Emotional Anger After Stroke: Trisha Winski’s Story of a Carotid Web, Aphasia, and Learning to Slow Down
Trisha Winski was 46 years old, working as a corporate finance director, with no high blood pressure, no diabetes, and no smoking history. By every conventional measure, she was not a stroke candidate. Then one morning, she stood up from the bathroom, collapsed, and couldn’t speak. Her ex-husband, sleeping on her couch by chance the night before, found her and called 911.
The cause was a carotid web, a rare congenital condition she never knew she had. Three years and three months later, she’s living with aphasia, rebuilding her sense of self, and navigating something that doesn’t get nearly enough airtime in stroke conversations: emotional anger after stroke.
What Is a Carotid Web — and Why Does It Matter?
A carotid web is a rare shelf-like membrane in the internal carotid artery that disrupts blood flow, causing stagnation and clot formation. It is a form of intimal fibromuscular dysplasia and affects approximately 1.2% of the population. Most people never know they have it.
Unlike the more commonly cited stroke risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and obesity, a carotid web is congenital. You are born with it. There is no lifestyle adjustment that would have prevented Trisha’s stroke. That distinction matters enormously when you are trying to make sense of what happened to you.
“I have nothing that could cause it,” Trisha says. “No blood pressure, no diabetes. It’s hard.”
The treating hospital, MGH in Boston, caught the carotid web, something Trisha was later told many hospitals would have missed. It is a reminder of how much diagnosis still depends on the right clinician, the right technology, and a degree of luck.
Why Am I So Angry After My Stroke?
One of the most underexplored dimensions of stroke recovery is emotional anger, not just grief, not just fear, but a specific kind of rage that has no clean target.
“Why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating,” Trisha says. “I’m just mad. I don’t know who I’m mad at.”
This is a clinically recognized phenomenon. Emotional dysregulation after stroke can have both neurological and psychological origins. The brain regions that govern emotional control may be directly affected by the injury. At the same time, the psychological weight of sudden, unearned loss of function, of identity, of a future you thought you understood is enough to generate profound anger in anyone.
For people like Trisha, who had no risk factors and no warning, the anger is compounded. There is no behaviour to regret, no choice to unwind. The stroke simply happened. That can make the anger feel even more directionless and, paradoxically, even more consuming.
“Why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating.”
Bill’s gentle reframe in the conversation is worth noting here: “Why not me? Who are you to go through life completely unscathed?” It’s not a dismissal, it’s an invitation to move from the question that has no answer to the one that might.
Aphasia: The Deficit That Hurts the Most
Trisha’s stroke affected her left hemisphere, producing aphasia, a language processing difficulty that affects word retrieval, word substitution, and speaking speed. Her numbers remained largely intact, which helped her return to her finance role. But the aphasia has been, in her own words, the hardest part.
“If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be normal, but I could be normal,” she says. “The aphasia kills me.”
One of the quieter consequences of aphasia that Trisha describes is self-censoring, stopping herself from communicating in public because she fears taking too long, disrupting the flow of conversation, or being misunderstood. She has developed a workaround: telling people upfront she has had a stroke, so they give her the time she needs to get her words out.
The frustration-aphasia loop is well documented: the more stressed or frustrated a person becomes, the worse the aphasia tends to get. The therapeutic implication is significant. Managing emotional anger after a stroke is not just a well-being issue for someone with aphasia; it is directly tied to their ability to communicate.
“Whenever I’m not stressed, I can get it out. When I get nervous, I can’t,” Trisha explains.
The Trauma Ripple: It’s Not Just About You
One of the most striking moments in this episode is when Trisha reflects on her son Zach and ex-husband Jason, both of whom were visibly distraught in the days after her stroke.
“I had a stroke. Why are they traumatized?” she says and then catches herself. “I forgot to look at it from their perspective. They watched me have a stroke.”
This is something stroke survivors frequently underestimate. The people around them, partners, children, friends, even ex-partners like Jason, carry their own version of the trauma. They watched helplessly. They made decisions under panic. They grieved a version of the person they knew, even as that person survived.
Acknowledging this doesn’t diminish the stroke survivor’s experience. It widens the frame of recovery to include the whole system and opens the door to conversations about collective healing.
Neuroplasticity Is Real — Give It Time
Three years and three months after her stroke, Trisha’s message to people in the early stages of recovery is grounded and honest.
“Neuroplasticity really does exist. My brain finds places to find the words I never had before. It takes longer, but it gets there. Just give yourself time.”
She also reflects candidly on going back to work too early, returning before she was medically cleared, crying every day, and unable to follow her own cognitive processes. “I should have waited,” she says. “But I did it. It taught me that if I ever had it again, I won’t do that.”
Recovery after stroke is non-linear, unglamorous, and deeply personal. But the brain is adapting, always. Trisha’s story is evidence of that and a reminder that emotional anger after a stroke, however consuming it feels, is not the end of the story.
Read Bill’s book on stroke recovery: recoveryafterstroke.com/book | Support the show: patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke
DisclaimerThis blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan.
Why Me? Navigating Emotional Anger After Stroke When You Did Nothing Wrong
No risk factors. No warning. Just a carotid web she never knew about — and three years of emotional anger, aphasia, and finding her way back.
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00:00 Introduction – Emotional anger after stroke
01:36 The Day of the Stroke
07:05 Post-Stroke Challenges and Rehabilitation
13:06 Ongoing Health Concerns and Medical Appointments
22:40 Navigating Health Challenges and Medical Support
30:20 Acceptance and Coping with Mortality
38:36 Communication Challenges and Aphasia
42:09 The Journey of Recovery and Self-Discovery
51:51 Facing the Aftermath of Stroke
59:22 Emotional Impact on Loved Ones
01:04:57 Navigating Life Changes
01:13:25 Finding Joy in New Passions
01:25:12 Trisha’s Journey: Emotional Anger After Stroke
Introduction – Emotional anger after stroke
Trisha Lyn Winski (00:00)
I don’t have anything that could cause it. I have nothing that, no blood pressure, no diabetes, It’s hard. It’s hard. don’t… It makes me mad. Really mad. Really, really mad that I to stroke. And like, everyone that has it…
Trisha Lyn Winski (00:21)
or every dozen. I’m like, why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating.
Trisha Lyn Winski (00:30)
I don’t know. I’m just mad. Like, I don’t know who I’m mad at.
Before we get into Trisha’s story, and this is a raw, honest, and really important one, I wanna share a tool I’ve been using that I think can genuinely help stroke survivors get better answers faster. It’s called Turn2.ai. It’s an AI health sidekick that helps you deep dive into any burning question you have about your recovery. It searches across over 500,000 sources related to stroke, new research, expert discussions,
patient stories and resources, and then keeps you updated on what matters each week. I use it myself and it’s my favorite tool of 2026 for staying current with what’s happening in stroke recovery. It’s low cost and completely patient first. Try it free and when you’re ready to subscribe, use my code, Bill10 at
slash sidekick slash stroke to get a discount. I earn a small commission if you use that link at no extra cost to you. And that helps keep this podcast going. Also my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book.
And if you’d like to support the show on Patreon and my goal of reaching a thousand episodes, you can do that by going to patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Links are in the show notes.
Right, Trisha Winsky was 46 years old, healthy, had no risk factors and then a carotid web. She never knew she had changed everything. Let’s get into it.
