Learn Again

Learn again is a song by an electropop Duo in Boston, Massachusetts. They are a fine combination, one is a guitarist and the other a cellist. They remind me of Simon and Garfunkel. The reason I am writing about the song is because the stroke babied me and I am back to square one in Speech and movement. I have now began learning afresh and boy oh boy it ain’t easy. Going back to the vowels and consonants is not easy. I know not whether Its Zee or Zed but this is life. I’m looking at the young Mwene, what was his early learning like? Was he naughty? Was he brilliant? Since the one asking is writing,it will be fair that he doesn’t answer because there might be a likelihood of bias. Only two people can authoritatively answer questions about my early learning,they are, ‘Arthos’ and ‘Porthos’ and together we are the three musketeers, for some reason they ganged up one evening and called me and called me,’Aramis’ . We are bibliophiles and looked at the book, The Three Musketeers and owned it, that is how we are with books.These two ladies are my childhood friends and even when life ghosted us, we looked for each other and these amazing people have been supportive buddies from the time I got ill up to now. When it comes to friendships, I am a keeper.

Stroke Rehabilitation includes Physiotherapy and Speech therapy, the aim of which is to enable neuroplasticity (rebuilding damaged nerves). A stoke happens due to lack of oxygen to the brain and that part of the brain starts to die.

If you think about it, the brain is really responsible for everything that you do. It’s responsible for your ability to move, your ability to speak, your ability to think, your ability to see, your ability to feel, to hear, etc. So really the brain is the central processing unit of the body. Lots of people think that love involves the heart, wrong, the heart is just a muscle that pumps blood, nothing more than that. Emotions, like fear and love, are carried out by the limbic system, which is located in the temporal lobe. While the limbic system is made up of multiple parts of the brain, the center of emotional processing is the amygdala, which receives input from other brain functions, like memory and attention. Away from the hard neurology, the brain is the one responsible for emotional processing so that is how important it is.

A stroke is a whole event that changes one drastically because it means that you are cut off from the daily activities like walking, talking . It is short of killing you when alive. Talking learning, I had earlier passed the exam and by April 2017, I had made gains as far as walking is concerned, we were getting there. I even ran to Facebook to notify my cyber family because well,a crowd funding campaign for my rehabilitation was made on Facebook. The super bit is that some people who came on board are Facebook friends and never had I met some, They used to love my posts and interact thereafter. I have written about Lifelessons from having a Facebook account because I was overwhelmed by the love and empathy extended to me. It was only fair to let them know how I was fairing.

The south was a huge regression which took me back to negative forty implying that I would need to literally walk forty steps to level the deficit and get back to one,Still I had to learn again. You can read about the regression here. I have been learning again and recovery is a marathon not a sprint. You gotta push on and keep keeping on. The second learning ain’t bad, because of the body imperfections resulting from the regression necessitated me to get a clutch walker and I am learning again.

One may rightfully ask, what keeps me going? The answer is in scripture, I’m a believer and I believe and trust the ancient word which is ever true. The Lord doesn’t change because I am infirm and weak. Proverbs 18:14 The spirit of a man upholdeth his infirmity: but a spirit that is easily angered, who can bear? … Your will to live can sustain you when you are sick, but a crushed/wounded spirit cannot bear. It is perhaps my will to live that has kept me going and strong and with every step, I am willing to learn again.