Illness is never a pretty thing,
And as Miss Brown can well assert, Stroke is one of them.
She is a debilitating b*t*h. She removes your dignity, renders you helpless and confuses you. She makes you wonder what's happening to you, makes you lose control of the one thing you yourself own- your body, numbs you, shocks you and takes away your freedom. Because of her, you throw up, you drop things, your head hurts and your vision blurs. And she makes you feel heavier and heavier as if you're adhered to whatever it is you're on.
She throws your life into disarray, overwhelming it and turning it upside down. She makes hearts turn away from you and makes you turn away even from yourself. Because of her, you hate yourself. Because of her, you hate what you have, you feel guilty for troubling others, and she makes you ponder over and over again what it was you did that made it happen this way.
Stroke is one b*t*h that when she strikes, she strikes hard. She doesn't creep up to you like a sore throat might do and then leave you with an onslaught of flu. She is not a geriatric related illness that comes upon you because, oh, it's just one of those elderly thingies that happen because you know, you're 'getting old'.
Like cancer, like heart failure, stroke is one of f**ked-up s*** that attacks you at an instance, leaving you no room to turn, no room to manoeuvre, and you're imprisoned in whatever consequences she leaves you with.
Sometimes it is more than the physical.
For Miss Brown, it was the mental, and the emotional.