Trisha Winski, welcome to the podcast.
Trisha Lyn Winski (02:09)
Also thank you for joining me so late. I really appreciate people hanging around till the late hours of the evening to join me on the podcast. I know it’s difficult for us to make the hours that suit us both. I’m in the daytime here in Australia and you’re in the nighttime there.
Trisha Lyn Winski (02:27)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s okay. I can come to you later. Yeah, it’s late.
As a stroke survivor, is it too late?
Trisha Lyn Winski (02:36)
Okay, cool. Tell me a little bit about what you used to get up to. What was life like before the stroke?
Trisha Lyn Winski (02:45)
I just get up and get to work.
deal with it all day, come home, I’d go to the restaurant, the bars, my friends, and then like I had a stroke and everything changed. Everything changed in an instant.
How old were you in the district?
Trisha Lyn Winski (03:02)
And before that, were you in a family, married, do you have kids, any of that stuff?
Trisha Lyn Winski (03:08)
have a kid. Now he’s 28. He was 25 when I had it. I was married before, but like a long time ago. Actually, my ex found me when I had a serve. So he’s the one who found me. But so yeah, that’s all I have here. My mom passed away in November. So it’s been challenging. Yeah.
⁓ Sorry to hear that. how many years ago was a stroke?
Trisha Lyn Winski (03:37)
⁓ It’s three years and three months.
Yeah. What were you focused on back then? What were the main goals in your life? Was it just working hard? Was it getting to a certain time in your career? What was the main goal?
Trisha Lyn Winski (03:50)
I working hard, but I just wanted to get to a good place in my career. And I think I was in a good place. Now I second guess at all time because I’ve had strokes now, it doesn’t matter what happens. I’m always second guessing it. But I was in a good place. I just felt like I needed to make them better. And the stroke happened and I so didn’t.
What kind of work did you do?
Trisha Lyn Winski (04:18)
I was the corporate finance director for an auto group.
A lot of hours was it like crazy hours or was just regular hours.
Trisha Lyn Winski (04:26)
No, I worked a lot of hours, but in the end he wanted me work like 40, 50 hours a week. I couldn’t do that. 50 hours a week was killing me, but 40 was enough. Yeah.
Were, did you consider yourself healthy? Was there any signs that you were unwell, that there was a stroke kind of on the horizon?
Trisha Lyn Winski (04:46)
No, nothing, The day before this, had, my eye was like, I want to say it’s twitching, but it wasn’t twitching. It was doing something like odd. And I didn’t realize that until I had a TIA recently, but I realized it then. It’s, how can I explain it? It’s like a clear, a blonde shape in my eye. it, when I move, it goes with me. And I try to see around it, I can’t see around it. And I said to Gary, I worked with him, was like,
I’m gonna have to go to hospital. This continues. can’t see.” And then it went away. And that’s the only symptom I had. Only symptom. And he said, no, I should told you that you might be having a stroke. like, even if you told me that, I never believed him. Never.
Yeah. When you’re, and it went away and you didn’t have a chance to go see anyone about it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (05:37)
Yeah, it went away in like, honestly, like five minutes. So I didn’t see anybody, but I thought it was okay. I mean, I guess now that I’m looking back at it, it’s kind of odd. It’s one eye, but I felt like it was gone. I don’t know. yeah. No, you don’t.
Yeah. How could you know? mean, no one knows these things. And,
and then on the day of the stroke, what happened? Was there any kind of lead up? Did you notice not feeling well during that day? And then the stroke, what was it like?
Trisha Lyn Winski (06:09)
No, so I get up like every other day to go to work. I went in the bathroom and the night before that Jason said Jason’s ex-ad he stayed at my house because he needed need a place to stay because he couldn’t go out Zach again. I was like okay we’ll sleep in my couch I’m gonna go to work tomorrow but you can sleep here. So he was there and I think if he wasn’t there I would have died.
Post-Stroke Challenges and Rehabilitation
Makes me sad. Um, anyway, so when I woke up I went to bathroom and I stood up from the toilet and I like I fell over and I I didn’t even realize it. So I fresh my face in like five places when I fell and I didn’t even I didn’t even know it my whole side was numb. So I didn’t feel it. And Jason, you know, helped me to bed. I thought he helped me to bed. He didn’t he like drug me to bed.
He got in the bed and then I… He came back in like five minutes later, are you okay? Like he knew something was wrong. And I couldn’t articulate to him. So I said, I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m gonna go to work. So he put the phone in my hand to call my boss. And he came back in like five minutes later and I… He put it in my right hand so I didn’t call anybody. And he said, my God, I’ll never forget this. He said, my God, you’re having a stroke.
And I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t talk. I just… Yeah, I could hear him say that, but I couldn’t talk to him. It’s… It’s really scary. Like, even talking right now, like… It upsets me.
but you can hear him say that.
This is really raw for you, isn’t it?
Yeah, understand. went through very similar things like trying to speak about it and getting it out of my self and trying to, you know, bring it into the world and get it off my shoulders. Like often brought me to tears and made it really difficult for me to have a meaningful conversation with anyone about it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (08:07)
There’s small blessings there with you, okay? All happened when for whatever reason your ex was in the house and was able to attend you. It’s an amazing thing that that is even possible ⁓ considering how some breakups go and how possible. Yeah. Yeah. And so he called 911 and got you to hospital. Is that how you ended up in hospital?
Trisha Lyn Winski (08:15)
We’re good friends, it was a challenge.
So they ended up taking me to MGH, it’s a hospital right down the street from me. ⁓ But he’s not from here, he’s from Pennsylvania. he didn’t know where to me, like, just has to go to the hospital. So they knew when they came up. So MGH is like known for their strokes, they’re like really good at strokes. ⁓ And so that’s where they plan on taking me.
Yeah. And do you get a sense of what happened when you were in the hospital? Do you have any kind of recollection of what was going on?
Trisha Lyn Winski (09:11)
I honestly, in the first week, no. I remember seeing, in the first day, I saw Zach, my son, and Zach, his brother Connor was in there too, and Jason, they all were there with me when I woke up. But I saw them, and I saw my friend Matt, and then that’s all I remember seeing. I remember seeing my mom on the third day.
I’m in jail on this third day, but that’s about it.
Yeah. And then did you have deficits? couldn’t feel one of your sides? Did that come back, whole problem, that whole challenge?
Trisha Lyn Winski (09:50)
So the right side, it came back, but it came back like sporadically. So I just kind of want to come back. So the first day I saw Matt and I put up my arm to talk to him and I couldn’t like put my arm out. So I just like tap my arm. ⁓ Now I can move my arm fully, but I can’t, I don’t have the dexterity in my arm. So I can’t like.
I can’t flip an egg with this hand. it’s like this and then this is like that. I can’t do this. ⁓ And my right foot has spasticity in it. then the three toes on the side, I could curl them up all the time.
Trisha Lyn Winski (10:37)
huh. Okay. Have you heard of cryo-neuralysis?
Trisha Lyn Winski (10:42)
yeah, yeah, I got that back.
Trisha Lyn Winski (10:47)
That’s spasticity treatment. Cryo-neurolosis, it’s a real weird long word. There’s a dude in Canada that ⁓ started a procedure to help freeze a nerve and it expands the ⁓ tendons or something around that and it decreases spasticity and it lasts longer than Botox.
