For the longest of times I have been obsessed with forming a
support group for families with stroke patients. In my conversations with Doctors, Nurses,
Physiotherapists, and Social workers one of my predominant questions would be if
they know of any families with stroke patients. If they answer in affirmative, then they
would be subjected to a barrage of questions.
What happened? When? Present condition? Who takes care of them? Which
Neurologist is consulted? Which
hospital? And the questions go on. It usually ends with “May I have their
contact number and talk to them myself?”
If I do get the number, the families would be asked these
and more questions. In almost all the
cases there has been a ready willingness to talk and share. So now I have around 10 families or so that
I talk to on regular basis. Getting a
call from them is a rarity, its usually me hounding them every now and then to
enquire of progress or the lack of.
Hungry for more families I reached out to our
Neurologist. Taking pity on me, he gave
me complete access to their database of patients and assigned some staff
members for assistance. I then pull out
a list of patients whose condition seems like they are in for long term
rehabilitation. I make calls but
unable to add a single family into my existing kitty. The reason being most critical cases have
passed away, while the milder ones have recovered to a significant extent. May be I am looking at the wrong place, I
don’t know.
Not wanting to wait any longer, and on the advice of Dr.
Guru Nataraj, an amazing Social worker from CMC Vellore I call all the families I
know to a first meet at our place. Of
the lot five families agreed to come.
Thinking it wasn’t a bad start, we prepared some snacks and juice,
and waited. My nine year old niece appointed
herself as the Maître d'. First person
showed up almost an hour late and then just one another person showed up. As we were thinking of wrapping up the last
person rang the door bell. The grand
total was three families excluding us.
Although less in number we talked a lot. It was just good to talk of the emotional,
financial and physical effort it takes to have a stroke patient at home. One gentleman was new to the whole
experience, it was just months since his father’s stroke and we gave him all
sorts of information on things and places.
Although my niece and I were disappointed with the turn out
for different reasons, Dr. Guru assured me it was a good start and I should
keep at it. I am sure he is right, my
hunt for more families continues.
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