PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Strokes and Music

Anyone with advice regarding having a stroke and music?

I guess from the positive my 10 month checkup with the big C docs (2 of them took an hour on this) and the result is no sign of the stupid thing coming back. It was really all I wanted to hear.

On the other side the weakness in my right hand and my speech are the result of a recent stroke, probably radiation induced. Oh well.

My right hand and speech and right leg are not just 100 percent. I can't do the fancy piano runs with that hand. I have to dumb things down.

The stuttering, well so much or oration. I was pretty good at it at one point. But the other side effects of swelling and whatever mean I can talk for about 30 minutes to an hour a day.

And I was always a good typist. Now I make a lot of mistakes and spend much time correcting stuff my right hand is messing up.

I guess I'm asking if anyone here can say for sure that working on it is going to yield results?

I am now considered a Stage IV cancer survivor. Great. The treatment almost killed me but hey, my kids and grandkids were here and I had a great day. But they wanted me to play and I just get 'stage fright'.

I could play thousands of things, and I had a way to do everything. A run there, arpeggio there, and over the years it was my repertoire.

I'm starting from square one. I have to take each piece and forget the hard stuff, the fancy stuff, a lot of things I did with a couple of fingers and find another way to do it. Add on top of that the peripheral neuritis in my hands and the spatial problems and wow.

Am I being lied to that with work you can make this better. I sit at the keyboard and stare at it. I am playing like I did 30 years ago. Block chords, not the lounge piano guy I used to be.

I gave in on the narcotics. I guess I have to take that stuff. I'm not in the wife's good books I was cutting the pills, not taking what they said. So now I get some fancy pain doctor next week and back to the patch.

Where do you go from there? I can't hear the upper level of the keys. I can't play like I used to. I lost my chops on horn, radiation took away the top , A to upper C is now gone. Not that I'm not trying. My horn fingering is not bad but I can use my left hand, always did once in a while.

So in the end you are deaf, stutter, can barely walk, and your right hand is 70 percent of what it was. Maybe I should be a left handed tuba soloist in an ompha band.



Well, maybe I can emphasize that you can become miserable, even if you take those stupid pills.

I need software to go through my thousands of CD's and nix the ones with notes that sound like anvils being struck. Which means the last 12 notes on an 88 key piano. The most terrible sound you can imagine. So some strings go way up there and it totally ruins the piece. I'm thinking of taking all my collection, and dropping it an octave. Music -12.

And the oscar for person who got the most screwed up but still can type goes to...NEVER mind. Even in my most feeble self I could never invent as stupid as an acceptance speech and 97 percent of them do. And they have Months to prepare. Actors, sure..lets make 32 takes of your acceptance speech. Wow.

IDEA, maybe I can record the Goldburg Variations one note at a time, and paste it together.

Music is one of the best tools.
Wish you the best.

G'day John,
it is very clear you are a survivor, and I'm very pleased to hear the the cancer is beaten.

As for music and the effects of stroke, well I have no personal experience, but I do know the brain is extremely adaptable and new neural pathways can be made to make up for at least some, if not all of the losses, especially with "mild" strokes. I know one chap who you would never know he'd had a stroke at all his recovery was so complete.

Of course, every person and every case is different, but I do know this: nothing will get better if you give up. I know from your writings that you are no quitter so I expect you to squeeze every last ounce out of what recovery is possible, and probably go beyond that. Things like the hearing damage may well be permanent, unfortunately, but from the sound of things, retraining of your muscle memory will mostly just take time and effort.

I play in a variable size jazz ensemble at a local surf club on Wednesdays. We see all kinds of people who come just to hear us rehearse and I can tell you that there are quite a few who have different brain injuries, traumas or just plain disease for whom music is a way to get them doing things they cannot otherwise do. One example is a woman who cannot walk without a walking frame, until the music starts that is, and then she can dance unaided. It's really gratifying to know one is helping her enjoy life.

Music will still be good for you, just as it has been in the past.

My prayers, and I suspect those of your many friends here, go with you.

john, it sounds like you have had a left hemisphere ischemic stroke, meaning a blockage rather than a rupture. mine was right hemisphere which paralyzed my left (opposite) side. i didn't feel like playing guitar so i've lost it all. it has been 9 years in may. i continue to deteriorate slowly. it is now affecting my spinal muscles so it is difficult to sit erect, i tend to fall to either side. my speech has deteriorated to guttural sounds which nobody can understand. on the plus-side, i have my dynavox speech synthesis device and a deluxe power chair so i manage to cruise and communicate okay. i keep my mind active in bible-based activities and helping others along that path. my life is quite full and satisfying. perhaps a dynavox would help your communications, at least. you have my email address, please don't hesitate to ask me any questions you may have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ischemic_stroke#Ischemic

arfter learning 16 musical instruments which is all i have done in my lfe apart from working in the famly buisness,then 3 month ago i had 3 strokes in a 7 day period not really bad but bad enough to wipe my ability to play my instruments althou i had a complete weakness on my left side which has now returned it was my mind that suffered more or less wipeing my brain clean in how to play my instruments a lifetime gone in a blink if i can get over the frustration i will try and relearn my fravorite which is the Banjo but it is proving very hard also all my knowledge of my software has vanished ie BIAB,Realband,cubase, an others all my passwords gone and so on in saying all this i believe i was lucky when you meet others that had really bad strokes you think threre for thr grace of god,but the worst is the feeling down which can come with a stroke which is one of the harder thigs to battle when you see how fragile life can be and how much the family and friends care you have to keep trying if you can get over feeling sorry for oneself

regards Dave

John,

Look for a PM.