Trisha Lyn Winski (10:50)
⁓ yeah, you need to give me his name. We’re gonna talk. That’s I went twice to have it done. ⁓ it didn’t help at all. And I met, I met the guy, ⁓ the diarist, diarist ⁓ at the hospital. And he said, I didn’t think it was, it was going to work. I’m like, it’s the first I saw you. And he was like, I saw you and you had the shirt. I’m like, okay. I saw a million people that we can’t, I don’t remember who they are.
All right. So I’m going to put a link to the details for cryo-neuralysis in the show notes. ⁓ you and I will communicate after the podcast episode is done. And I’ll send you the details because there’s this amazing new procedure that people are raving about that seems to provide more relief than Botox in a lot of cases, and it lasts longer. And it’s basically done by freezing the nerve or doing something like that to the nerve.
in an injection kind of format and then it releases the spasticity makes it improve. ⁓ well worth you looking into it, especially if you’re in the United States and it’s in Canada. ⁓ I know that doctor is training people in the United States and around the world. So there might be some people closer to you than Canada that you can go and chat about. Yeah. And how long did you spend in hospital in the end?
Trisha Lyn Winski (12:28)
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I love it.
four weeks. Yeah. So the first, the first week I was at MGH, ⁓ they kept me for longer in the ICU because I had hemorrhagic conversion, transformation, whatever it’s called. I, you know what that is? Well, that went from the, I can’t think of what I was trying to say.
Ongoing Health Concerns and Medical Appointments
Trisha Lyn Winski (13:05)
It went from the aneurysm to the, not the aneurysm, the.
The carotid artery. The clot, ⁓
Trisha Lyn Winski (13:11)
carotid artery and went to my brain. So I my brain bleed for a couple of days, but not like bleed, bleed, but it showed blood. So they kept me in it for longer.
Okay. And then did you go straight home? Did you go to rehab? What was that like?
Trisha Lyn Winski (13:29)
I went to rehab for three weeks. And I sobbed my eyes out. So at that point I was like, I was good, but I wasn’t at all good, but I thought I was good. I said, I wanna go home, I wanna go home. My son can, he teach me all, do all this stuff, I gotta go home. Now that I’m past it, there’s no way he could tell me, no way. I couldn’t tie my shoes.
And when you came home, were people living with you?
Trisha Lyn Winski (13:56)
No, nobody was living with but he had to come move in with me for three months.
Yeah, your son, yeah. What was that like?
Trisha Lyn Winski (14:07)
I mean, honestly, at the time it was fine because I slept all the time. I slept like, God, I would go to bed like seven, 730 at night. And I was sleeping until like, at least, some sort of next day. I’d get up for a few hours, do what I had to do, and then fall back asleep. But just, I slept for a lot. So it was okay then. But come to the end of it, I’m like, okay, it’s time for you at your place.
I need my space again, but yeah, he’s yeah, I need to have my own space. But at the time I know I need to rest. Yeah, I do. Yeah. ⁓
and you need somebody around anyway. It’s important to have
something near you if you’re unwell. Do they know what caused the stroke?
Trisha Lyn Winski (14:53)
⁓ So I had a karate web. means that… ⁓
It’s really, it’s really rare. Only like 1.2 % of the whole population has it and I had it. It’s co-indentinob… co-ind… it’s… so I got it I was born.
Trisha Lyn Winski (15:13)
congenital, but they don’t know. I said that that would make it so much sense that they did a scan of your whole body at some point. I would have known that I had that years ago, but I didn’t know it.
what to look like, what to look for. The thing about scans, the whole body, my good friend of mine, the guy who helped me out when I was in hospital, he’s a radiographer and he does MRIs and all that kind of stuff. And he used to do my MRIs happened to be my friend happened to be working at the hospital that I was at. And he used to come and see me all the time. And I said to him, can we do a scan, you know, a preventative scan and check out, you know, my whole body? And he said, well, we can, but
Trisha Lyn Winski (15:28)
What are we looking for? I said, I don’t know anything. He said, well, we could, we could find a heap of things or we could find nothing. And if we don’t know what we’re looking for, we can’t set our scanners to the particular, settings to find the thing that you’re looking for. Because one scanner looks for hundreds of different things and the settings for to look for that thing has to be set into the scanner. And that’s only when people have a suspicion that you might have X thing.
Trisha Lyn Winski (16:09)
then they set the scanner to find X thing and then they’ll look for it then they find it. He said, well, if we go in and do whole body scan, but we don’t even know what resolution to set it, how long to do the scan for. We don’t know what we’re looking for. So we don’t know what to do. And you have to be able to guide me and say, I want you to look for, in my case, a congenital arteriovenous malformation. In your case, carotid web. And in anyone else’s case is an aneurysm or whatever, but a general scan.
Trisha Lyn Winski (16:38)
Like it’s such a hard thing to do for people. then, and then sometimes you said you find things that people do have unexpectedly because they go in for a different scan and then you discover something else. But now they’ve got more information about something that’s quite unquote wrong with them. And it’s like, what do you do with that information? Do I do a procedure to get rid of it? Do I, do I leave it there? Do I monitor it? Like, do I worry about it? Do I not worry about it?
Trisha Lyn Winski (16:56)
is that it throws a big kind of curve ball out there and then no one knows how to react to it, how to respond. So it’s a big deal for somebody to say, can we have a whole body scan so we can work out what are all the things wrong with me?
Trisha Lyn Winski (17:38)
I it’s true, but I think that for me, most people have a carotid web. It’s obvious. know how old you are, it’s obvious. So then in that regard, like a carotid web, it looks a little indentured in the bloodstream. looks a little indentured in your artery. So I think that they would have seen it, but… ⁓
Trisha Lyn Winski (18:06)
But then again, I don’t know. The hospital I went to, he said, you’re lucky you came here because most hospitals would have missed us.
probably didn’t have the technology to find it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (18:17)
when I came to, it wasn’t months later, but I saw it on the scan. like, ⁓ it’s right there. ⁓ He said, yeah, but I thought it would be obvious, but it’s not so obvious.
I just did a Google search for it and it says a carotid web is a rare shelf like membrane type narrowing in the internal carotid artery, specifically arising from the posterior wall of the carotid bulb. It is a form of intimal fibromuscular dysplasia that causes blood to stagnate forming clots that can lead to recurrent often severe ischemic strokes. Okay. So
it causes blood to stay stagnant in that particular location causing clots. And you in the time we’ve been communicating, which is only in the last three or four weeks, you even sent me a message saying you just had an S you just had a TIA. ⁓ how come you’re still having clots? they not treating you or
Trisha Lyn Winski (19:20)
I think they so they gave me um a scent in my re to kind of write that I don’t know why I had it cuz um, but my eye was like acting crazy again Just one eye and I I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I I don’t want the hospital at all for anything if I have if I don’t have to go I’m not going to hospital I Text Jason and Zach and they’re like no you have to go like I’ll wait a little while so
Meanwhile, I was waiting a little while because I didn’t want to go and then I listened to ⁓ a red chat chat GBT He said no you have to go right now. Here’s why I’m like Now it’s like five hours later. I’m Sorry, so I went but and they said that I have ⁓ It’s likely I had a clot They don’t know where it came from though. So that’s that’s the thing is it’s confusing and by the way I think there’s something to be said about ⁓ I think if you have a stroke
You can have one again easier than somebody who didn’t. I didn’t know that, but I learned it quickly. ⁓ So they said I had it, maybe went up in my eye, but it broke apart before it became an actual stroke. But I don’t know.
