Life After Right MCA Stroke: Why You May Not Feel Like Yourself After Stroke
Introduction
Heidi Loveridge survived a right MCA stroke at 43.
Physically, her recovery has gone well. She regained strength, learned to walk again, and is even working toward getting her driver’s license for the first time.
But emotionally, something feels off.
“I used to be so happy… and now I’m not.”
If you’ve had a stroke and feel like you’re not yourself anymore — even when everything looks “fine” on the outside — you’re not alone. This is one of the most confusing and least talked about parts of life after stroke.
In this article, you’ll learn what life after a right MCA stroke can really feel like — physically, emotionally, and mentally — and why recovery is about more than just getting your body back.
What Is a Right MCA Stroke?
A right middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke affects the right side of the brain, which plays a key role in:
- Spatial awareness
- Attention and perception
- Emotional processing
- Awareness of the left side of the body
Because of this, many stroke survivors experience:
- Left-side weakness or coordination issues
- Changes in emotional regulation
- Difficulty with awareness or attention
- Fatigue and cognitive overload
Heidi left the hospital with left-side weakness and needed a walker and wheelchair initially. Over time, she regained much of her physical ability — but her emotional recovery has been more complex.
The Part Nobody Talks About: Emotional Recovery After Stroke
Physical recovery is visible.
Emotional recovery is not.
Heidi describes crying frequently, sometimes without a clear reason. She also experienced depression — something her doctors explained can be common after a right MCA stroke.
But what makes it harder is this:
She doesn’t fully know why she feels the way she does.
That uncertainty can be one of the most distressing parts of recovery.
Many stroke survivors expect:
- “I survived, so I should feel grateful”
- “I’m improving physically, so I should feel better”
But instead, they feel:
- Flat
- Overwhelmed
- Disconnected
- Not like themselves
This is not a personal failure — it’s part of how the brain heals.
Why You May Not Feel Like Yourself After Stroke
A stroke doesn’t just affect movement.
It affects identity.
Heidi describes a major personality shift. Before her stroke, she was an introvert who avoided conversations and social situations. Now, she talks to strangers easily and seeks connection.
At first, that might sound like a positive change — but it also comes with confusion.
Who am I now?
This question is common after stroke, especially when:
- Your emotional responses change
- Your energy levels fluctuate
- Your tolerance for stress is different
- Your interests and behaviours shift
The brain is literally rewiring itself — and that includes the parts responsible for personality, mood, and emotional regulation.
“I used to be so happy… and now I’m not.”
Physical Recovery Doesn’t Mean Full Recovery
From the outside, Heidi is doing well.
She can:
- Walk independently
- Ride an electric bike
- Cook again (after initially losing the desire)
- Participate in social activities
But internally, she still feels like something is missing.
This is where many stroke survivors feel misunderstood.
People see progress and assume everything is okay.
But recovery is not just about:
- Strength
- Mobility
- Independence
It’s also about:
- Emotional stability
- Sense of identity
- Feeling like yourself again
And those things often take longer.
What Helps During Life After Right MCA Stroke
There is no single solution — but there are patterns that help.
1. Movement and Routine
Heidi walks regularly to manage her mood. Movement helps regulate the brain and can improve emotional well-being over time.
2. Community and Connection
After her stroke, Heidi actively sought connection:
- Joining a women’s circle
- Returning to church
- Talking to strangers
This is a major shift from her previous life — and a powerful part of her recovery.
3. Accepting That Recovery Is Ongoing
At just 10 months post-stroke, Heidi is still early in her journey.
Recovery doesn’t follow a fixed timeline.
It continues.
4. Allowing Complexity
You can feel:
- Grateful to be alive
- Frustrated with your progress
- Hopeful and discouraged — at the same time
All of these can exist together.
The Search for Happiness After Stroke
One of the most honest moments in Heidi’s story is this:
“I wish I knew how to make myself happy again.”
That’s something many stroke survivors quietly experience.
The goal isn’t to force happiness.
It’s to:
- Create space for it
- Support the brain as it heals
- Build small moments that gradually reconnect you to yourself
Sometimes that looks like:
- Trying new therapies
- Talking to someone who understands
- Rebuilding routines slowly
And sometimes it simply means giving yourself time.
A Different Kind of Strength
Heidi didn’t just survive a stroke.
She changed.
She now says something she didn’t believe before:
“I can do hard things.”
That belief led her to:
- Get her learner’s permit at 44
- Step into new social situations
- Push beyond the limits she once accepted
This is a different kind of recovery, one that isn’t measured in physical milestones, but in personal growth.
Conclusion
Life after a right MCA stroke is not just about recovery.
It’s about rebuilding a life that feels meaningful again.
If you don’t feel like yourself right now, it doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It means your brain and your identity are still healing.
And that takes time.
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Disclaimer
This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan.
Heidi’s Stroke Story: Surviving Physically, Struggling Emotionally
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Highlights:
00:00 Life Before Stroke: A Journey of Transformation
04:45 The Day of the Stroke: A Life-Changing Event
09:39 Hospitalization and Recovery: Facing New Realities
15:17 Driving and Independence Post-Stroke
19:04 Emotional Changes and Mental Health
23:52 Finding Meaningful Connections
28:13 Life After Right MCA Stroke
36:12 Overcoming Limitations and Embracing Change
39:30 Travelling Beyond Borders
40:23 Transforming Personal Identity
44:15 Innovations in Stroke Treatment
45:17 The Journey to Happiness
47:33 Exploring Alternative Therapies
51:14 Lessons Learned and Moving Forward
Transcript:
Life Before Stroke: A Journey of Transformation
Bill Gasiamis (00:00)
You’re not happy.
Do know what you’re not happy about?
Heidi Loveridge (00:03)
No, it doesn’t feel like it’s anything specific. Like, I know I can do everything I need to do or want to do. So actually at Christmas time, I did try cross-country skiing. It was really hard.
Bill Gasiamis (00:09)
Mm-hmm.
Was it fun?
Heidi Loveridge (00:14)
Not as fun as it should have been. It was more hard than fun.
Bill Gasiamis (00:18)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve survived your stroke, but something still isn’t right, like you don’t quite feel like yourself anymore, then this episode is going to resonate with you. Today I’m speaking with Heidi Lovridge who experienced a right MCA stroke at 43. Physically she’s made incredible progress, but emotionally things have been a lot more complicated. And what’s really powerful about this conversation is how honest she is about that. Before we dive in.
I just want to say big thank you to everyone who continues to support the podcast. If you have picked up a copy of my book at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. Thank you. That support helps keep these conversations going and to the Patreon supporters. Thank you for being a part of this program and helping me create content that reaches stroke survivors all around the world. All right, let’s get into this episode with Heidi.
Bill Gasiamis (01:11)
Heidi Leveridge, welcome to the podcast.
Heidi Loveridge (01:13)
Thank
you.
Bill Gasiamis (01:14)
you tell me a little bit about before stroke? What was life like? What were you up to? What kind of things did you enjoy doing?
Heidi Loveridge (01:23)
Yeah, so I like, I love being outside. And I used to before my stroke, I was a total introvert. And my biggest hobby is knitting. And so like, I used to always knit, I used to bring knitting to meetings and stuff because I could, or parties so I could avoid chatting. But now I love talking to strangers. So I used to be a total introvert before my stroke too. But now a stranger is just somebody I don’t, it’s not my friend yet. Who I haven’t met, a friend I haven’t, a stranger is a friend I haven’t met yet.
Bill Gasiamis (01:50)
Is that a, ⁓ a mindset shift? that a life’s short thing? Like, is it?
Heidi Loveridge (01:59)
I know. I just suddenly don’t care what people think about me anymore. I can do hard things now, I know. Yes, so hiding before, I…
Bill Gasiamis (02:05)
and before you cared deeply
about what other people who you didn’t know thought about you.
Heidi Loveridge (02:09)
Yeah,
yes. So my stroke happened on my 20th wedding anniversary. We were actually planning on going on a big camping trip to like, actually we had a little small cabin booked at Vancouver Island’s most like in the middle of nowhere pub. So I was going to do, I was planning on doing camping and we’re going to bring, we have a little tin boat and a motor so we were going to go around the inlet up where we so.
Vancouver Island is on the west coast of Canada. It’s actually quite mild here. So it’s kind of a temperate rainforest here. And I used to love spending time outside, camping, hiking, but not like hiking where I have to carry too much heavy stuff. That’s too much for me. I’m actually getting to the point that I can imagine that I might be able to do that something again soon.
Bill Gasiamis (02:48)
Okay.
Okay, were you working back then?
Heidi Loveridge (02:55)
Yes, I was working, so I do procurement. So I buy stuff for the local transit agency.
Bill Gasiamis (03:03)
Okay. And you, how many?
Heidi Loveridge (03:04)
And I have lots of dogs in my life.
Well, there’s currently three dogs in my house right now. So I have a friend that breeds Shelties, and so she lets me take care of her puppies.
Bill Gasiamis (03:15)
Okay, and I’m curious, can I hear one of them painting right now?
Heidi Loveridge (03:20)
there’s a fan, there’s a filter beside me. I’ll turn it off. An air filter. my husband is in the garage in the other room and he sounds like he’s like sanding something.
Bill Gasiamis (03:31)
It’s all happening. It is what I’m hearing. I’m going to be rude and I’m going to wonder whether or not, we ask him to stop doing that for a little bit?
Heidi Loveridge (03:32)
That must be what you’re hearing.
Yeah. Dave!
Bill Gasiamis (03:44)
Yeah, is too. It’s not going to make for a good video.
Heidi Loveridge (03:48)
hearing me. Here I’ll send them a text message.
Bill Gasiamis (03:51)
Okay. Okay.
apologize profusely for me.
Heidi Loveridge (03:54)
Yes,
I will.
Bill Gasiamis (03:57)
I hate to get in the way of a man and his garage or shed.
Heidi Loveridge (04:00)
All right.
in the garage.
Okay, I him my subject. He hasn’t read it yet, but we’ll see.
Bill Gasiamis (04:07)
What’s he making?
Heidi Loveridge (04:09)
I don’t know.
Bill Gasiamis (04:10)
Hahaha
Heidi Loveridge (04:12)
He tends to collect bits of and just makes things depending on what he’s feeling like.
