WHAT EXACT PROTOCOL DOES YOUR DOCTOR HAVE LIKE THIS TO GET YOUR ARM/HAND RECOVERED?
YOUR DOCTOR'S RESPONSIBILITY!
My stroke was a lifequake, but music is helping me recover
Wellington music teacher Andrew Stopps is sharing his story in response to a series of articles about orchestra conductor Hamish McKeich’s stroke and recovery.
OPINION: One year ago, in November 2021, I had a severe stroke. This is the story of how I used music to increase my recovery and get myself back.
It is a very gentle thing when a stroke happens. For me, it was gradually increasing heaviness on the right side of my body and increasing difficulty making myself understood. There was no pain, no big flash and no fear, just confusion as to what was happening to me and overwhelming tiredness.
I later came to call it “the gentle assassin” which, in one stroke, took away the old Andrew and left me to rebuild Andrew 2.0.
I learned almost immediately that part of my brain had experienced a factory reset to default settings and my job now was to apply myself to teach it all over again.
While I was recovering in the hospital, in those early days post-stroke, my dear friend and fellow music educator, Vicky Thorpe, reminded me to use my clarinet as therapy.
That was a big ask, as at that time I had no movement at all in my right arm and a weak right lower half of my face.
There was no way then I could even hold a feather, let alone a clarinet and all the fine motor skills that come with actually playing it.
Having a stroke is a lifequake. Still, just four days after the stroke, I had my clarinet brought into the hospital and my rehab team helped me position my lifeless hand over the keys.
The hope was that it would trigger muscle memory and start my arm moving again, or even just one finger. It did not. At least not yet.
Having a stroke is a lifequake. It can be overwhelming, especially as there are so many parts of you that need rebuilding. Emotionally, you are without filters.
You express happiness and joy on your face. Beauty in music and art becomes tears in your eyes. Frustration and anger at your broken body become a good old foot-stamping tantrum. Your senses would overload very easily.
In the early days, I experienced all these and had to build new filters, but this time only the ones I wanted. I love the fact that if I am happy, joy breaks out on my face. I love that music now brings me to tears. I also learned that negativity impairs healing and learning, so I had to develop greater empathy and patience with myself.
Routine was important, and years of practice were a huge part of my recovery. I did my rehab every day and quickly started to see improvement.
I knew that even though my arm was limp, if I visualised it moving I would still build neurons and connections in my brain. The brain can’t distinguish actual movement from mental imagery, and eventually I was able to lift it a little.
Day by day, week by week, I kept visualising and mentally doing movements to music, like I was conducting, and my arm kept improving.
Improvement from brain injury is not like when you’re practising. You don’t see an immediate gain. Sometimes you can go days with nothing and then suddenly the movement happens, and just as suddenly as it comes, it goes again and you feel like you’re back at square one.
You have to keep practising though and be very patient and kind to yourself. Every time it moves and does what you want, it does it better. If you can move it, you can improve it.
So with arm movement came wrist and hand. I would take clarinet music and mentally practice it with the actual piece playing. It was at this time I started using a mirror box and my piano keyboard. I would set the box in the middle of the keys, place my right hand inside and play the keyboard with my left, all while looking at the mirror.
Again, the brain cannot tell the difference between what my eyes were seeing and what was actually happening. My brain believed my right hand was playing the keyboard. Slowly my fingers started moving, from the little finger back to the thumb.
Slowly they moved independently. I could start using my hand again. The practice is ongoing. Mental imagery to music. Moving to music. Singing improved my speech.
Today, one year on and on the eve of my ‘stroke-versary’, I can hold my clarinet again and place my fingers on the keys. There’s still more practice to do. Finger strength and speed are still a work in progress, as is rotating my thumb down so it fits under the clarinet thumb rest.
My stroke specialist said, way back while I was in the hospital, that I was lucky I am a musician. Our brains are wired a little differently, which makes progress and improvement better than if we weren’t.
It’s so easy to descend into despair and let that voice in your head tell you all manner of terrible things: “You’re useless,” “No one will love you now,” “You’re broken,” “You might as well be dead.”
Well, I have learned this year that you can actually shout back at that internal bully. And I did. And it’s actually a coward. Like all bullies and abusers, it stopped and is gradually fading away.
The internal voice, the saboteur, as it’s sometimes called, is something we all have to a lesser or greater degree. It stops us from reaching our full potential and taking risks. It thinks it’s protecting us, but it’s actually harming us.
It’s one thing to say to yourself “don’t cross that freeway because you’ll probably be hit by a car” and “don’t bother going for a walk because you are fat anyway and everyone will stare at you”. One is sage advice and the other is plain abusive.
That internal abuser was very loud in the early days of recovery. I would grow frustrated with myself because I couldn’t do simple tasks. One of my rehab therapists noticed this and said anger and frustration interfere with healing. Be kind to yourself. That changed everything.
When I became frustrated, I reminded myself I’d been through a factory reset and I had to learn these skills again. I was more patient with myself and when the “abuser” turned up, I would shout back and shut it up.
I am thankful for being alive, I am thankful I can still read, write and talk and have all my cognitive functions, I am thankful that my emotional filters went and I was able to rebuild new ones, that I like. I am thankful I have full movement and am still recovering fine motor skills.
Finally, I am thankful this awful thing that is a stroke opened me up to all the amazing survivors and carers I have met and sent me off in a new direction on my life journey. It was a lifequake all right.
Another reason everyone should learn music, wouldn’t you say?
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