I love that you didn’t want to go and you ignored the male influences in your life, but you listen to chat.
Trisha Lyn Winski (20:50)
They’re so smart. they say, I find on Google anyway. So that I listened to ChatGVT, it was like, I don’t know. And I know that like…
that that’s kind of mental.
Trisha Lyn Winski (21:08)
It is actually, but I know that like my son is actually really smart and I think that they, but I didn’t listen him. I just listened to Chad Judy.
Yeah. Anyhow, I love that you went in the end because, ⁓ and why don’t you want to go like, you just hate doctors and hospitals and that kind of thing? They saved you, didn’t they? Didn’t they save you? Didn’t they help you?
Trisha Lyn Winski (21:29)
but I don’t know. I think I spent so much time in there. ⁓ I don’t know. It’s in my head. I don’t like to sit in hospitals because of that. So after having the stroke, I stayed in hospital for month. I got out. I went back in like two weeks. I fell over twice. They thought that’s why. So when I was in hospital,
something like they go Vegas something is pretty common. And I was like, okay, I did want to go then. I did want to go and then Zach made me. And then two months later, I went in to get the stint. And at that time I got a period. So it’s a long story. But I said to the doctor, I’m like, well, I’ll be okay. Does it do anything else because of this? He’s like, no, you should be fine. But if it gets bad, you have to go the hospital.
he got bad. I almost died. I almost died from that. And that made me traumatized because I was awake and alive for all of it. I saw it all and passed out like six times in like three, I don’t know how many days, like five days. Yeah, but.
Navigating Health Challenges and Medical Support
The challenge with something going wrong in hospital is that it’s less likely to be as dramatic as something going wrong at home. And that’s the thing, right? If you haven’t got help, then the chances that your stroke cause you way more deficits. That’s like so much worse. The best place for you to be is somewhere other than at home because you don’t want to risk being at home alone when something goes wrong and then you’re home alone.
Trisha Lyn Winski (23:04)
when the blood flow has stopped to your head for a lot of hours. Like it could kill you, it make you more disabled and it could do all sorts of things. it’s like, but I get the whole, what is it like? It’s kind of like an anxiety about medical people and hospitals and stuff like that.
Trisha Lyn Winski (23:20)
think that it’s mostly like I don’t like to stay there. I got a weird thing about this. I don’t like to stay there. I can stay anywhere I go, but the hospital really bothered me. I think that they were actually pretty good to me. So I’m not mad at them for that. ⁓ But I don’t want to see them now if I can possibly help it.
Yeah, you’re done with them.
Trisha Lyn Winski (23:56)
Yeah, I get it. I got, I got to that stage. My dramas were like three or four years worth of, you know, medical appointments, scans, surgery, rehab.
Trisha Lyn Winski (24:07)
Oh my god. Medical appointments.
Medical appointments, forget it. They’re like, oh my god. I have so many of them, I can’t even say it.
I hear you. hear you. went through the same thing and then I got over it. now lately I’ve been going back to the hospital and seeing medical doctors for, um, not how I haven’t got heart issues, my, I’ve got high blood pressure and they don’t know what’s causing it. And, know, I’ve had my heart checked. I’ve had my arteries checked. I’ve had all these tests, blood tests, MRIs, the whole lot, and it’s getting a little bit old, you know, like I’m over it. But the truth is without them, I don’t.
I don’t have a hope. Like if my blood pressure goes through the roof, you know, which had been, had been sitting at 170 over 120, 130. And I have a brain hemorrhage because of uh, high blood pressure. know what a brain hemorrhage is like, you know, I don’t want to have another one. So I’m like, I am going to, uh, I’m going to shut up, go through it and be grateful that I have medical support. Um, which, which
Trisha Lyn Winski (24:55)
You know, a lot of people don’t get to have, it’s like, whatever, you know, I’ll cop it. I’ll cop it. I’ll go. And hopefully they can get ahead of it. So now they’re just changing my medication. I want to get to the bottom of it. Why have I got high blood pressure? The challenge with the medical system that I have is, is they just tell you, you have it and here’s something to stop it from being high. But I, they never say to you, we’re going to investigate why, like we’re going to try to get to the bottom of it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (25:16)
and I’ve been pushing them to investigate why do I have high blood pressure.
Trisha Lyn Winski (25:44)
don’t have, I never had high blood pressure but speaking of I’ve, I don’t have a problem with my heart but they, so that when I had this for the first time they made me get out and have to, I had to wear a heart monitor for a month and I said like why am I wearing a heart monitor? There was something, they, I don’t know what it is.
Trisha Lyn Winski (26:13)
Afib or something like that in there. And this time was the same thing. had heart bars over there right now. I had to send it back and they’re gonna send me new one. every time I’ve taken my heart test, and by the went for EKG just the other day. It was fine. But they found like something near my heart rate, it’s not like I need to be concerned about these. It’s nothing I need to be concerned about. So I was like, okay.
They’re making you wear that for a month. Anyway.
Yeah, just to go through things, just to check things, just to work some stuff out.
Trisha Lyn Winski (26:47)
Yeah, yeah, this month I have ton, I have like seven appointments.
Yeah, I used to forget my appointments all the time, even though I had him in my calendar, even though I had reminders, I just, even though I got reminded on the day, an hour before, two hours before, he meant nothing to me. I would just completely forget about him.
Trisha Lyn Winski (26:59)
Same thing. I forgot all of it. And I had to share it with Zach and he could tell me, have an appointment. Like, okay. I forgot. He’s like, have an appointment. I’m like, fuck, I have to go.
How long did it take you to get back to work?
Trisha Lyn Winski (27:28)
I at least I went back to work. I went back to work before I was told I could go back to work. And I wrote them an email like, listen, I can’t sit at home and run one fucking freeze. I need to do something. So I went back to work. ⁓ And at first I went back to work part time. And honestly, like I cried. I left there crying every day. And not because I think that I.
Not because of people. don’t think it was the people. I couldn’t understand. My head was like… I couldn’t focus and put all that work into my… I couldn’t put it into me. So I couldn’t understand what I was doing. And then you give them a month. Eventually I got it, but it was a struggle. I should have waited until October. And they said I should go back in October. Maybe I could go back in October. I should have waited until then.
Yeah. Do you kind of like a nervous energy type of person? Do you can’t sit still or is it like, can’t spend a lot of time on your own with yourself? Like, is it?
Trisha Lyn Winski (28:34)
I can spend a lot of time by myself. don’t like to ⁓ here by myself. I can be by myself. I don’t like to be… I can’t think of… What did you say before?
downtime? Is it the downtime? it too much? Did you have too much downtime?
Trisha Lyn Winski (28:52)
Yes, definitely too much downtime. But I couldn’t see I was sitting at home and Zach was there, whatever he was doing. was like, I can’t, I need to do something. So I went to work and in all reality, I should have walked around. should have, I didn’t do that.
Yeah. How did your colleagues find you when you went back? Did they kind of appreciate what you had been through? Was that easy to have those conversations? What was it like?