Bill Gasiamis (04:18)
Yeah.
Heidi Loveridge (04:19)
Yes. So I think that yeah, yes, he’s read it now. He says sorry. Thanks Dave. ⁓
Bill Gasiamis (04:21)
I wonder if he might have got the message.
Yeah.
⁓ So you’re a dog mama.
Heidi Loveridge (04:31)
Yes. Yes.
Bill Gasiamis (04:33)
or
a caregiver, dog caregiver.
Heidi Loveridge (04:36)
Yes. Yes, I have the joy of participating in the lives of dogs.
The Day of the Stroke: A Life-Changing Event
Bill Gasiamis (04:41)
Yeah. Okay. So the work was a busy kind of work life. Was there a lot happening?
Heidi Loveridge (04:47)
Yeah,
yeah, I was pretty busy. Except being in total introvert, I used to love spending time at home. But now after my stroke, I do I suffered a little bit from anxiety before my stroke. But now I’m I think I’m pretty I’m pretty sure I can be called that I’m depressed now too. Which I’m working on with my doctor. But yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (05:05)
Do you have it? Okay.
You experienced a little bit of depression.
Heidi Loveridge (05:09)
Yeah. Yes, I’ve cried a lot since my stroke. And I’ve actually seen the love of so many strangers. It’s surprising how many people are willing to give you a hug when you’re crying in public.
Bill Gasiamis (05:10)
Do you have a sense?
Yeah, that’s cool. Do you have a sense of kind of what is behind the depression or does it just come on and you’re not really aware of why it comes on?
Heidi Loveridge (05:30)
So I think it’s related to my brain injury.
Bill Gasiamis (05:33)
Okay, and how are you working with it?
Heidi Loveridge (05:33)
And apparently it’s common
with the right MCA stroke.
Bill Gasiamis (05:37)
⁓ okay. And how do you kind of work with it or deal with it or manage it?
Heidi Loveridge (05:45)
Well, I walk a lot. Yes, going for walks is how I help myself.
Bill Gasiamis (05:52)
Okay. Is it just getting out fresh air? Is it just getting the body moving? it?
Heidi Loveridge (05:55)
Yeah, it’s
moving and fresh air, I’m sure.
Bill Gasiamis (06:00)
Okay. And then does knitting have a role to play in that? Because even though we’re chatting on a podcast, you’re still knitting. So I imagine knitting is kind of something that you always do everywhere all the time.
Heidi Loveridge (06:08)
now.
Yeah,
yeah, not so much now, but I used to be like, totally obsessed.
Bill Gasiamis (06:17)
And it was, was it just
a distraction tool? was obviously, okay. I see what you mean. It’s obviously, it’s obviously also a creative pursuit. You, you end up making something and that’s useful. can wear. There you go. Right. But was it really a tool? Did it start off as a tool to be in public, but without really connecting with people?
Heidi Loveridge (06:20)
All my yarn over there.
Yes, yes, yes I’ve actually made the sweater that I’m wearing right now.
⁓ a little bit, yeah. But it started because at one point I used to work so many jobs. I used to work a full-time job and then used to do bookkeeping on the side. And then I stopped bookkeeping and suddenly I had all this time so I needed to find a hobby.
Bill Gasiamis (06:55)
Okay, okay. So are you somebody that doesn’t like spare time? Can you not sit quietly somewhere in a room and contemplate life or read a book or?
Heidi Loveridge (07:04)
⁓ I used to. Now I can
read books now still.
Bill Gasiamis (07:10)
huh. Okay. So a very interesting person. You’ve gone from being an introvert in the house, ⁓ to having had a stroke and things have shifted. You like connecting with people. You don’t mind getting a hug from strangers and you’re out and about as much as you can.
Heidi Loveridge (07:17)
Yeah.
Yes, no.
Yes, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (07:30)
Tell me about the day of the stroke. What was that like?
Heidi Loveridge (07:33)
Well, I was falling. My balance was off that day and Dave kept on, I kept on having to come in to save me, pick me up off the ground. There’s actually a big dent in the garbage can in my bathroom that was from my head doing it.
But apparently, which I don’t remember this personally, but according to my medical records, apparently I was having symptoms for four days. I was having my balances off for a while before I actually, and then Dave asked me if he thought I needed to go, if I thought I needed to go to the hospital, I did not.
Bill Gasiamis (07:58)
Uh-huh.
Heidi Loveridge (08:04)
But then he called the nurse’s health line and they said, I think she’s having a stroke. And then, so we called the ambulance and then the ambulance then knew that I was suspected for a stroke. So they took me to the proper hospital where the stroke unit is.
Bill Gasiamis (08:18)
Did you have any sense in those days leading up to it that something was off, things weren’t right?
Heidi Loveridge (08:25)
No, nothing big, no. Though apparently I thought I had a migraine headache in the days before.
Bill Gasiamis (08:33)
Was a migraine headache common?
Heidi Loveridge (08:35)
Yes, yeah, that’s because when I got my stack of files from the hospital through freedom of information and that apparently is one of my risk factors, migraines with aura.
Bill Gasiamis (08:47)
is a risk factor for stroke down the line.
Heidi Loveridge (08:49)
Yes,
yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (08:51)
Wow. Okay. And you used to, migraines with aura are pretty big deal.
Heidi Loveridge (08:52)
Yeah, that and oral contraceptives.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (08:57)
migraines with aura are pretty intense experiences, they?
Heidi Loveridge (08:59)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yes, I do remember a time. Yeah, I remember a time when I was a kid, I was having a microdora and I like remember my arm was flinging out of nowhere by itself.
Bill Gasiamis (09:03)
What was it like to experience a migraine like that?
Heidi Loveridge (09:12)
So I don’t know, that was my first sign that I was gonna have a stroke one day.
Bill Gasiamis (09:12)
Mm-hmm.
Maybe not.
Heidi Loveridge (09:17)
Maybe not though, yeah. Yes.
Bill Gasiamis (09:19)
And
then contraceptive pill you mentioned, were you taking the contraceptive pill?
Heidi Loveridge (09:23)
Yeah. Yes,
I was. And no longer. Never again.
Bill Gasiamis (09:28)
Okay.
Yeah. So did they find the underlying cause of the stroke? Did they give you a diagnosis for that?
Hospitalization and Recovery: Facing New Realities
Heidi Loveridge (09:34)
No.
No, I was just having hypercoagulability of my blood.
Like I actually had blood clots in my lungs too.
Bill Gasiamis (09:43)
Right. There wasn’t any, any physical collision altercation with a piece of furniture or anything like that.
Heidi Loveridge (09:49)
⁓ nothing.
Yeah, there’s no, no good, there’s no reason, just a fluke it seems like.
Bill Gasiamis (09:56)
Yeah. But that contraceptive pill comes up so many times with people who’ve had a stroke.
Heidi Loveridge (10:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, but they can’t test for that.
Bill Gasiamis (10:07)
No, no, and they wouldn’t want to be.
Heidi Loveridge (10:08)
They tested me for
everything. All the cancers. I definitely know that I’m cancer-free for a while.
Bill Gasiamis (10:14)
Yeah, that’s good. That is very good. ⁓ And there was no hole in the heart or anything like that. No high blood pressure. Yeah.
Heidi Loveridge (10:15)
Yeah. No, no PFO. Yeah. Yeah, they tested for that. I
did the bubble study. Nope, none of that.
Bill Gasiamis (10:24)
Yeah. Did you do a blood test that kind of determined whether or not you have one of the blood clotting disorders?
Heidi Loveridge (10:32)
Yeah, they did that too. Nope, I don’t have one those. Or else I suspect I would have clotted a lot sooner.
Bill Gasiamis (10:35)
Yeah, wow. Okay.
Yeah, okay, understood. So it was one of those unknown things and we’re never gonna know whether it was a contraceptive pill or not. How old were you at the time?
Heidi Loveridge (10:47)
No,
I was 43.
Bill Gasiamis (10:51)
Okay. Yeah. How long had you been on the pill for?
Heidi Loveridge (10:56)
Like since I was a teenager. I was actually born with two uteruses, so I had issues as a kid with like my periods and stuff. Yes. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (11:05)
Uh-huh, so they help manage that whole situation.
Heidi Loveridge (11:08)
I was born two uteruses, one kidney.
Bill Gasiamis (11:12)
We’ll continue with Heidi in just a moment. Turn2.ai is an AI health sidekick that searches over 500,000 sources related to stroke. New research, expert discussions, patient stories and resources and keeps you updated on what is most relevant to you each week. Try it for free and get 10 % off by scanning the QR code on the screen or by clicking the link in the description.
Now let’s get back to Heidi.
Bill Gasiamis (11:38)
something got mixed up in the booking.
Heidi Loveridge (11:40)
Yeah,
yeah exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (11:43)
So that’s a very rare thing. imagine probably not many people are born with well, firstly, one kidney and then two uteruses at the same time.
Heidi Loveridge (11:51)
Yes.
Yeah, exactly. I get to be special.
Bill Gasiamis (11:57)
Do
they love you at the hospital? Were you one of those people that everyone got around, they wanted to see, they wanted to be a part of the consultations?
Heidi Loveridge (12:06)
No, I didn’t feel popular at the hospital.
Bill Gasiamis (12:10)
Do you know what I mean? Because sometimes you see doctors, they, um, they get excited when there’s a rare case or something they’ve never seen before. The person’s having the worst day of their life or they’re really unwell, but they’re really excited to see them. You know, they want to see them. They want to bring everyone in, come and have a look.
Heidi Loveridge (12:16)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
Yes, that’s what it felt like the day they found out I found out that I had two uteruses. There was one person doing the ultrasound on me and then they called in another person and I was like, something’s up.
Bill Gasiamis (12:30)
huh.
Right. Do you see what I see or is it just my double vision?
Heidi Loveridge (12:42)
I know what you see. Yeah, that’s exactly what they were doing saying.
Bill Gasiamis (12:43)
Yeah, that’s what…
That’s what I was doing. ⁓
Wow. So.
Did you manage to get to the cabin or to the particular place, the destination that you guys were heading to on that day?
Heidi Loveridge (12:54)
No. No,
we did not. I was in the hospital for like six weeks.
