Wednesday 13 January 2016

So how will you spend YOUR dash?

It became obvious pretty quickly to me post-stroke that there just isn't enough support, advice and help out there for strokies and their carers. Those who are providing it do sterling work, but there should be more.

That there isn't probably partly comes down to what an eminent neurosurgeon once told me. He was talking about funding for stroke research as against funding for research into other serious illnesses and disabilities, but it applies to other things, as well. "Stroke isn't sexy," he said.

It was a rather blunt way of putting it, but you know what he meant.

Hearing those words cemented an idea which was already forming in my mind about re-training to provide counselling for stroke-survivors and carers. After all, there aren't enough qualified counsellors at all, there aren't enough male counsellors and there aren't enough disabled counsellors, those who have walked in the footsteps of stroke-survivors.

So I'm now training to be a counsellor and hope to qualify in two or three years. So far, it's been fascinating, rewarding and challenging. I know it will get considerably more challenging and I do wonder how my strokie-brain will cope, but I won't know unless I try, will I?

Obviously, what goes on in my counselling lessons is confidential, but I can say that during a recent lesson, our tutor introduced us to 'The Dash Poem' by Linda Ellis (find it at www.Linda-Ellis.com). It's often read at funerals and it encouraged the class to think about what we do with our lives and how we will be remembered when we're gone.

As a strokie, perhaps I can't do as much these days as I'd like to but I can still try to be the best I can, given my circumstances. That's why I write this blog, that's why I'm currently working on a short novel, that's why I do talks about stroke-education and it's why I want to be a counsellor. If that's what I can do given my situation, I might as well be as good as I can at it.

*Speaking of talks, if you run your own business and are into business networking or would like to try it, I'm speaking at a couple of meetings in the Midlands over the next week or so. I'll be talking about my recent fundraising run for the Different Strokes charity at 4Networking's Birmingham Lunch event on Tuesday January 19 (details at https://www.4networking.biz/Events/Group/Birmingham%20Lunch) and the Lichfield Breakfast meeting on Thursday January 21 (details at https://www.4networking.biz/Events/Group/Lichfield). I'd love to see you at one or preferably both of these!

No comments:

Post a Comment