Trisha Lyn Winski (29:21)
Yeah, so I oversaw all the finances department. ⁓ They were actually like, honestly like rock stars. They were like really, really good to me. ⁓ That was helpful. because I love them anyway. it made me feel good to say that that’s what I’m doing. ⁓ But I still left there and cried. Not because like I think that I just couldn’t understand it.
They were good to me. Everyone was good to me in theory, I couldn’t understand.
you had trouble with the work, with doing your job because of your cognitive function.
Trisha Lyn Winski (29:59)
yeah, there’s a other little things with that, it’s more or less the cognitive function is a problem to do the work.
Yeah. Tiring. Like I mentioned, it’s really mentally draining and tiring. remember sitting in front of a computer trying to work out what was going on on the screen and it being completely just blank.
Acceptance and Coping with Mortality
Trisha Lyn Winski (30:22)
And so that’s actually what probably got me the most was that what you’re saying. I’d be sitting there and look at my screen. I couldn’t remember what I was doing, but I remember like weird things. I remember how to do like Excel. I don’t know how I remember Excel, but I did. I was really good with numbers. And they said that I was going to have a problem with numbers and everything. So I have aphasia too. I don’t have a choice with that, but
Trisha Lyn Winski (30:49)
That’s why I talk so weird.
Trisha Lyn Winski (30:54)
yeah, I have aphasia. But I can do certain things. And the numbers was going to be, they said it going to, I couldn’t, that’s going to be a problem. And the numbers, I can do all day. But I can’t do other little things.
I understand. So you went back to work. It was kind of helpful, probably too early to go back, but good to be out of the house. Good to be connecting with people again. And has that improved? Did you find that you’ve been able to kind of get better in front of a screen, better with the things that you struggled with, or is it still still a bit of a challenge?
Trisha Lyn Winski (31:19)
So two things, ⁓ I got fired eventually, and that’s another whole issue.
Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that another time. but ⁓ so, but now that I’m here, I could look my computer and it’s fine. I can do it all day. But I really, it’s a long story. think that Warren, my boss, ⁓ Deb, but they definitely like hinder me. ⁓
Okay. I understand. Well, maybe we won’t talk about it, like, because of the complications with that, but that’s all good. I understand. So, ⁓ do you know, a lot of the times you hear about acceptance and you hear about, ⁓ like,
Trisha Lyn Winski (32:07)
When some, well, something goes through something serious, something difficult, you know, there has to be kind of this acceptance of where they’re at. And that’s kind of the first stage of healing recovery, overcoming. Where are you with all of this? you like, totally get that at 46. It’s a shock to have a stroke. You look perfectly fine, perfectly healthy. This thing that you didn’t know about that you’ve had for 46 years suddenly causes an issue. How do you deal with your mortality and knowing that
things can go wrong, even though you’re not aware of, you you’re not doing anything to really make your situation worse. You look fit and healthy. Were you drinking, smoking, doing any of that kind of stuff?
Trisha Lyn Winski (33:06)
I drank occasionally, I wasn’t a drunk, I don’t smoke.
social smoke social drinker but not smoker
Trisha Lyn Winski (33:15)
I don’t have anything that could cause it. I have nothing that, no blood pressure, no diabetes, It’s hard. Jason talks about it all the time. It’s hard. don’t… It makes me mad. Really mad. Really, really mad that I to stroke. And like, everyone that has it…
Trisha Lyn Winski (33:41)
or every dozen. I’m like, why me? Why did I have to have it? It’s frustrating. It’s so frustrating.
Trisha Lyn Winski (33:50)
I don’t know. I’m just mad. Like, I don’t know who I’m mad at.
Yeah. The thing about the why me question, it’s a fair question. asked it too. I even ask it now sometimes, especially when, um, I’ve got to go back for more tests, more, uh, now I’ve got high blood pressure. Like, like I needed another thing to have, you know, like, and it’s like, the only thing that I come back with after why me is why not me? Like, who are you to go through life completely unscathed and get to 99 and then die from natural
wanted to stop there for a second because that question, why me, is something I wrote about in my book. It’s one of the most common and most painful places stroke survivors get stuck. If you want to read about it and how I worked through it and what I found on the other side, the book is called The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened and it’s available at
You’ll find the link in the show notes. And now let’s get back to Tricia.
Trisha Lyn Winski (34:54)
You’re normal. being normal, ⁓ normal things happen to people. Some of those things that are shit are strokes and heart attacks and stuff that you didn’t know that you were born with. ⁓ what’s really interesting though, is to live the life after stroke and to kind of wrap my head around what that looks like. My left side feels numb all the time. ⁓ tighter, ⁓ has spasticity, but nothing is curled. Like my fingers on my toes are not curled, but it’s tighter. ⁓ it hurts.
⁓ It’s colder, it’s ⁓ sensitive, I’ve got a, and I always have a comparison of the quote unquote normal side, the other side, it’s always. And the comparison I think is worse because it makes me notice my affected side and that noticing it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (35:31)
makes the reality happen again every day. Like it’s a new, I wake up in the morning, I get out of bed, my left side still sleepy. I have to be careful. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose my balance. I don’t want to fall over. And it’s like, I get to experience a different version of myself. And sometimes I want to be grateful for that. want to say, wow, what a cool, different thing to experience in a body. But then I’m trying to work out like, what’s the benefit of it? don’t know if there’s a benefit. ⁓
Trisha Lyn Winski (36:14)
Trisha Lyn Winski (36:15)
but here I am talking to you and, and, and 390 people before you, ⁓ about strike all over the world and we’re putting something out and it’s making a difference. And maybe that’s the benefit. I don’t know, but do know what I mean? Like, why not us? I hate asking that question too.
Trisha Lyn Winski (36:34)
You had ⁓ the podcast on YouTube and I stumbled upon it on the wise. I watched YouTube and then you came out there and I’m like, so before that I was looking at different, I watched every video, every video on strokes, every video I could possibly type but I watched. I did. ⁓ And then I stumbled upon your stuff and I watched that stuff too.
And that’s why I wouldn’t have thought to call you or reach out to you.
Was it helpful? Was it helpful?
Trisha Lyn Winski (37:13)
Yeah, it is helpful. But it doesn’t change the fact that I had a stroke. All the people that had it, I feel bad for them. Honestly, like, so when I was at the hospital, they had me join a bunch of groups on Facebook and Instagram that are like, they’re people who’ve gone through a stroke. most, I don’t comment on them. I don’t say, because most of the time it’s people bitching.
Trisha Lyn Winski (37:43)
But I really like, times I, trust me, I’m like ready to kill somebody. But I don’t like say it there. I only ask them questions that are really serious. But sometimes I read what they say. And there was a guy the other day, I don’t know what he wrote, but he had like all kinds of words that they were way jumbled. was like, his message just didn’t make sense. I thought to myself, God, if I was like that, I’d be so sad.
Somebody, I do think that he’s worse than I could be, but you don’t know.
Communication Challenges and Aphasia
Yeah. He, his words are more jumbled than yours. And you, if you, you, you’re thinking, if you were like that, you would be probably feeling more sad than you currently are. And you’re assuming that maybe that person is feeling sad, but maybe they’re not, maybe they just got the challenge and they’re taking on the challenge and they’re trying to heal and recover. don’t know. And maybe, maybe they’re getting help and support through that therapy and also maybe psychological help and all that kind of stuff.