Bill Gasiamis (13:01)
huh. When you woke up from the initial hospitalization, what did you, how was it? What was that like? How did you kind of experience that moment in your life?
Heidi Loveridge (13:06)
Mm.
Like I feel like I remember the first day of the hospital. So like I don’t, I didn’t have any time that I passed out or became unconscious, I don’t think.
Which is surprising, because I used to pass out all the time. I’d knock my toenail or something and I’d pass out. I used to pass out at the dentist. But now I’m good. I don’t know, I used to panic.
Bill Gasiamis (13:25)
Why?
huh. It was an autonomic nervous system kind of response. You would just shut down.
Heidi Loveridge (13:30)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly. But now I can do hard things. I actually went to the dentist for the first time in 20 years last week. No cavities in 20 years of not going to dentist.
Bill Gasiamis (13:40)
And it was easy.
Okay, or I share your no cavities technique. Is it just brushing every day? It’s gotta be more than that.
Heidi Loveridge (13:48)
Yeah, I guess.
I don’t know. I just- I just must- I don’t floss, really, but I’ve just been really lucky with my teeth.
Bill Gasiamis (13:56)
We’re going doing a deep dive into all of your habits ⁓ and no cavities for 20 years. That’s an awesome experience, especially if you haven’t been to the dentist.
Heidi Loveridge (13:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
no cavities in my childhood either. I have one filling which was like a preventative measure, like, there’s a bit of a divot in your tooth, we should put something in there so you can’t get a cavity.
Bill Gasiamis (14:17)
⁓ did, mom and dad must’ve loved you. Like you’re, you’re the kind of kid that, you know, didn’t cost your parents anything.
Heidi Loveridge (14:27)
No, though they did get me braces though when I was a kid.
Bill Gasiamis (14:30)
They did, they stranded up your teeth and they thought, now we’ve spent some money on your teeth, look after them and never get a cavity. And you did.
Heidi Loveridge (14:31)
Yep.
fast. Yeah, yes. So I’m
actually quite, I quite, like I told them right away, like I didn’t get a cavity in 20 years. Though I was ashamed to say that I didn’t go to the dentist though, because like, they’re very up on dental care. It’s very important for them.
Bill Gasiamis (14:42)
Ha ha ha!
Yeah, it is very important for many things, dental care, believe it or not. Apparently, some dental gum diseases are a risk factor for heart conditions. yeah, gingivitis, I think it is a risk. Now, I didn’t go to the dentist regularly either. I kind of tried to avoid the dentist by floss and a brush, but I tried to avoid the dentist. They’re just uncomfortable, right? Having your mouth open and people probing in there. I get it. And some people have a lot of issues around that. So
Heidi Loveridge (14:59)
Yes, and stroke, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Driving and Independence Post-Stroke
Bill Gasiamis (15:19)
It’s perfectly okay. But ⁓ it’s important to have good dental health care because it helps you avoid other medical conditions, which is so weird.
Heidi Loveridge (15:19)
Yes.
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Is dental care covered in Australia?
Bill Gasiamis (15:33)
No, not particularly.
Heidi Loveridge (15:35)
No,
here neither. But I’ve had benefits for so many years, and I just didn’t use them.
Bill Gasiamis (15:39)
Mm-hmm. You didn’t need to. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. So on the day of the stroke, you remember basically the whole thing. You ended up in hospital and everyone. Uh-huh. What were you thinking? Were you thinking what’s happening here? Am I going to die? Did you have any of those types of experiences?
Heidi Loveridge (15:40)
like employer pay benefits.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I can remember the ambulance ride.
Yeah.
No, yeah, looking through my file, they say lots of stuff like, I’m patient is calm. I was just, I just let myself get taken care of.
Bill Gasiamis (16:09)
You just kind of left yourself in the hands of the experts.
Heidi Loveridge (16:15)
Yeah, exactly. Please fix me.
Bill Gasiamis (16:17)
Is that because you’re normally mild-mannered or you just realized that you were in a situation where you couldn’t do anything about?
Heidi Loveridge (16:22)
No, I’m always, I’m very mild-mannered. Yeah, I don’t argue with anybody.
Bill Gasiamis (16:28)
Even if they’re wrong.
Heidi Loveridge (16:29)
And maybe I guess it might depend on what they’re wrong about, but I generally let people have their own opinions. People are allowed to think what they want. That’s not my problem.
Bill Gasiamis (16:32)
Yeah.
I love it. love it. ⁓ yeah, that makes for a more, ⁓ at ease interaction with people.
Heidi Loveridge (16:38)
I can’t change everybody’s mind.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (16:48)
Yeah. Decreases probably conflict and all that kind of stuff. Are you conflict diverse? Is that why you do it?
Heidi Loveridge (16:52)
Yeah.
Yes, I do not like conflict. Though, actually, I’ve changed in that way too. Because I have a neighbour who tells my dogs to shut up in his backyard. Before my stroke, used to just go straight to my heart. I would like, ugh. I’d feel so bad about that. Now, I don’t care when he says that. He can tell them to shut up as much as he wants. That’s his problem.
Bill Gasiamis (17:12)
And would you approach a person like that and say to them, stop speaking to my animals like that?
Heidi Loveridge (17:18)
No.
No, I’d be scared.
Bill Gasiamis (17:23)
Okay, so you’re conflict-averse and also you don’t want to cause a situation that might escalate.
Heidi Loveridge (17:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I just want everybody to like me.
Bill Gasiamis (17:32)
⁓ okay. I get it. And this kind of stems back. All this is kind of stuff from when you were a kid, when you were younger and being an introvert is introverted. ⁓ introverted people, similar to people who you hear, ⁓ described as being shy.
Heidi Loveridge (17:40)
Yeah, my whole life,
Yes, I was called shy my whole childhood.
Bill Gasiamis (17:54)
but it’s actually introversion.
Heidi Loveridge (17:56)
Yeah, exactly. It’s like I don’t need like after when the COVID pandemic happened, I was actually so excited to be able to work from home. Like I changed my life, not having to go to work every day.
Bill Gasiamis (17:58)
Huh.
Wow. Is that because that meant less interactions with people in the public transport system or on the way to work or wherever? ⁓ huh. Is it debilitating or is it kind of just you? It seems like it could be debilitating for some people if they’d really trying to avoid interactions with people all the time, especially in public places where you’ve got to go shopping or you’ve got to pick up supplies.
Heidi Loveridge (18:08)
Yes. ⁓ so.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, I was okay being in public. It’s just like, because there’s no assumption that I need to talk to people when I’m in public. So now I talk to people all the time. I’m willing to tell anybody that I’ve had a stroke, because I’m looking for people like me.
Bill Gasiamis (18:39)
okay.
Yeah. Were you, did people mistake your behavior, your introvertedness or your shyness for being rude?
Heidi Loveridge (18:49)
Thank
Yeah. Yes.
Emotional Changes and Mental Health
Yes, some people, yes. But actually, I was quite popular. I am quite popular at work. Like, everybody really likes me. So like, people might not even know I’m an introvert at work. Sometimes I can fake it so well.
Bill Gasiamis (19:08)
⁓ you’re one of those sneaky introverts that pretends they’re an extrovert.
Heidi Loveridge (19:12)
Yeah,
yes, but then totally wiped after a day at work when you have to talk to everybody.
Bill Gasiamis (19:17)
Aha. So then you come home and you don’t want to talk to anybody.
Heidi Loveridge (19:21)
No, I need, yeah, like Fridays, if people want to invite me over for dinner, was like, Fridays is hard for me. Like, I just had a whole long week and I wanted, like, do nothing for a night.
Bill Gasiamis (19:30)
Many spouses would love to hear that their partner didn’t want to speak to them after a long week for a little while.
Heidi Loveridge (19:36)
Yeah, well, I think Dave is also a quiet guy too, so he was happy. Yeah. But actually now I feel like I pushed him out of his comfort zone. Because right after this, when I got home from the stroke, I was constantly like going to people’s houses. And like
Bill Gasiamis (19:42)
You guys get each other.
And Dave’s like, who is this person always wanting to go out all the time?
Heidi Loveridge (19:56)
Yeah,
exactly. I put him in uncomfortable situations, like visiting people that he’d never met before. I’d be like, ⁓ my old coworker, Judy, she lives out here. Let’s see if she’ll have us over.
Bill Gasiamis (20:08)
and Judy said yes.
Heidi Loveridge (20:09)
Yeah, she did. And it was a, we had a lovely time together.
Bill Gasiamis (20:13)
And then you went to Judy and Judy didn’t realize that you are now no longer an introvert. You’re an extrovert because she always saw the extrovert.
Heidi Loveridge (20:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And she was definitely an extrovert and she still is. And she’s always been.
Bill Gasiamis (20:27)
And she just thinks everything’s normal. is normal.
Heidi Loveridge (20:29)
Yeah,
exactly. Yeah, not everybody knows that I was faking it the whole time. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (20:33)
Wow.
So I had a friend who passed away a few years ago who used to insist that he was an introvert. I never saw it. All I ever saw was the extroverted side of him. He would be in front of a stage, in front of audiences, speaking, talking. He’d be on podcasts. He would be at your house. He would chew your ear off in a conversation. And it was like, Grant, I don’t know. think I don’t see the…
Heidi Loveridge (20:39)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
you
Bill Gasiamis (21:05)
introvert person at all, the one that you keep telling me about. And he insisted that he was, and I even went to his house and hung out with them, um, slept there a couple of nights because they were quite away, uh, away from our place. Never ever saw the introverted side of him, but he insisted that it was, but I never had that experience.
Heidi Loveridge (21:06)
Yeah.
Hmm.
So I think my biggest success since having my stroke is that now I never used to drive before my stroke. I’ve never been a driver, but now I know I can do hard stuff. So I have my learners now. Yeah, so not until I was 44.
Bill Gasiamis (21:38)
Wow, you never got your license.
Were you afraid of getting a license?
Heidi Loveridge (21:44)
A little bit, Mostly like, I just associate driving with people just getting mad at you. Like people road raging and stuff. But now I don’t care what people think. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (21:45)
huh.
Uh-huh.
which happens,
which happens, but it’s very, very rare that you would get into that type of interaction.
Heidi Loveridge (21:59)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (22:00)
So for that rare potential, you would rather have opted out of that than opted in.
