Caregiver's Corner No. 3--Driving After a Brain Attack

If you read through the second blog, then you know that folks with aphasia process things very differently than those who have been fortunate enough to not have suffered an event that would leave us with aphasia. It is very important to remember that aphasia does not affect intelligence, it affects your ability to process language in and out and to do other things like numbers manipulation. It can also affect other tasks like driving.

Strokes are often called brain attacks. And that is exactly what they are—your brain has been assaulted like the Normandy beaches on D-Day. As a result, things are jumbled up and processing information in and out or manipulating numbers becomes a labor of love.

As I see it, Carrie now processes things in a very linear fashion. Why? Because she is searching through those jumbled up files to find a word to say or find a word in take it in and use it in the context in which it was presented. Often, when we are speaking, she will tell me to slow down and at other times she spells out words to herself in an effort to recognize the word. At other times when we are watching television and there are printed lines on the screen, it is sometimes necessary to pause the television to allow her time to read whatever has been written. We try to do it that way since we both believe it helps her improve her language skills. But we are talking about driving after a brain attack--remember the analogy of the highway after an earthquake?

Driving again took some time because in September 2007, Carrie had a seizure while we were up in Maine. She had not been driving since she got out of the hospital earlier in the year, but we had plans for her to attend a driver rehabilitation program that had been recommended by her rehabilitation team at INOVA Mount Vernon Rehabilitation Center. The seizure upset all of these plans and required that Carrie wait six more months before she could drive. In March of 2008, she went to the driver rehabilitation program and voila she was cleared to drive again, but only in a car with an automatic transmission. If you asked her why, she will tell you, “Too many things going on with a stick shift car!” And if you remember when you tried to learn to drive a stick shift, you can appreciate what happens when you can only process things in a linear fashion—start the car, push in the clutch, put the car in gear, let out the clutch at the same time you push down on the accelerator. Hopefully, you don’t lope down the road!!! And, then we listen to the radio, talk, eat and do all other kinds of thing that we probably shouldn’t. Well, if you ride with Carrie, you won’t do some of those things. No radio and very little conversation, although the latter has gotten better over time. One day we were going somewhere and Carrie was driving. As usual, I was chattering away like a magpie and out of the corner of her mouth she said very simply, “No talking.” As I said, it has gotten better, but I now try to not initiate a conversation until she says something first. If you know me, you know this is difficult for the chatterbox!
And that is another day as we make this journey…