by Renda Ashley

Created on: August 11, 2008   Last Updated: August 14, 2008

"Mother, what's wrong with the left side of your face?" I asked.

"I think I have a sore on my tongue" she answered."It's hard to talk."

She was also having weakness on the right side of her body.

"Mother, I don't think you have a sore on your tongue, I think it's numb. Your face is drooping" I said.

This didn't sound good. Numbness on one side of body, face drooping,and difficulty speaking. Weren't these symptoms of a stroke?

My nephew dropped by, we discussed my suspiciutions. Trying not to show his distress, he cracked a joke. My mother didn't laugh. My mother always laughed at his jokes. I looked at my nephew. He gave me a worried look. She didn't understand what he was talking about. After grabbing a few things for the hospital, we rushed to the emergency room. My nephew went in with her while I filled out the forms. When I got to the bed she was resting in, my nephew told me that she couldn't read the book that I had packed. My mother was a retired English teacher, a librarian and an editor. She couldn't read?

"Can you see it clearly?" I asked. "Maybe it's your glasses"

She could see. Maybe she was too stressed to concentrate.

You have three hours after a stroke begins to receive treatment (T.P.A therapy) which can reverse the effects of a stroke. We didn't make it in time. My mother had had a severe headache for hours. I don't know how long her face had been paralyzed.

Lying in the emergency room she fell asleep. She slept off and on for the next few weeks. When she did wake up she couldn't answer questions such as "Where are you? Who is the President? What is 2+2?"

The Neurologist told me that my mother's stroke had affected the hippocampus part of the brain. Or destroyed it. That's what a stroke does.

Before the stroke, my mother and I had been working to finish a book we were writing. I signed the book contract, but I couldn't have, without her and editorial abilities. Looking sympathetic, the doctor told me that my mother would never edit another book. Watching her while she slept, I cried for the mother that I feared I had lost.

The brain can re-wire itself and the three months following the stroke are the most crucial. 80% of my mother's recovery would be madewithin that time period. I decided to start her rehabilitation before we ever left the hospital.

I bought "Trivia Pursuit", "Candy Land," "Scrabble," "Clue," and play dough. For the few minutes a day that she was awake I bombarded her with my own brand of therapy. Sometimes she responded, sometimes she

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