Heidi Loveridge (22:04)
Mm.
Yeah, exactly. Nobody gets mad at you on the bus.
Bill Gasiamis (22:10)
Yeah. So.
Heidi Loveridge (22:11)
You know?
Bill Gasiamis (22:14)
So did it interfere with your, it doesn’t sound like it did, but I was going to say with your ability to get around and, you know, go to places you wanted to see and do all of that. did just Dave pick up the slack.
Heidi Loveridge (22:25)
Yeah,
he had to pick up the slack a little bit. But I also grew up very comfortable with transit. I actually grew up in Toronto, which has like subways and like it’s a way more than transit system here in Victoria.
Bill Gasiamis (22:30)
Okay.
Uh-huh.
and your
And now at 44, you have a learner’s permit and you’ve been driving for how long?
Heidi Loveridge (22:45)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
like maybe since November.
Bill Gasiamis (22:53)
Was it exciting?
Heidi Loveridge (22:54)
I actually, I need to like bring in my inner teenager, like who’s really excited about driving, so that I like practice more.
Bill Gasiamis (23:00)
Okay. But the decision to go and train and try and get your permit was just like, yeah, I have to do this. I’ve been missing out. What was it?
Heidi Loveridge (23:02)
Yes, I also.
Yeah.
Well, I just don’t like staying home anymore alone.
Bill Gasiamis (23:16)
And if Dave’s not available, you need to be able to get out.
Heidi Loveridge (23:18)
Yeah. I’d like to go, I’d like
to take my dogs with me when I go places.
Bill Gasiamis (23:23)
Wow. And that wasn’t an issue beforehand. You never had that issue before. And in your mind, in your mind.
Heidi Loveridge (23:28)
Oh. Yes.
Yes. Actually, I have an electric bicycle that I use, but I can’t take my dog on the bike. Though we do have a dog backpack, but she’s a little bit heavy. I mean, she’s only a 20 pound sheltie, the backpack isn’t very good for that weight.
Bill Gasiamis (23:43)
Wow. When you came out of hospital, were there deficits that you had to deal with and recover from?
Finding Meaningful Connections
Heidi Loveridge (23:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, I left the hospital with a slip to go pick up a wheelchair and a walker from the Red Cross.
But I think I got past the walker and the wheelchair pretty quickly.
Bill Gasiamis (24:00)
So you had to use the wheelchair and the walker for what reason? What was the deficit that you were dealing with?
Heidi Loveridge (24:06)
because I had
left side weakness.
Bill Gasiamis (24:09)
Okay. And was it, your leg didn’t know where it was in the world? Was it kind of getting retrained to help you ⁓ stay up or is it still weak and still challenging?
Heidi Loveridge (24:18)
Yeah.
It’s not weak anymore, but it was weak when I left the hospital still.
Bill Gasiamis (24:25)
huh. Okay. And what about your hand, your left hand?
Heidi Loveridge (24:29)
Yes, I think I used it almost like normal except I can’t write very good anymore. Like my fine motor skills. Yeah, I’m a left handed too.
Bill Gasiamis (24:34)
and where you left him.
⁓ okay. So is it just like chicken scratchings now?
Heidi Loveridge (24:41)
Yeah, it’s a disaster. Oh, there was one point I had to go to the Service Canada, the government, to get my social insurance number updated to my married name because the system was like, it wasn’t adding up when I was trying to apply for benefits. And then I was like, he asked me to write something down. And then he said, you need to write it down so I can read it. And I said, I had to get Dave to write it for me because I couldn’t. That was the best I could do at that time. Yes. Yes, it’s legible now, I think.
Bill Gasiamis (25:07)
And has that improved since?
Yeah, does the knitting what about the knitting that that get interfered with with the hand challenge?
Heidi Loveridge (25:17)
That was, when I was in the hospital still, was one of my goals. I need to start knitting again.
Bill Gasiamis (25:22)
Aha. And that wasn’t an issue? Did you get the knitting skill?
Heidi Loveridge (25:26)
⁓ it was an issue.
I could not knit at the beginning. My hand could not do the fine motor skill at all. But I actually think I knit right handed apparently, because I can follow any pattern. So that probably helps. Like the left hand just kind of holds the needle doesn’t really do too much, you know.
Bill Gasiamis (25:30)
okay.
Okay, so you need right-handed, but you’re left-handed.
Heidi Loveridge (25:45)
But,
yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (25:49)
So I’m right-handed and then I bat. So if I was swinging a baseball bat or a cricket bat, I bat left-handed.
Heidi Loveridge (25:51)
Yes. Yeah.
Interesting. I also got left-handed. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (25:58)
to be weird. don’t know why. And very rare to find a left handed batsman.
Apparently it’s very rare. And anyhow, that’s one of the things that I picked up in my time, that I was a left handed batsman, but a right handed at everything else.
Heidi Loveridge (26:05)
Thank
Thanks.
That’s not post stroke though, that was your whole life.
Bill Gasiamis (26:15)
No, my whole life. Yeah. And post stroke, it’s my left hand that’s affected. So holding a bat now feels a bit weird, but yeah, I can still do it.
Heidi Loveridge (26:19)
Huh. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (26:24)
So six weeks in hospital, came home with a wheelchair and a walker. And what about work? Like what happened with work? How did you manage that?
Heidi Loveridge (26:27)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I was off work for a long time.
Bill Gasiamis (26:39)
Hello.
Heidi Loveridge (26:40)
Like, eight months.
Bill Gasiamis (26:44)
eight months. Wow. As well as the left side of weakness, what other deficits were you dealing with?
Heidi Loveridge (26:50)
It’s my emotions that were terrible. I used to cry all the time. I can still cry at the drop of a dime. I cried today, actually.
Bill Gasiamis (26:55)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. ⁓ have you heard of the pseudo bulb affect?
Heidi Loveridge (27:02)
Yes, that might be something that I have, I don’t know.
Bill Gasiamis (27:07)
Yeah, nobody really diagnoses it, but it’s very common and it is a thing. And I was very, very teary for the first few years after all of my brain hemorrhages and still can get very teary ⁓ at the top of a hat. Yesterday in Australia, ⁓ well, at the moment it’s Orthodox Easter. So I went to church yesterday and I barely go to church, but every couple of, you know, there’s an event.
Heidi Loveridge (27:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Bill Gasiamis (27:36)
we go, but I’m not a church goer. And I found myself getting teary at the service. And it was, that’s not what I’ve ever done before. That was a little bit strange. ⁓ I didn’t allow it to escalate two tears and crying. I hit it quite well, but it happened just out of nowhere.
Heidi Loveridge (27:37)
Yeah. No.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, yeah. I actually started going back to church since my stroke. It started as like, just want to spend time with people.
Bill Gasiamis (28:01)
Mm.
Uh-huh.
Heidi Loveridge (28:07)
but it was the church I grew up going to as a child.
So like, sure, my family’s very excited that I’ve gone back to church. The black sheep has returned.
Bill Gasiamis (28:10)
was that
⁓ Of course they have. She’s gone back
eventually. Yeah, that’s great. And do you go regularly or is it literally services and everything or is it just for the catch ups with people?
Heidi Loveridge (28:20)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I go to everything right now.
Bill Gasiamis (28:32)
Mm-hmm. You’re either all in or all out, Heidi, by the sound of things.
Heidi Loveridge (28:35)
Yeah.
Yes, it’s caused a little bit of trouble with my husband because he says we stopped going together. And we did. That’s how I met him. I met him in church. And then we both stopped going at the same time.
Bill Gasiamis (28:44)
huh.
⁓ did you guys grow out of it perhaps?
Heidi Loveridge (28:49)
Yeah. But now, I just need, I feel like I need hope in my life. That I’m not gonna feel terrible forever.
Bill Gasiamis (28:55)
hope.
Heidi Loveridge (28:57)
and I’m recognizing how lucky I am that it’s just like my emotions that are struggling still.
Bill Gasiamis (28:58)
Yeah.
Yeah. And your mental health a little. Yeah. And there was some mental health there a little bit with the, with the depression and church kind of feels that, that, that void a little bit. Sounds like church feels that space and helps you overcome that.
Heidi Loveridge (29:03)
Like physically I can do almost everything, anything I want.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (29:21)
Well, community in a church is awesome. Always communities are usually brilliant. You go to a church, there’s amazing, helpful people, supportive. You know that you can even in the worst time lean on the people in that community. They’ll rally around you. They’ll support you. They’ll support your husband, your family. So it can be an amazing place to hang out, even if you’re not really churchy or religious or anything like that.
Heidi Loveridge (29:24)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (29:50)
And it’s no different to that would, that would, you know, like-minded people. It’d be no different to being part of a sports club or some other knitting club or any other kind of club.
Heidi Loveridge (29:54)
Yeah.
Yes, I’m also part of a woman circle.
Bill Gasiamis (30:06)
That doesn’t surprise me. Tell me about the woman circle. What do they do there?
Heidi Loveridge (30:08)
Yes.
So we get there and you talk about things in your life that are bothering you. So right now it’s my stroke. It’s so stroke related.
Bill Gasiamis (30:17)
That’s brilliant. And how many women get together and how often?
Heidi Loveridge (30:21)
There’s eight of us and we get together about one every week, Tuesday evenings. In person, yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (30:25)
In person.
You wouldn’t probably do a zoom one now, would you?
Heidi Loveridge (30:31)
I’d rather not. I like people in real life better. Yeah. Yes. Old Heidi. Once a week was a big commitment.
Bill Gasiamis (30:33)
Yeah, the old Heidi would, but this Heidi, no.
So the woman’s circle, that’s brilliant. So women from the community that you didn’t know when you to the circle.
Heidi Loveridge (30:45)
Yeah.
No, I didn’t, we didn’t, I didn’t, there were no friends. So like there’s no baggage. Like there’s no like, can’t tell this, they know my sister. Like they don’t know my sister.
Bill Gasiamis (30:56)
⁓ Okay. Like your own circle of people where you can just go and be you and you don’t have to worry about anything else getting out.
Heidi Loveridge (31:04)
Exactly. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (31:09)
I like that. That’s why I used to go to counseling. So I could just have my counselor there who had my back, but was willing also to test me and also willing to, what’s the word? ⁓ mostly test my, my thinking, you know, like you push back on the things that I would say, but whatever I said there, yeah, there was no, there was no judgment. was no interaction. was anything other than about me. And I was able to express how I wanted to express it.