Have you ever had any counseling or anything like that to sort of try and wrap your head around what the hell’s going on in your life?
Trisha Lyn Winski (38:54)
So I did it once and actually like I think she was okay. I felt like I was always having to talk. I know that I’m so stocked but she wasn’t asking me a lot of questions and I felt like she needs to me more questions. I’ll have more answers but like but she didn’t. She just wanted me to talk so I just talked. But I stopped seeing her because I… So two reasons. I stopped seeing her because they when they fire me I…
I didn’t know what I had to do. I knew I insured that I didn’t know how long it was going to be for me to have that. So I talked to her for a little bit and then I stopped talking to her because I just couldn’t deal with it. I think now I’m getting to the point where I’m going to do it.
I like that. I like what you said there. Cause sometimes it’s early. It’s too early to go through that and unwrap it. Right. And now a little bit of times past, you probably have more conscious awareness of, do need to talk about this and I need to go through and see a certain person. And now I’m going to take that action. It’s been three years and now I can take that action. like it. ⁓ and I like what you said about, you have to feel like you’re connected to that person or you have rapport or
Trisha Lyn Winski (39:46)
they get you and you’re not just, it’s not a one way conversation. That’s really important in choosing a counselor. I know my counselor, we, I didn’t do all the talking. was like you and me chatting now about stuff. had a conversation about things regularly. And therefore, ⁓ one of the good things that she was able to do was just ease my mind when I would go off on real negative tangents, you know, she would try to bring me back down just to calm and.
Trisha Lyn Winski (40:35)
settle me down and offer me hope.
Trisha Lyn Winski (40:42)
I think my, honestly my biggest problem with this whole stroke and having it at all, I have aphasia and that 100 % kills me. Because I can’t like, I can talk like normal but I can’t talk like…
I forget what I’m saying. So it’s in my brain, but I can’t spit it out. I get really frustrated at that point. people, I had a stroke, my left hemisphere and my right side went numb. My left hemisphere is all kinds of different, different things that I can’t do. The good news is my left means I can’t like, I can talk to people like this. But the other person and that guy I was talking about, he probably had the right side, his aphasia was.
really bad, really bad. But I was a person who talked like really fast all the time, all the time. And now like, I think part of my brain goes so fast and I can’t spit it out. I get really, I get, it’s, yeah.
Okay, so you know, I’ve spoken to a ton of people who have aphasia. And one of the things they say to me is when they have frustration, their aphasia is worse. So the skill is to learn to be less frustrated with oneself, which means that’s like a personal love thing. That’s self love, that’s supporting yourself, you know, and going.
Trisha Lyn Winski (42:00)
The Journey of Recovery and Self-Discovery
Yeah, that’s a point. That’s a good point.
And it’s going like, well, you know, you’re trying your best. It’s all good. You know, don’t get frustrated with yourself. Don’t hate yourself. Don’t give yourself a hard time about it. ⁓ and try and decrease the frustration. Then the aphasia gets less impactful, but, ⁓ and then maybe, you know, this part of learning the new you is bring the old Trisha with you, but maybe the nutrition needs to be a little bit more slow, a little more measured, a little more calm. And it’s a skill because for 46 years, you were the regular.
Trisha Lyn Winski (42:36)
Tricia, the one that you always knew, but now you’ve got to adjust things a little bit. It’s like people going into midlife, right? Like us, you know, in our fifties and then, um, or, know, sort of approaching 50 on and beyond and then go, I’m going to keep eating, uh, fast food that I ate when I was 21 and 20, know, McDonald’s or sodas or whatever. You can’t do it anymore. You have to make adjustments, even though that’s been your habit for the longest time, your body’s going, I can’t deal with this stuff anymore.
Trisha Lyn Winski (43:03)
Take it out, you know, let’s simplify things. And it’s kind of like how to approach. I stroke recoveries things need to kind of get paid back and simplified. And it has to start with self love. And you have to acknowledge how much effort you’ve already put in for the last three years to get you to the position that you are now, which is far better than you were three years ago when the stroke happened. And you have to celebrate.
how much your body is trying to support you heal your brain. Your body’s trying to get you over the line and your mindset is getting frustrated with itself, which is making things worse. Tweak that and things will get a bit better maybe. I don’t know.
Trisha Lyn Winski (43:55)
You’re 100 % right. ⁓ So whenever I’m not stressed, so two things. I think when I talk to people I don’t know, I always get like nervous about that. ⁓
You think they’re thinking about things that you’re not they’re not really
Trisha Lyn Winski (44:13)
Yeah, but then who knows what they’re thinking of. that’s just how I get, whenever I get like, I went to a concert like a couple of years ago and I was like, I believe I couldn’t, I could hear that the music is so loud in my brain. Like I gotta get out of here. So I left. I’ve gotten better since then, but there’s something about, I have to do things slower.
I have to do things over. I’ve realized that like recently, like in the last like maybe month, I have to do things very slow. I have to. And maybe this is God’s way of like, tell me like slow the f down, you’re going too fast. But that’s how I live my whole life. And then all of a sudden, now you’re not going to get up. Yeah, it’s a huge testament. So I can do it right. Not always right.
Yeah, there’s an adjustment. Yeah, adjustment. Yeah.
Trisha Lyn Winski (45:09)
because again, it’s isophagia, it’s gonna be hair mess, if I go slower, much slower, I can get it all out. But, ugh.
It’s a lot of work, man. It doesn’t end here. You know, the work just as just beginning, you know, this getting to understand yourself, to know yourself, to support yourself, to be your biggest advocate. ⁓ and then to fail and then to try and be the person that, ⁓ picks themselves up and goes again and tries again without getting frustrated. I know exactly what you mean. Like so many people listening will know what you mean.
Trisha Lyn Winski (45:22)
It’s a pain. It’s a pain!
And with time, you’ll get better and better because I know that three years seems like a long time, but it’s early in the recovery phase. The recovery is still going to continue. Year four, five, six, seven will be better and better and better. I’m, I’m 12 years post brain surgery and 14 years post first incident. So it’s like, things are still improving and getting better for me.
Trisha Lyn Winski (46:17)
And one of the things is the way that my body responds to physical exercise. went for a bike ride a little while ago, a couple of weeks ago. And when I used to go for a bike ride at the beginning, um, man, I would be wiped out for the entire day. Uh, and I used to do a morning bike ride about like 10, 30, 11 o’clock and I’d be wiped out for the rest of the day.
Trisha Lyn Winski (46:32)
Whereas now I can go for a bike ride and just be wiped out like a regular person, you know, about an hour or two, and then I’m back on board with doing other tasks. So it takes so much time for the brain to heal. Nobody can give you a timeline and you’ve got heaps more healing to go.
Trisha Lyn Winski (46:57)
So I looked at my stuff on YouTube, how long it takes to recover from a stroke. I’ve looked at that everywhere. Everywhere I can find. I’ve looked at that. It’s so funny. Like everybody says that it’s, everybody’s story is different. Everybody. It doesn’t matter how long you were in hospital for, doesn’t how long. But that like, it’s crazy. have no like timetable of when I’m going to get better. None. I have to deal with it.
