Reality
About four weeks ago I sold my car. Reality had continued to nudge at me and with that was the awareness that the tin box sitting in the garage was costing me a couple of thousand dollars a year and I was getting no benefit from it (my youngest daughter on the other hand loved having access to it).
When I had my stroke, back in September 2013, I only had to abstain from driving for the regulated four weeks before my doctor gave me the go ahead to drive again. When I tried returning to work I was too fatigued to be able to drive home so my husband would have to make the trips to drop me off and pick me up. Following my first TIA, in December2013, my fatigue and sensory overload issues were greatly exacerbated.
One of the effects of this was left side neglect, which would result in me not seeing properly out of my left eye. This was really bought home when, after visiting a friend, I was reversing my car into the garage and I gently hit my husband’s car. After speaking to my doctor the decision was made to sell my old car and to buy one equipped with a reversing camera, lane departure warning and other such safety features.
Over the next couple of years I had two more TIA’s and again the residual effects worsened my existing ones. I still had medical clearance to drive but, on a practical level, I was unable to as whilst I was able to safely drive somewhere, after visiting someone or going shopping, I could struggle to walk or talk let alone drive.
And so here we are now; me still with my licence but no car. The psychological effect of selling my car hit me quite hard because with the car went my sense of independence which is a bit ridiculous when you think I never went out in it on my own. But before, the fact it was sitting in the garage meant that if I had really wanted to I could have got in it and driven to a destination of my choosing. Now that is gone. And while I never could drive to visit people or socialise I now feel even more dependent on the actions of others for such things and so the feeling of isolation is intensified. Until I sold my car I’d never perceived how it represented a freedom that in all reality I didn’t have.
By the way…my daughter loves the car she bought :)