Heidi Loveridge (31:15)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yes.
Bill Gasiamis (31:38)
but get some, get some guided support and counseling and feedback that was not based on me being right or wrong. It was just feedback.
Heidi Loveridge (31:39)
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
It wasn’t judgmental feedback like, you’re an idiot for feeling that way.
Bill Gasiamis (31:56)
Yeah, yeah, it was how helpful is that to you to think like that about your brother Bill? And I’d be like, hmm, maybe it’s not so helpful to think about my brother in that way. Okay. And then the next question might be, well, how, how might you think about your brother? That is helpful, even though he did something that bugged you or annoyed you or frustrated you as, as your, ⁓ your, your childhood relationship has
Heidi Loveridge (32:05)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
So, thank
Bill Gasiamis (32:24)
moved into your adult life, you know, because sometimes we don’t realize that we’re still pretending as adults that we’re 13 year old kids. And I used to react like a 13 year old kid when my brother would do something or say something that was never mentored, never meant in a way for me to, you know, to get offended or upset about, because I was a 13 year old kid responding. And it was like, okay, here’s some feedback for you about how you respond and whether or not it’s helpful at all. And whether or not
Heidi Loveridge (32:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (32:54)
actually you can park that behavior, your response to the 13 year old, just park it there and find a new way to respond, evolve.
Heidi Loveridge (33:02)
Yeah, exactly. And your brother will mind if you respond in a nicer way.
Bill Gasiamis (33:04)
I like your approach.
My brother would definitely not mind if I responded in a nicer way. He definitely appreciated that. And I could find a different way to tackle my problem with what he said by just being a normal human being and communicating instead of reacting like a 13 year old younger brother.
Heidi Loveridge (33:11)
or believe.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (33:25)
But I do like your ⁓ mild mannered nature. I do like that kind of approach as well and avoiding conflict and finding ways to get around conflict. That’s pretty cool. I think that’s a good skill to have because conflict usually doesn’t achieve anything in most scenarios. It just makes things worse. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s kind of my where I went to get that kind of support. But there are men’s groups and ⁓
Heidi Loveridge (33:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, most of time it doesn’t. No, yeah it really does.
Mm. Yeah.
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Bill Gasiamis (33:54)
glad to hear there are women’s groups that
the other stroke survivors listening perhaps might get here’s the idea I could do a little bit of a search and find one and if you can’t get out and about perhaps there is an online one and you are happy to do an online one that’d be a great place to start.
Heidi Loveridge (34:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (34:15)
Does it also help that the other women share their challenges and their things that they’re going through?
Heidi Loveridge (34:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s like, it makes you realize you’re not the only one struggling. We just all have a different kind of struggling that we’re doing.
Bill Gasiamis (34:24)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm. As an introvert previously, did that exacerbate how you felt about things not connecting with a lot of other people in a deep and meaningful way like that? Perhaps did that make your feelings of I’m the only one going through this more or worse?
Heidi Loveridge (34:28)
It’s not necessarily worse than anybody else’s.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yes, I think I just preferred meaningful conversation as opposed to like, how’s the weather? Which I found was hard to get in large groups.
Bill Gasiamis (34:56)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have a similar kind of need. I need to not be talking about the previous day’s football scores or ⁓ what the prime minister did or…
Heidi Loveridge (35:07)
Yeah. Yeah,
something that matters you want to talk about.
Bill Gasiamis (35:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Because usually people talking about the daily happenings, they’re not, just talking at a surface level. They’re just expressing very narrow views about things that they don’t know much about at all. And they’re not really going, they’re not taking a deep dive. And all I feel like they’re doing is exacerbating their pain and suffering by reiterating what they think they’ve heard or they think is happening that and how it impacts them and makes
Heidi Loveridge (35:19)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (35:43)
then feel bad. If you tune out from the news and you don’t watch the news for a week or two, then the, haven’t missed anything. you can, it’s like days of our lives. You could just pick up six months later. What you do is tune into the one episode every six months and you just pick up where you left off.
Heidi Loveridge (35:48)
No.
Exactly.
Spirit true.
Overcoming Limitations and Embracing Change
Bill Gasiamis (36:04)
So tell me a little bit about ⁓ what it was like coming home for the first time after your six weeks. it daunting? Did you feel things you’d never felt before? What was it like?
Heidi Loveridge (36:15)
Yes, yes, felt daunting.
Like, I’d lost my desire to cook. So fortunately, a friend from my woman’s circle, knew a guy that made frozen meals. And that was amazing. And I filled up my freezer.
But like, people feeding me with them made me so happy. Like, thank you. I actually lost 20 pounds since that stroke.
Bill Gasiamis (36:37)
because you moved less, sorry, you ate less, even though you moved less initially.
Heidi Loveridge (36:41)
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah exactly. I mean I guess hospital food is notoriously not that good. So I don’t know if that’s what started it.
Bill Gasiamis (36:52)
Yeah. But
you couldn’t even find a… Were you able to cook for yourself or?
Heidi Loveridge (36:59)
Yes,
yeah. In occupational therapy at the hospital, that was one my things. said, I need to cook something. So I made spaghetti sauce and pasta in the hospital.
But of course I wasn’t hungry at the time, so I didn’t eat it.
Bill Gasiamis (37:09)
And then when you came home.
yeah, but you made it.
Heidi Loveridge (37:12)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (37:13)
And then when you came home, you didn’t have the desire to do.
Heidi Loveridge (37:18)
No.
Bill Gasiamis (37:20)
And was, is that a role that you kind of played in your relationship with Dave at the house? huh. And has that had to flip over? Is Dave taken over that task now?
Heidi Loveridge (37:24)
Yeah, yeah, I used to always plan the food and stuff,
Yeah, he
had to step up a little bit more. But actually I’m a little bit transitioning back to the Heidi that makes dinner.
Bill Gasiamis (37:40)
Okay, so you found your way back. You’ve been able to kind of find your way back.
Heidi Loveridge (37:42)
Yes, I’m sort
of my way back a little bit. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (37:46)
Do you feel like that’s part of the recovery kind of continuing and evolving and you’re kind of getting back to your old self?
Heidi Loveridge (37:51)
Yeah.
Yeah, I hope so.
I used to be so happy though with my stroke and I’m not happy anymore.
Bill Gasiamis (37:56)
Hmm, sounds like it.
You’re not happy.
Do know what you’re not happy about?
Heidi Loveridge (38:04)
No, it doesn’t feel like it’s anything specific. Like, I know I can do everything I need to do or want to do. So actually at Christmas time, I did try cross-country skiing. It was really hard.
Bill Gasiamis (38:10)
Mm-hmm.
Was it fun?
Heidi Loveridge (38:15)
Not as fun as it should have been. It was more hard than fun.
And actually, it’s what.
Bill Gasiamis (38:19)
Did that make you happy?
Unhappy.
Heidi Loveridge (38:21)
The idea of doing it made me happy, but the fact that I was sucked at it was not as happy.
Bill Gasiamis (38:27)
Are you also a
high achiever?
Heidi Loveridge (38:30)
Maybe.
Bill Gasiamis (38:31)
Do you also like, are you really hard on yourself when you can’t do something perfect?
Heidi Loveridge (38:37)
Yes, I like things to do, you guys have done well.
Bill Gasiamis (38:40)
Are you a perfectionist?
Heidi Loveridge (38:43)
I don’t know if I’m a perfectionist. I actually have, when I do mistakes in my knitting, sometimes I’m just like, I don’t want go back and fix that and I just let it go.
Bill Gasiamis (38:50)
Okay, but that’s very wabi-sabi. Do you know wabi-sabi? That’s Japanese term for like, okay to have imperfection in something, right? The imperfection is necessary.
Heidi Loveridge (38:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, actually, listen, there’s a lady that does fat like those fashion podcasts. Can’t remember her name is anyways, but that was how like she said, if something is claiming to be handmade, you need to able to find a mistake in it. Or else they’re pulling you pulling one over your eyes.
Bill Gasiamis (39:18)
I love
Heidi Loveridge (39:19)
And so I totally embraced that. Mistakes mean you made it by hand.
Bill Gasiamis (39:19)
Yeah.
but not being able to be a good cross-country skier, that sucks.
Traveling Beyond Borders
Heidi Loveridge (39:27)
Yeah,
yeah, because in where I live in Victoria, we have very moderate weather, so like we don’t really get snow. So at Christmas time, I was visiting some family in the middle of the province, like in a place called Vernon, and there’s a ski hill there called Silver Star Mountain. And so there was snow and I was like, I wanted to be able to enjoy the snow.
but I don’t want it to snow here.
Bill Gasiamis (39:49)
Were
you… No, I get it. I don’t enjoy snow either. I’d rather it was up in the mountains far, far away from me too.
Heidi Loveridge (39:56)
Yeah, very far for you though.
Bill Gasiamis (39:59)
Yeah, for me, it’s not that far. It’s about four hours away. I can get to snow in winter about four hours away from here.
Heidi Loveridge (40:06)
I didn’t realize there was any snow in winter in Australia.
Bill Gasiamis (40:10)
there’s heaps. Yeah. There’s, there’s at least three, three or four snowfields I can go to one in the state. ⁓ more than one in the state here. It’s there’s one Mount Buller is in Victoria where I can go skiing, proper skiing. Like it’s got the whole stuff resorts and everything up there. And then there’s a lot of lower little mountains that you can go and just make snowballs and throw them at your kids. Those ones are the fun ones. We’ve been to those ones, Lake Mountain.
Heidi Loveridge (40:18)
Mm.
Transforming Personal Identity
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.
Nice. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (40:39)
And then in New South
Wales, which is a few thousand kilometers away, it’s about a thousand kilometers away, that ⁓ they’ve got some amazing snow fields up there and people do go there, but they’re not, it’s not Canada, it’s not Japan. They’re not like that level, but they’ll do for a good local ⁓ snow trip. They do get full, people do go, they quite enjoy it, but I wouldn’t.
Heidi Loveridge (40:50)
Hmm.
No. Yeah.