Yeah. It’s such a hard thing. It’s not a broken bone, know, like six weeks, stay off it, do a little bit of rehab and then you’re back to normal.
Trisha Lyn Winski (47:28)
I had two years before this or maybe a year before that, had a rotator cuff surgery.
I look back at that and I’m like, that was so bad. And that was like night and day. The stroke definitely like, the stroke killed me. Not the stroke. I don’t want to say the stroke. I think having aphasia killed me. I do, the stroke is, get me wrong. I don’t like it either, but ⁓ the aphasia kills me. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be normal, but I can be normal. But the aphasia.
but what, but that word killed me is a real heavy word, right? maybe you should consider changing that word, but also like, didn’t pick that you had aphasia and I, and I speak to stroke survivors all the time. Like I didn’t pick it. I, I just assumed that was the way you process your words and that’s how you get things out. Like it didn’t, I didn’t notice it at all.
Trisha Lyn Winski (48:26)
I know, I know, it’s funny that said
Yeah, that’s actually good. That’s really good. But I know it’s it. I definitely know it’s it. I could talk like a mile a minute and now like.
Trisha Lyn Winski (48:52)
Maybe it was maybe maybe now it’s more about ⁓ quality rather than quantity, Trisha.
Trisha Lyn Winski (49:00)
I’m not saying that you didn’t have quality in that I didn’t know you so I’m not kind of yeah but you know what I mean like
Trisha Lyn Winski (49:03)
Trust me, it’s okay. But yeah, it just frustrates me. I can’t get out what I want to get out. And so at that time, just give me a little time, I’ll get it out. But I can’t say that to people when I’m out. I can’t say this to So I just, I don’t say it at all.
so you stop yourself from communicating because you think you’re taking too long and it’s interrupting the flow of the conversation. Yeah. I think you’re doing that to yourself. I don’t think that’s true. We’ve had a fantastic conversation here and I’ve never picked it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (49:34)
you’re somebody who’s had a stroke before. It’s kind of different for me because you had. But if you didn’t have a stroke, will be… Well, I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe one-on-one I’m okay. No, think I… No, it’s because you had a stroke. I think of all the people I’ve talked to and they’re one-on-one. I don’t do well with them. But I think that you’ve had a stroke so I just… I know how to communicate with you.
And maybe you’re more at ease about it. Less feeling, judged. I understand. Yeah.
Trisha Lyn Winski (50:20)
that guy I told you about that that said that on Facebook God like I Really like my heart goes out to him But then that there’s the people that are fishing a plane I’m like
I want to say my heart goes out to them, it really, it goes to certain people. I think that.
He’s like going through it.
Yeah. One of the problems with going to Facebook to bitch and moan about it, especially when you’re going through it is that you get an abundance of people who also are there to bitch and moan about it. And, and that makes it worse. think you should do bitching and moaning on your own. Like when there’s no one watching or listening. Cause then that way there’s not a loop of bitching and moaning that happens. That makes it dramatically worse for everybody.
Trisha Lyn Winski (51:01)
⁓ and that’s why I don’t hang around on Facebook, Instagram, social media, or anything like that for those types of conversations. If I’m not sharing a little bit of wisdom or somebody’s story or, ⁓ asking a question, like a genuine question, one of the questions might be, did you struggle driving and did you have to pull over and go to sleep in the middle of the road? If you had a big trip ahead of you in the car, I’ve done that. Like if, if I’m not asking a question like that, I don’t want to be, ⁓ on social media saying.
life sucks, this sucks, that sucks. Like forget about it. What’s the point of that? That’s why I started the podcast so I can have my own conversations about it that were positive based on what we’re overcoming rather than all the shit we’re dealing with. And that way ⁓ we take off that spiral, the negative downward spiral. trying to make it an upward spiral. You know, where things are.
Trisha Lyn Winski (51:41)
Facing the Aftermath of Stroke
I don’t know, we’re seeing the glass half full perhaps, or we’re seeing the positive that came out of it. If something like, I know there’s some positive stuff that came out of stroke for you. Day one, you definitely didn’t think that maybe three years down the track. Maybe if it wasn’t for this, well, then that wouldn’t have happened for me. Like I’ve been on TV. I’ve been at the stroke foundation. I’ve been on radio. I’ve been, I’ve presented. I’ve got a podcast. wrote a book.
Like it’s taken years and years for all those good things to come, but they never would have happened if I didn’t have a stroke. So I wanted to have those types of conversations, you know, what are the positive things we can turn this into? Because dude, then there’s just enough shit to deal with that. We don’t have to deal with every other version of it, you know? ⁓ and I think it’s better to have your me personally, my negative moments alone, cause I don’t want to get into a competition with somebody.
Trisha Lyn Winski (52:42)
who I say, I didn’t sleep well, my left side hurts, it feels like pins and needles. And then they say to me, ⁓ you think that’s bad? Well, you know, forget about it. I don’t want to be that that guy on the other end of a conversation like that, you know.
Trisha Lyn Winski (53:13)
⁓ So you said your left side, ⁓ you see you have pin the needles, is always like that? So I’m sorry, had hemorrhagic stroke? Okay. I know the difference between two, ⁓ why did you have hemorrhagic stroke?
Always, yeah, never goes away.
I was born with a blood vessel that was malformed. So it was like really weak one. I was really like, uh, was kind of like, uh, uh, it wasn’t created properly in my brain when I was born and it’s called an arteriovenous malformation. then they sit idle, they sit idle and they do nothing for a lot of people. And then sometimes they burst.
Trisha Lyn Winski (53:58)
And people sometimes have them all over their body. They don’t have to have them in their head. They can have them on the skin, ⁓ in, in an arm on a leg, wherever. And on an arm and a leg, they, they decrease the blood flow and they create real big lesions of skin damage on the surface in a brain. They leak into the brain and they cause a stroke. ⁓ so the challenge with it is like you, there was no signs and symptoms.
for any of my life until it started bleeding. And when I took action, eventually, I was like, yo, I didn’t want to go to the doctor. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I want to do any of that. It took seven days for me to go to the hospital. When I finally got there, they found the scan, found the blood in my head. And then they thought it would stop bleeding and it didn’t. And then it bled again and they wanted to monitor it to see if it stops bleeding. They wanted to try to avoid surgery.
And then a bled a third time. And then after they bled the third time, they said, we have to have surgery. We’ve got to take it out because it’s too dangerous. And when it bled the second time, I didn’t know who my wife was. I blanked out. ⁓ I couldn’t speak afterwards. I couldn’t type an email. ⁓ I couldn’t work. I couldn’t drive. ⁓ I couldn’t remember who came to visit me. I couldn’t start and finish sentences. Yeah. So much drama. And then.
Trisha Lyn Winski (55:30)
The numbness wasn’t there until after the brain surgery. So when they removed the blood vessel, I solved the problem in my head, but then the complication from the surgery was when I woke up, I couldn’t walk. So I had to learn how to walk again. And, ⁓ the numbness has never gone away. It’s there all the time.
Trisha Lyn Winski (55:41)
My numbness has gone away. But even when I first had it, I remember I was at the spawning, the rehab center here. And I had to to the bathroom. I had pee really bad. So I called the nurse. She didn’t answer. like, the bathroom’s right there. I’ll go. I got out of the bed. All the alarms sounded off. I’m like, look around. And she comes running. And she’s like, you can’t get out of bed.
