Hi.  I’m back again and today I’m going to talk about something that really bugs me. It has to do with friends and how they react to your stroke.

When I first had my stroke I don’t remember the first two weeks or so.  I have relied on my wife and my mother to tell me what happened during that time.

One of the things they told me was about all the friends that came to see me. And then there were some after I started remembering things.  It was awesome to have that support. There was nothing like seeing friends.

Here’s the thing. I didn’t see about 85% of them ever again. Not in the hospital. Not in rehab. Not when I went home. There was the odd one I saw twice but that was it. What started out as what I thought was a big support group turned out to be a very heartbreaking moment in my life when I realized they were gone.

I am not sure why they left. During the first six weeks or into into my stroke I was really out of it. As time went by I could start forming complete sentences. I was still paralyzed on one side of my body. Something I don’t think is going to change although I’m trying my best to work on it. I was in rehab for about 3 1/2 months. In that time I probably saw about five friends. I can’t remember exactly how many. I only had one aunt and uncle who came every week to visit me and of course my wife. For 3 1/2 months.

I have five people that I consider my true friends. I’m in Winnipeg Manitoba. Two of my friends live here. Two live in Thunder Bay Ontario and one lives in Vancouver. That’s it. That of course doesn’t include family. Five friends. Out of the dozens I had before the stroke.

I consider the ones that abandoned me my “fake friends“.  That is because that’s what they are. These are the people that I thought I could rely on. People that would be there to help me through my ordeal.

I thank them for coming to visit me at first. But I also am really really pissed off at them not being there after. I have always supported my friends when necessary. All I wanted was the same treatment.  Having a support group behind you when going through something like this is very important. There for the good moments but also there to comfort you through the bad.

As you can tell if you’ve read the rest of my blog I have had a great attitude through most of my stroke.  I still have that attitude and I’m hoping I will until the day I leave this earth. This particular topic however is one that is not one of my good moments. It doesn’t bother me anymore, at least not as much as it did at first. I have those close friends that hopefully will be there forever. The rest of them, well I hope they never have to go though what I did.   But if they do, I’m sure they’re going to find out who their fake friends are and maybe then they will understand

Strokes aren’t contagious! I hope your friends realize that and don’t treat it like it is.