Yes, there’s one kind of big ski hill on Vancouver Island. It’s called Mount Washington. It’s about three hours away. But I’ve never been a big skier. I grew up in the city where skiing wasn’t… Ontario’s not known for having skis. I mean there are some, but they’re not big.
Bill Gasiamis (41:12)
Okay.
Okay.
So are you a good skier?
Heidi Loveridge (41:23)
No.
Bill Gasiamis (41:25)
Okay, so you’re not a good skier. You did cross country skiing. You it was hard because you’re just generally not a good skier and you still got you still felt bad about it.
Heidi Loveridge (41:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, because I still must be a little bit weak still on my left side obviously.
Bill Gasiamis (41:41)
⁓ Okay, so what you did is you associated your inability to be great at it or for it to be a little bit easier to your deficit still.
Heidi Loveridge (41:46)
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (41:53)
And how does that make you feel knowing that you still have a deficit where your left side is a little weaker?
Heidi Loveridge (41:58)
Yeah, I feel like it makes me feel like I need to work on it.
Bill Gasiamis (42:02)
Okay, would it be better? Would you be happier if that was perfect?
Heidi Loveridge (42:08)
problem maybe. But it doesn’t really affect my day to day life though.
Bill Gasiamis (42:10)
Maybe, probably.
Yeah, interesting. Is that an acceptance thing, perhaps?
Heidi Loveridge (42:15)
Yes, so
yeah.
I just want to be able to live my life like a, like feel normal again.
Bill Gasiamis (42:23)
Uh-huh. know what you mean because the left side feels completely different to the right side. And you always have the reference. You have one always making you appreciate the way that they’re different and therefore, quote unquote, not normal.
Heidi Loveridge (42:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, I actually went for a quite a large bike ride last weekend and I was so, I was really tired by the end. I was like hunching over like even just like, I mean it was electric bike, right? So I didn’t have to like power it myself, but just like the strength required to like keep going straight. Totally tired me out.
Bill Gasiamis (42:54)
Yeah.
I
haven’t, I have an air bike. remember when I first got it was for exactly that reason. So I can keep riding my bike and not get tired riding it and then being able to get home. Cause what I used to do was on the old bike, I would go to my destination, which might be 10 kilometers away into the city. And then getting back was a real challenge. So, ⁓ had had the
Heidi Loveridge (43:04)
Hmm
Mm.
Yes.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (43:26)
got the e-bike and then realized I could just keep riding all day, but then would come home literally after maybe a 20 kilometer ride and be spent for the rest of the day and just completely gone. But then with time and as the years passed, I noticed that my bike rides wouldn’t do that to me anymore. And I’d have to come home and have a good rest for an hour, an hour and a half too. But then I was back to my tasks.
Heidi Loveridge (43:37)
Yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (43:53)
for the rest
of the day, it wouldn’t be an issue. So it does take a bit of time, similar to how you’re getting back to cooking. It does take a little bit of time. Even though my weakness is still there, I still have that ability to go and do those things that were physically more challenging.
Heidi Loveridge (43:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Innovations in Stroke Treatment
Bill Gasiamis (44:10)
So yeah, it’s a very interesting conversation. It’s interesting to hear your perspective as somebody who described herself as a introvert back then, an extrovert now, somebody who has overcome some amazing things and gone and got your license at 44. It’s such an interesting thing to hear.
Heidi Loveridge (44:15)
Yeah, sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (44:40)
Do you see the blessings of stroke? Is there such a thing? I, like, I, can you say that about it? Would you say it that way? I know it’s a bit weird to hear that sentence, but.
Heidi Loveridge (44:52)
Yes, I can’t wait to be able to feel that way fully.
Bill Gasiamis (44:56)
Okay, so you have a glimmer of it. you like to have a little glimmer of it because of the changes that you’ve made that you appreciate?
Heidi Loveridge (44:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (45:05)
but you can’t fully feel that yet. I get it. It’s early days, right?
Heidi Loveridge (45:09)
Yeah, I’m about 10 months post-stroke now.
Bill Gasiamis (45:12)
Yeah, so early and so many big. Yeah, and so many big changes so rapidly.
Heidi Loveridge (45:15)
That’s what everybody keeps telling me.
The Journey to Happiness
Mmm
Bill Gasiamis (45:22)
That’s a lot to, it is a lot to deal with. A, you had a stroke. B, you had to overcome all the deficits. And now you have these personality traits that are different from your previous personality traits. It’s a lot of change, a lot of adjustment.
Heidi Loveridge (45:27)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like when I left the hospital, nobody would tell me that I was going to be okay. Because like, you can always have another stroke. I mean I always could have had a stroke before I even had one. I just said no, I needed to be nervous.
Bill Gasiamis (45:45)
Hmm.
But now you know you’ve had one so it might happen again
Heidi Loveridge (45:52)
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (45:54)
Are you on blood thinness or anything like that?
Heidi Loveridge (45:56)
Yes, I’m on blood thinners now.
My neurologist said do not get pregnant and do not go off your blood thinners.
Bill Gasiamis (46:02)
Okay. Do not get pregnant. Why is that a risk?
Heidi Loveridge (46:06)
Well, because your blood starts clotting more when you’re pregnant, so you don’t bleed out when you have a baby. Your blood does get thicker during pregnancy.
Bill Gasiamis (46:14)
⁓
Okay, so now he would like you to avoid that if you can.
Heidi Loveridge (46:20)
Yes,
yeah we don’t want to add anything to the weird reason why my blood clots started clotting anyway.
Bill Gasiamis (46:26)
I see. Okay. So blood thinners, is that a permanent thing or are they talking about perhaps, ⁓ something getting you off that at some point?
Heidi Loveridge (46:35)
No, think it’s permanent.
Bill Gasiamis (46:37)
And what are the things that you would like to kind of achieve or do in the future now that you’ve had this?
Heidi Loveridge (46:48)
Life changing event. I want to travel more.
Bill Gasiamis (46:49)
thing occurred to you.
Have you ever traveled the outside of Canada?
Heidi Loveridge (46:53)
Okay.
Yes, I went to England to visit my sister once. And I loved it in England. There was so much history and so much old stuff. I thought it was so marvelous. And public transportation is amazing in England.
Bill Gasiamis (47:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, apparently you could get that the tube.
Heidi Loveridge (47:09)
Can you tell that I work
for transit? Like I love transit.
Bill Gasiamis (47:12)
Okay.
So not only did you not drive, you worked for the organization that was the alternative to driving.
Heidi Loveridge (47:18)
Yeah,
yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (47:21)
Okay, so you had to embrace it, you embraced it fully. And one of the highlights of traveling to the United Kingdom was seeing the public transport system.
Exploring Alternative Therapies
Heidi Loveridge (47:25)
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Yeah. And also, there’s so many, like walking there is amazing. There’s so many places to walk. Like there’s paths everywhere.
Bill Gasiamis (47:38)
Mm-hmm.
So it’s a very livable city.
Heidi Loveridge (47:39)
Yes.
Yes. The country is livable, I find, for that reason.
Bill Gasiamis (47:46)
Yeah. Okay. ⁓ did you have a, I’m a mortal moment as well. It sounds like you might’ve had a, I realized that I became a mortal all of a sudden.
Heidi Loveridge (47:55)
Yeah. Yes.
Yes. I just realized, like, you know, could die at any moment.
Bill Gasiamis (48:02)
Did the introversion stop you from living your life fully? Is that what it did? And now that you’re not that, you’re having these experiences that you perhaps missed out on or you weren’t able to embrace.
Heidi Loveridge (48:15)
No, I was living the life I wanted to live at the time.
Bill Gasiamis (48:19)
huh. So it’s just, you want to live a different life now. It’s just changed.
Heidi Loveridge (48:23)
Yeah,
exactly. I definitely want to travel more now.
Bill Gasiamis (48:28)
Do you have an explanation for it though? Do you know one of those deeper underlying explanations, not because, just because.
Does it sound like you do?
Heidi Loveridge (48:39)
No, I don’t. don’t have a good reason for it.
Bill Gasiamis (48:43)
But it’s good enough.
Heidi Loveridge (48:44)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (48:45)
I love it. Why not?
Heidi Loveridge (48:47)
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (48:49)
So, but Dave is also dealing with all of the stroke and all of the things that happen to you. You know, nearly lost his wife to a stroke and all that kind of stuff. How old is Dave?
Heidi Loveridge (48:54)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
He’s 48.
Bill Gasiamis (49:03)
Yeah, right. So he’s kind of amongst other things and I don’t want to talk for him because I’ve never met him, met the man. But I imagine as a spouse is thinking what’s going on here.
Heidi Loveridge (49:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, with the changes, but he had to live with the, like, embrace the fact that I might be disabled for rest of my life.
Bill Gasiamis (49:22)
Mm-mm.
Heidi Loveridge (49:24)
Actually, my neurologist told me, oh, I couldn’t have picked a better spot to have a stroke in my brain.
Bill Gasiamis (49:29)
Uh-huh.
Good on you. You are a high achiever.
And why did he say that? It’s just simply because of the lack of damage that occurs there or
Heidi Loveridge (49:38)
Yeah, he must have been in a good spot, I guess because I was physically doing so well.
Bill Gasiamis (49:44)
Well, that’s good. It sounds like it didn’t have a major, there wasn’t a major kind of clotted that impacted a lot of the brain in that space as well. It sounds like it was like isolated, quite isolated.
Heidi Loveridge (49:55)
Yes,
yeah, but it was considered a major stroke when I was at the hospital. I actually had it actually had a little bit of hemorrhagic components so I did have bleeding in my brain too.
Bill Gasiamis (50:06)
⁓ in the same location.
Heidi Loveridge (50:09)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (50:11)
The blood clot also caused a little bit of bleeding.
Heidi Loveridge (50:14)
Yes.
Bill Gasiamis (50:15)
I didn’t know that that was a thing.
Heidi Loveridge (50:17)
Yes, it’s called a hemorrhagic component.
Bill Gasiamis (50:20)
I imagine that’s uncommon.
Heidi Loveridge (50:23)
I don’t know. It meant that they couldn’t put me on blood thinners right away. So I actually had to get a filter installed in my main vein coming out from my leg on my neck.
Bill Gasiamis (50:31)
Uh-huh.
a filter. What did the filter do? What was its role?