To John, Don, Dave and all,

I'm reading these posts as if I wrote some of them myself. Having been in a near fatal auto accident over 10 years ago I was left with no use of my left hand. I'm skipping all the injuries sustained in the accident and staying on this topic.

I played Guitar and Keys for 35 years, everyday. Also I'm a lefty so when it happened I couldn't write either. After a lot of therapy to walk some and talk again, 9 years later I found I could control my left hand. I was thrilled. I practiced and started to play again but there was a catch. I could play just a sprinkling of what I used to play. Pretty well too, but after that I draw a blank. Mentally my mind hasn't a clue how to work anything out. And to make matters worse, I don't seem to feel the music anymore. It's kind of like part of my brain got erased.

You all have expressed it well. Better than I could have. Ironically, I used to play for severe head trauma victims at local centers. It helped them and their caregivers. I'm so glad I did it because it also gave me some insight on head injuries.

Wayne,

i just read an article that said, in part, that alzheimer's patients respond favorably to music from their own era/teenage years. there is a 90 year old lady here who loves old time fiddle and flat-picked guitar tunes and can somehow find my room for me to play pandora for her. she's like a 3 year old child mentally but her face lights up and her feet start tapping in perfect time so she can still relate to her favorite music. unfortunately, when i meet her out of my room she fails to recognize me, so sad. my hat is off to anyone who can find volunteer time to play for those of us who are confined to nursing homes. you will reap great rewards. a high school girl reluctantly came to do a book report on the elderly. she fell in love with the 90 year old lady and now visits her often without a dialogue.

Hi Other Don,

I know from experience that this is true. We used to play at a nursing home in MI. Some of the folks were quite far gone. But: If you played Victory in Jesus, their feet started taping and they would be singing along. That always amazed me.

Don S.

Here's the gist of a PM I tried to send John. It doesn't appear to have gone through, but now appears appropriate to post publicly.

Red and white ginseng taken together on a daily basis have long been considered a tonic for physical and mental well-being. I know from personal experience that I definitely felt sharper when I first began taking the white. Interestingly, the Chinese think highly of wild ginseng obtained from Canada and the American South and value it above cultivated "sang."

Going out on a limb here, but I recommend anyone with neuro issues take a look at Brain Lightning. Although the home page looks like a bad late-night infomercial, if I was in the position that some of you report, knowing what I do about it, I would definitely take a look.

I can vouch for it as an aid to alertness and focus. I can't speak for the controversial claim that it aids in regeneration of brain cells, for which property it was reportedly being assessed by the US Army as an antidote to certain nerve agents.

The people who introduced me to it set themselves up as distributors so got a break on the price.

HTH,

Richard

John I had a stroke myself about 10 years ago. Not a huge one but it did leave me with weakness in my left side and my speech was also slurred. This was BEFORE I took the box out of its case again. I was walking unsteady and was off balance for a few weeks.
When I tried playing again, I couldn't believe how bad I was, I couldn't play the most simple tune without making a complete cock-up. Nature & time are the best healers and John, practise as often & as long as you can. IT WILL come back, believe me old mate.
I've a friend in Ontario who might be able to help you. She's discovered she can heal by faith. Drop me a pm & I'll send you her email ad.
Graham

Hi

the consultant i saw is quite young and seemed to have a foward looking ideas,one is thst they used to think that all the inprovmemts were in the first few months and that was it but now they know that the inprovment in getting back to normal has no finish it goes on, down to how much you want to get better although very slow it will carry on improving i thnk that is more on movment then memory

regards Dave

I was driving back today from a work site listening to a jazz station from Seattle (it's not far from here if you fly in a straight line). I didn't catch the name but they were talking about a guitarist that had brain surgery, and as a result he'd forgotten everything and couldn't play at all.

Apparently it took him ten years to relearn and get it back.

It can be done - the brain is plastic and new networks can be formed.

Glenn

That was Pat Martino. Learned how to play and mastered his instrument. TWICE. The human brain is amazing.

To be quite honest the same thing ALmost happened to me. I didn't forget HOW to play, but I DID forget the fingering technique I had aquired and the scales of all the keys. I had also forgotten 90% of the tunes I'd learnt over the years. Now when I WAS out as a full time player I didn't read music. All the stuff I'd leant & composed myself was in my memory. I had to get back to basics and figure the damned thing out again. My fingering is nowhere near as agile as it was 25 years ago, but then of course I was playing 4-5 nights a week. Some of the gigs were up two flights of stairs & it'd kill me now for sure humping the stuff up LOL LOL