first encounter

Last week my Physical Therapist, who is only 25, and I have been dealing with for eight weeks, first as a physical therapist (four weeks), and now one who is always at the physical-therapy gym when we show up to work out, asked what I remembered most about our first encounter.
It was the first session, where I deferred from doing anything for lack of being dressed appropriately (mainly bootie-shorts); only an interview. I responded but she was clearly fishing for something specific.
“Well, you said you were ‘one tough cookie,’” I said; “and then I remarked ‘so am I. After all I survived a stroke.’”
Bingo! She then commented I had apparently got the front-office upset; something I wasn’t aware of.
Hello. It’s an affliction I’ve lived with ever since the stroke, although I think other factors play a part.

I am the indirect spawn of my paternal grandmother. So is my Aunt May. She had us rolling on the floor with snide comments about toll-takers and the bed-cover flying off her pickup on I-95. She then regaled us with tales of her rental-properties being inspected by “a smelly old geezer.”

I also drove Transit-bus for 16&1/2 years. It made me very abrupt and ornery. I was dealing with noisy blowhards and/or macho wannabees all the time. I remember watching pliant diplomats become the exact opposite as bus-drivers.
No wonder management was the way it was — they were managing ne’er-do-wells.
-But I think the stroke was what did most. Diplomacy and tactfulness got vaporized.
The ‘pyooter-lady at the mighty Mezz was afraid to hire me when I applied for the paste-up job. She had seen how I was, and was afraid I’d never get along.
My job-counselor took her aside and pointed out that diplomacy and tact had been vaporized by the stroke.
Naturally, I was unaware any of this was going on.
I also would prefer Linda do the talking with medical-people. I can get by, but medication-caused wooziness was a byproduct of my inability to communicate.
Linda had concerns about the blood-pressure med I was prescribed that I couldn’t effectively relay. Talking is always a game, and when you can’t talk well things don’t get said, or if they are said they are perceived as persnickety.
I took along a detailed prompt-sheet to my neurologist. He tossed it aside, wanting me to talk, little realizing it was as much for me as for him. (I had a copy.)
I don’t expect my siblings to understand stroke-defects — after all, I am just fine, thanks to their Heavenly intercession. They, like me, are also indirect spawn of my grandmother.
Anyone partially disabled (especially where the disability is hard to perceive), deserves the ice-flow, especially if they had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to challenge a blowhard.