Heidi Loveridge (50:34)
Yes.
It was to collect any blood clots to prevent them from entering my brain.
Bill Gasiamis (50:40)
huh. Any blood clots that may still be in the circulatory system.
Heidi Loveridge (50:44)
Yeah, exactly. And because of the bleed, they couldn’t put me on thinners, blood thinners right away, so they had to, like that was kind of the interim measure to help protect me.
Bill Gasiamis (50:47)
Wow.
How long was that in for?
Heidi Loveridge (50:57)
maybe a week or something.
Bill Gasiamis (50:59)
Okay, and it’s just inserted into your artery in your thigh.
Heidi Loveridge (51:03)
Yeah, actually it went in through my neck but they took it out through my other thigh.
Bill Gasiamis (51:07)
Okay.
Heidi Loveridge (51:08)
and it was full of clots when they took it out.
Bill Gasiamis (51:10)
It was, was it?
Heidi Loveridge (51:11)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (51:12)
unbelievable that this thing I’ve never heard of that thing either that it just goes in there and it sits there and collects cloths and then they just take it out.
Lessons Learned and Moving Forward
Heidi Loveridge (51:13)
Yes, I think they call it an
IVF filter.
Bill Gasiamis (51:22)
Wow.
That’s fascinating. And it came out in a week and then you were able to then go on blood thinners.
Heidi Loveridge (51:28)
Yes. Yeah,
exactly. Once the bleeds are to stabilize in my brain.
Bill Gasiamis (51:34)
Yeah, fabulous.
Heidi Loveridge (51:35)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Gasiamis (51:36)
That’s just, every time I speak to somebody who’s had a stroke on my podcast, I learned something new every time. I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I was talking about it a little while ago, but it never seems to get old. It still doesn’t feel like for me that it’s getting old to learn all these different things that are possible now that I don’t think were possible 10 years ago. ⁓ Filters, ⁓ you there’s different methods of helping people overcome a secondary.
Heidi Loveridge (51:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
⁓
Thank
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (52:05)
lot, how people ⁓ avoid deficits by improving how quickly hospitals respond and how they respond and with what technology they respond. It’s just amazing that things are improving so much. And there are so many people that are good on the podcast who had a stroke who are doing very, very well after what I consider to be a short amount of time, because people often sort of say, you know, how long the stroke recovery take? it’s like,
Heidi Loveridge (52:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (52:33)
It doesn’t take, it doesn’t have a timeline. just continues.
Heidi Loveridge (52:36)
Yes,
continue forever. That gives me hope that one day I can be happier again.
Bill Gasiamis (52:39)
Yeah, it just continues. ⁓
I absolutely believe you could be happier again. And I feel like ⁓ with incremental improvements, one thing that might continue to incrementally also improve is your happiness level. And the depression will perhaps start to find a way to abating now and then decreasing in how it impacts your life. And then the happiness sort of moving into that space and increasing.
Heidi Loveridge (52:52)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I hope so.
Yeah.
Yes. ⁓
Bill Gasiamis (53:13)
dialing it up, turning it up a little and increasing that ⁓ level of happiness and then kind of staying there and then being the thing that is more common.
Heidi Loveridge (53:15)
Wow.
Yes, I can’t wait till happiness is more common.
I actually went to something called red light therapy the other day.
Bill Gasiamis (53:29)
Yeah.
Tell me about that, yeah.
Heidi Loveridge (53:35)
So you probably heard seen people with like the funny face masks like to improve your skin with red light. But there’s also, I got a helmet on my head and like is to put like red light into your brain. And there’s actually been studies on it.
Bill Gasiamis (53:40)
Yep. Yep.
Yes.
Yes. How long does it?
Absolutely, there’s been studies and how long does it last the session?
Heidi Loveridge (53:53)
So maybe it was 20 minutes.
Bill Gasiamis (53:55)
And do know the spectrum or the strength or any of that stuff? Did you get any of that detail?
Heidi Loveridge (54:00)
I don’t know what offed off my head, unfortunately.
Bill Gasiamis (54:03)
Yeah, it just goes on your head and then I switch it on and then you sit there. I imagine you probably took your knitting.
Heidi Loveridge (54:06)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
I didn’t actually.
Bill Gasiamis (54:14)
Fair enough. So you sit there for… Yeah, that’s right. So you took about 20 minutes and then you’re going back for more. And did you notice anything?
Heidi Loveridge (54:16)
I can handle people now.
Yep.
I didn’t notice anything, but it’s actually not cheap. So like they wanted to sell me $800 for 12 sessions.
Bill Gasiamis (54:31)
Wow.
Heidi Loveridge (54:32)
And so I’m not covered with benefits. However, they did talk me into doing some laser acupuncture tomorrow.
Bill Gasiamis (54:40)
Laser acupuncture. I’m learning a lot. I’ve never heard of that either.
Heidi Loveridge (54:46)
Yeah, me neither. Apparently, so does the same thing to me, needle.
Bill Gasiamis (54:48)
It’s not with needles.
There’s no needle.
Heidi Loveridge (54:53)
No. So for anybody that squeamish, it’s a way to get acupuncture.
Bill Gasiamis (54:56)
my gosh.
Okay, I’m gonna have to look into that as well.
Heidi Loveridge (55:01)
Yes, I heard that in China. It’s normal protocol after strokes to get lots of acupuncture.
Bill Gasiamis (55:07)
It is. I actually had acupuncture after the stroke and what I find is that it is a very temporary support measure. does help and it helps for a short amount of time. So ⁓ that doesn’t mean I’m not encouraging people to try it out or have a look at it. I consider it just as temporary as massage.
Heidi Loveridge (55:10)
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm
Bill Gasiamis (55:32)
because I go and get massages all the time because my left side just gets tight and everything gets out of whack. And I can go and get a massage and get relief for three days, three or four days. But then, you know, it’s back and I can’t afford to go and pay for a one hour massage session, which costs $100. I can’t afford to do that on a weekly basis. So I go once a month. And by the time I get to the next appointment,
Heidi Loveridge (55:32)
Yes. ⁓
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (56:01)
You know, week four is usually the hardest week and I can stretch and I can do all sorts of things, but the knots end up in places where, you know, you need somebody’s hands to go in and just deal with them. And I can’t get.
So it’s acupuncture feels like that.
Heidi Loveridge (56:19)
I actually so there’s a Yeah, there’s a co-worker that used to work via bus driver. However after she retired she got acu- no not she got chiropractor and then she got a stroke from the chiropractor Busting a vein in her neck. Yeah
Bill Gasiamis (56:35)
Manipulation. Yeah,
that’s not rare. Unfortunately, that happens.
Heidi Loveridge (56:41)
⁓
Yes, of course she was so disappointed. She’s like I took care of my health my whole life and then this guy does this to me
Bill Gasiamis (56:49)
Yeah. ⁓ I’m not sure what the, what the situation is with that. Like what happens when that happens, like how somebody gets compensated or whatever. imagine the chiropractor has medical, some kind of insurance or something. Yeah. But, ⁓ that would be horrific for a chiropractor to find out that a manipulation of the neck caused damage to their patient.
Heidi Loveridge (56:57)
Yeah.
Yeah, hey boss.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (57:17)
And if there’s anything, I have a friend of mine who’s a great chiropractor who I see very, very often. And he’s the one that picked up my ⁓ brain hemorrhages in that I went and saw him for what I thought was a pinched nerve. And he said, well, there’s something wrong other than a pinched nerve. It’s not your back. It’s not your spine. You need to go to the hospital.
Heidi Loveridge (57:24)
⁓
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (57:43)
And when
I eventually went to the hospital, they found the bleeding in my brain. Now he didn’t cause that, but he was the one that was the first sort of port of call for me. Cause I thought I had done something bending over.
Heidi Loveridge (57:48)
No.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (57:58)
And he’s the one who sort of said to me, go and see a doctor about this. And since then, that was 14 years ago. Since then, he’s had another patient that came to him with stroke symptoms, who he said, you need to go to a hospital ⁓ as well. So they’d be horrified to find out that a manipulation of the neck while on their table caused one of their patients stroke.
Heidi Loveridge (58:08)
Yes.
Yeah,
yes because everybody knows that stroke is a big deal.
Bill Gasiamis (58:29)
Yeah, it can be deadly.
Heidi Loveridge (58:31)
Yep. Yes, we’re the lucky ones.
Bill Gasiamis (58:35)
Absolutely, we are. And this seems to be more and more people that are managing to stay alive because of the amazing technology that we have access to these days that we haven’t had previously. ⁓ So
Heidi Loveridge (58:46)
Yeah.
Exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (58:52)
How it, what was the other than coming and connecting and chatting to me and being able to be extroverted, what else were you happy to achieve by coming on the podcast?
Heidi Loveridge (58:57)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I wanted to give other people hope.
that maybe they can be okay too.
Bill Gasiamis (59:09)
Yeah. Okay. It looks different for people as well. Right. So sometimes, okay. It mean that your deficits all go away. It means that you might, you might be able to achieve emotional okayness or mental okayness well with the stuff that you’re dealing with, even though you’re not going to be perfect at it, even though you can have bad days, even though it’s going to ugly and shitty and dark, like still we’re going to
Heidi Loveridge (59:11)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Mm. Yeah.
I’m going to to
Bill Gasiamis (59:38)
maybe perhaps be okay navigating all of that and get to the other side where we’ll be able to.
Heidi Loveridge (59:40)
Yes, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (59:44)
beef feel feel like yeah, feel like we’re okay, you know, even though we know it’s hard and there’s tough times.
Heidi Loveridge (59:44)
Live a life that’s worth living.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess life, people say life isn’t supposed to be easy, but… If I say well wasn’t supposed to be this hard, yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (59:58)
Well, yeah, do you feel like you’re…
Yeah, did you feel like it was easy beforehand compared to now?
Heidi Loveridge (1:00:04)
Yes, yeah.
And I was just easily happy before too.
Bill Gasiamis (1:00:09)
Hmm. And now the things that you desire, the things that come with a lot more effort seems like they’re a lot harder to attain.
Heidi Loveridge (1:00:20)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:00:23)
Does that make you feel like ⁓ you need to step up and do more? Is that what it makes you feel like? What do you feel like? Say again.
