connected me with another therapist who was interested in doing staff in service training to hospital staff. She also referred me to the BU Aphasia Center and connected me with Denise Lowell at the non profit Just ASK.

Lucia and I finished our speech therapy as I traveled more often to Virginia after my granddaughter was born. But I still had the dream of completing the video and sharing it with hospital staff.

in June, I finally felt ready to get over my fears and insecurities and created the video of my hospital experiences. With Denise's help, staff at the hospital received the video. I may not ever know what the outcome is, but it is my hope that they find what I said compelling enough to develop some in service training about communication for their emergency staff and the staff at the stroke unit.

I recently heard about Project Based Speech Therapy. Of course since I have been a teacher, I know about project based learning and I have used this in the courses I created. I hadn't made the connection that what Lucia and I did in our speech therapy sessions had a name, Project Based speech therapy, but that is exactly what we did. The project was so very important to me and I will be eternally grateful to Lucia and Denise who helped me make my dream come true.

So what about the other experiences I had during the month of June (that I told you about at the beginning of this post). You will just have to check back in. I plan to be very busy doing these blogs this summer.

Until next time.....