Heidi Loveridge (1:00:30)
I wish I knew what to do.
I wish I knew how to get neuroplasticity to make me happy.
Bill Gasiamis (1:00:36)
Hmm. You know, sometimes they say, I don’t know if this is me just minimalizing it and like being completely ignorant about the situation because I am ⁓ act as if you are happy. You know, those laughing classes.
Heidi Loveridge (1:00:40)
Mmm.
Yes, yeah,
like fake it till I make it.
Bill Gasiamis (1:00:55)
Yeah, like you did with extraversion.
Heidi Loveridge (1:00:58)
Yeah, exactly. I did fake it now I made it. Now I can be extra real.
Bill Gasiamis (1:01:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. It could be the hack, your hack, you know, you just pretend that you’re happy. Not. I don’t want to say that in the most. I don’t want to be insensitive when I say that. And I’m not saying to do that as a way to make other people think you’re happy. I’m saying to act as if you are happy so that you can potentially maybe perhaps. ⁓ Yeah.
Heidi Loveridge (1:01:20)
Thanks.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, feel actual happiness. ⁓
Bill Gasiamis (1:01:32)
illuminate those neuronal pathways where happiness
occurs so that they stick right but also maybe you can imagine yourself being happy in a meditation because imagining yourself also lights up those neural pathways.
Heidi Loveridge (1:01:39)
Exactly.
And, yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, exactly like you said you were imagining yourself walking before you could walk. And it lights up the same areas. Thinking is the same as actually doing.
Bill Gasiamis (1:01:54)
Indeed, yeah.
It does. And I felt like I was.
It is, yeah. And there was a study recently that, ⁓ my gosh, I wish I now I just remembered, I don’t know if I’ve saved that information. There was a study recently ⁓ that revealed that even thinking a particular way about yourself. Activates ⁓ muscles.
Heidi Loveridge (1:02:20)
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:02:26)
or speaking about yourself. So you’re to have people speak negatively about themselves. And there’s been lots of studies to sort of show that just thinking negatively about yourself is the same as saying it. What they’ve shown is the next stage of that, which is just thinking negatively about yourself or positively about yourself actually fires off fibers, muscle fibers in the jaw, in the mouth, where people usually where it goes to next when you start speaking. So
Heidi Loveridge (1:02:27)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
you
Bill Gasiamis (1:02:56)
It feels like the circuit they’re talking about the circuit is much larger than just I thought about it, that it doesn’t have any more impact on the body. Yeah, but it definitely does. It ends in the way that your ⁓ dopamine activates your serotonin, you all those kinds of things. And then it also ⁓ fires off muscle fibers before
Heidi Loveridge (1:02:58)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t end there. Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:03:25)
that stage before the jaw moves and speech happens. So it’s really important to, if you can fake it so that you’re practicing what it’s like to be happy, perhaps that might be the thing. But then also I want to make sure people are very aware and comfortable in understanding that if you feel unwell and then if you feel unhappy and if it is a problem that you don’t gloss over it and pretend that you’re okay.
Heidi Loveridge (1:03:27)
Yeah. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
⁓
yes.
Bill Gasiamis (1:03:54)
You definitely seek support in any way that you can to work through
it and overcome it because a lot of people can overcome it.
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:00)
Yeah. I do, I am on medication as well for my doctor. Yes.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:05)
antidepressants.
and have they been helpful for you?
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:11)
I don’t think so. Because if they were helpful, I’d be happy by now when I…
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:12)
Okay.
huh,
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:20)
Yes, I actually just offed my dose
this week.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:23)
You’re off them.
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:24)
I upped it.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:26)
you upped it. Okay.
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:27)
Yeah.
But actually, I did hear somewhere that sertraline, which is what I’m on, it actually increases neuroplasticity in our brain.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:28)
And what’s the thing?
It does.
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:36)
Yes, actually my therapist told me that people who are neurodivergent also are more neuroplastic.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:42)
I like.
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:43)
Mm-hmm.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:44)
Okay. Did you get any more information on that? How are they more neuroplastic? Why?
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:49)
I should do some research on that because I just took her word for it.
Bill Gasiamis (1:04:52)
Yeah.
Yeah. And do you, are you neurodivergent?
Heidi Loveridge (1:04:57)
A little bit, There’s actually, there’s one comment, a doctor said, put a comment in my file that I said something that made him think that I might be slightly neurodivergent. I wonder what I said.
Bill Gasiamis (1:05:06)
huh.
Yeah. And other than neurodivergent, there was no diagnosis. They didn’t say on the spectrum of autism or anything like that. Yeah. Okay. One comment, one comment made you stand out. my gosh. Heidi might be neurodivergent as well. Well, I know a lot of people who in later life, like I’m in my fifties, I’ll be 50.
Heidi Loveridge (1:05:11)
No. No. Nothing, yeah.
But I’m interested, I wonder what I said.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Bill Gasiamis (1:05:35)
to in a few months
who have kind of said to me, know that all the information out about ADHD now or all these things I’ve been reading in a cheese that sounds like me or gosh, that sounds like me. My whole generation went through teenage years and all that kind of stuff being labeled as cheeky as this as that as whatever. ⁓ We didn’t have diagnosis. Yeah, we didn’t have diagnosis. We just had labels. ⁓
Heidi Loveridge (1:05:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, like troublemaker and stuff. Yeah.
Bye.
Bill Gasiamis (1:06:05)
Yeah,
he’s a good kid, but card he could be crazy or, you know, he’s a good kid, but he’ll never see, he never settles down. He’s always off with the fairies, you know, like you hear all these things. And now in our fifties, everyone’s going, ⁓ yeah, that sounds like me. It’s kind of normalized how they feel about themselves that this is not a label. It’s just the way my brain is different. It works in a different way. And, ⁓ I got to my fifties. I was able to find a way to manage.
Heidi Loveridge (1:06:11)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:06:32)
I live a really relatively normal life. was able to overcome challenges. I work, I paid a mortgage off, I raised kids, but I think kind of getting there without a diagnosis kind of made it. What’s the word? I don’t know. I’m speaking for myself. Okay. Once again, for those people, sounds like it.
Heidi Loveridge (1:06:37)
Yeah.
You had to go the long way.
Bill Gasiamis (1:06:51)
It feels like that. Yeah. You kind of become resilient in finding solutions. Like you have to manage all of these things that you find solutions and you kind of get somewhere anyway. And while I like people having more information, I love it that people get diagnosis now you can, and you can go get tested, et cetera. I think while I think that’s great, I think the part that’s lacking is that now that you have this diagnosis, all it means is
Heidi Loveridge (1:07:02)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:07:19)
You just have to find a different pathway to get to your outcome because your additional pathway going to school, sitting down in the chair for eight hours a day, that’s not the pathway for you.
Heidi Loveridge (1:07:22)
Exactly. Yeah.
That doesn’t work for you anymore, Or it never worked for you, and it was never going to work. You weren’t doing it wrong. It just wasn’t going to work for you.
Bill Gasiamis (1:07:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was just that you were put into the wrong place and things, ⁓ and nobody knew, nobody knew any better. But now that they know, and now that you know, you know, you can manage, you can find the way around it. And that’s what a lot of, ⁓ 50 year olds kind of seem to be telling me these days. They all seem to be going, ⁓ my gosh, this fits, this fits, this fits. I’m like that. And I was like, dude, I knew you were like that because I’ve always known you to be this way. ⁓
Heidi Loveridge (1:07:41)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (1:08:06)
But it’s
what made me love you. Like it’s why I hung out with you. I have a friend of mine who was, who was so ADHD that he was only fun to be around because we were always doing something fun and wild and crazy that I wouldn’t do on my own that I wasn’t allowed to do as a kid. But when I was with this particular person, boy, life was interesting, but it did interfere with his life later. It became
Heidi Loveridge (1:08:10)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Bill Gasiamis (1:08:34)
a real challenge, he had to overcome it. And now in his 50s, he’s starting to find really a
way around all of the challenges and kind of finding good solutions that he’s implemented on his own to not be impacted by this particular.
Heidi Loveridge (1:08:45)
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:08:55)
⁓ thing that, that he grew up with that his parents were from Greece. They came
to Australia in the sixties. They weren’t educated. So they couldn’t help him other than try and rein him in when he was on his, ⁓ when he was, you know, just doing what he was doing though. They couldn’t do anything else, but they did their best. And I think they did a great job personally.
Heidi Loveridge (1:09:03)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis (1:09:19)
They were very mild, mannered and calm about his behavior.
Heidi Loveridge (1:09:22)
Yes, this probably helped.
Bill Gasiamis (1:09:24)
Yeah. And they never not loved him. They always, always still loved him and always, you know, did the best they could, but they just didn’t have the type of information that we have these days.
Heidi Loveridge (1:09:36)
Yes,
all we can do is the best that we can with the knowledge we have at the time.
Bill Gasiamis (1:09:41)
That’s such a wise saying. Indeed. I agree with that. It’s a good thing, especially to remember when you’re being hard on your parents has given them bit of a break and allow them the grace to be imperfect.
Heidi Loveridge (1:09:52)
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Bill Gasiamis (1:10:03)
I wonder Heidi, as we wrap up, if you could share one lesson from your journey with someone that was recently diagnosed, what might it be?
Heidi Loveridge (1:10:05)
Yeah.
I want to say time. But I hated hearing that.
Yeah, you need to hone in your patience. And be willing to put in some effort. It’s going to be hard, but you can do it. You can do hard things. I have a sticker on the mirror and my bedroom now that says, you can do hard things. Hard shit, it says actually.
Bill Gasiamis (1:10:28)
That’s beautiful.
That’s beautiful. And on that note, thank you so much for reaching out and joining me on the podcast.
Heidi Loveridge (1:10:38)
So far, this is great. Thank you.
Bill Gasiamis (1:10:41)
Well, thanks so much for listening to this episode. If Heidi’s story resonated with you, I’d really appreciate your support in helping this podcast reach more people who need purchasing the book.
by going to recoveryafterstroke.com/book.
Leaving a five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, supporting the podcast on Patreon, or simply commenting on the YouTube channel and sharing your thoughts.
Every one of those actions helps more stroke survivors find these conversations and feel less alone. And as always, remember you can do hard things.