I just have to go to the bathroom. She’s like, you can’t get out that way. Why? Right at that moment I almost fell. I’m like, mmm. So I was like, okay, can you take me to the restroom? But I didn’t know I couldn’t walk there. I didn’t know.
I woke up from brain surgery and they said, have you gone to the toilet? And I said, no. Okay. Well, let me help you go to the toilet. That’s one thing they want you to do as soon as you can. I went out, I got out of the bed on my left side, went to put my leg on the ground. There was this little nurse, Asian lady, really ⁓ small framed. I’m probably about two foot taller than her. And she goes, just put your arm around me and I’ll hold you and you’ll be fine. Well.
I put my arm around her, I held her and I just fell to the ground. We’re talking hours after brain surgery. And that’s the first time I realized that I couldn’t walk. And then I needed to go to the toilet a couple of days later and I pressed the buzzer and the nurses wouldn’t come because they were busy. And I tried to get myself out of bed into the wheelchair and they caught me while I was in the wheelchair, dragging myself to the toilet.
Trisha Lyn Winski (57:10)
And they said, you can’t do that. I said, ⁓ well, if, if I, if I don’t do this, I’m going to shit myself. I need, I need to do this. And then they said, ⁓ and then they said, well, we have to help you. And I said, cool. Help me. They put me on the toilet and then they wouldn’t leave the room. And I was like, you have to leave the room. I’m not doing this with you in here. You’ve got to leave the room. And I said, we’re not allowed to leave the room. And I know how I made them stand outside the toilet door.
Trisha Lyn Winski (57:42)
And I swear to God, I’m not going to move and do anything else other than what I have to do in privacy. When I’m done, I’ll let you know. But right now you’ve got to be outside. And they stayed outside. It was chaos.
Trisha Lyn Winski (58:17)
thing. So I had a wheelchair. At first it was right beside my bed so I could put my hand on it and climb down there. But they were smart. They put it on the other of the room. I’m like, I can get over there to get that wheelchair. So I’m like, I can walk. I can walk there. Yeah, so I didn’t walk after that. Yeah. But they were smart.
And I wasn’t blaming them. didn’t want to blame them. I just said to them, sorry guys, like, I know you’re busy. couldn’t wait though. I had just had to go, you know, so that’s what I did. I went and you know, it wasn’t the smartest move, but my self preservation from the embarrassment of, know, swelling my pants was going to be the, my biggest issue apparently, you that was going to be the biggest problem in my life. So you’ve,
Trisha Lyn Winski (58:47)
Have you had some friends that have rallied around you and kind of helped you get through this? Or have you trying to be, have you been independent and done it all yourself? It seems like you’re a little kind of independent.
Emotional Impact on Loved Ones
Trisha Lyn Winski (59:22)
Yeah, I’m definitely independent, I I have. So when I had the stroke, um, I had like 12 people at the hospital before I was even in for surgery. Um, so I had some really good friends. Um, but even still, like, I just, I’m so used to doing things by myself. I am so used to it. I just, I, I got, I got mad when I, when I can’t do it myself and they help me. like, don’t.
don’t push my sentences, let me talk myself. Eventually I got past it. ⁓ But sometimes it gets frustrating. My friends were like, big support system. Yeah, they were.
Yeah, did that help you get?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:00:07)
son and Jason are like, I think they’re kind of traumatized by it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:00:18)
that’s why I’m like, I had the stroke. Why are you traumatized? I forget that. I just don’t look at from their perspective. ⁓
They watched me have a stroke.
Yeah. That’s tough for a son to watch ⁓ anyone they love have a stroke, right? But also your ex, even coming across a stranger that’s having a bad health situation, like even that’s tough, right? And
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:00:50)
And you guys were married at one point, you guys have a son together, like you’re, you know, your friends, you’re close. And it’s like, what does that mean for this person that even though you guys aren’t in a relationship like you were, like there’s a level of respect and love there still. It’s like, what does this mean for that person? What does it mean for my son? Who’s mom’s unwell? Like there’s a whole bunch of things that, you know,
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:01:18)
come into it, they do get traumatized.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:01:21)
the first day, I remember I told you, I remember seeing like a few people, but Jason and Zach and his brother Connor, who I love too, but they can, I couldn’t really talk to them, but.
They were all crying and Zach was really crying. Actually Zach and Jason both were. It makes me feel bad because I couldn’t like… I put my arm out to… I was trying to tap him. I was saying, it’s okay, it’s okay. But I couldn’t say that. So I just like put my arm out. It makes me feel bad now that I think about that. I know that they were traumatized. I know they were.
I just didn’t realize until right now.
Yeah, you didn’t do it to them. It just happens. That’s what happens when somebody says someone who they love be unwell. You know, if you think about what you went through with your parents, you know, when things go wrong with your parents, you know, it’s, it hurts you too. It’s not just the person who you love that’s going through it. You go through it together. ⁓ it’s such a
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:02:13)
It’s such a difficult thing. And I’m like you. I was trying to make everyone else around me feel calm and okay. And yeah, not freak out. Yeah, that’s what I was doing most of the time.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:02:40)
Yeah, that’s actually what I was doing too. Most times that I was at Spodding, I honestly like, I had a million people coming in there to see me. It was really humbling now. But at the time I was like, I just want to be alone. And I was, was, I’ve met myself the first day. I never forget it. I cried and cried and didn’t want to go there when I told you I wanted Zach to take me home.
Um, and she gave me this like this iPad and she said, this is an English assignment. See how much you can do this. I’m like, I can do it. I couldn’t do it all. I couldn’t. It was, it was, I know I can do it, but it was like such easy English. I, I threw the iPad. I’m like, just get out, get out. And that was the first day I was there. Like, she wants to kill me. But in the end, like she came back in the next day. She’s like, it’s you’re fine.
just so you know you’re fine like I just threw your iPad by the way I broke the iPad but yeah but but she said I was I was fine but in all reality that was like that was the worst for me I couldn’t like tie my shoes I couldn’t like I couldn’t do anything I I thought I could do
You know what’s weird is most, a lot of stroke survivors, right? Not just you, don’t know how you tie your shoes, but you know how to be upset and frustrated at yourself. how, how is that a thing man? Like if we can, if a stroke causes something, you know, why can’t it just stop you from knowing how to be frustrated with yourself? Like.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:04:13)
All day. All day! That’s so true. ⁓
That’s so true. the first week, I had room with a view, but I would count how many cars it took to get to the place on the ridge. like, this is fucking crazy. This is what I’m doing. This is what my life has become. I’m just counting how long it takes to to the bridge. like, now every time I go past it on the highway, I look at it and I’m like, I don’t even want to see it.
It’s funny, it’s not funny, but…
Navigating Life Changes
I know what you mean, like little things become ways to occupy your mind and ways to through whatever you’re going through to distract you from all the stuff that’s going on, all the drama. Yeah.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:05:02)
the stuff you do there was like crazy, but in the in reality, that’s what I had to do. So I know that they were I know they’re doing our thing. ⁓ But the time like, you do physical therapy, you have to do occupational and really like, can I just go sleep? I want to sleep all day. So that at times people come to see me with busy hours from I think from four to eight. And
I was in one of the therapies always until like five or six. So when they came in room, I was ready for bed. One day I said, I yawned. I said, night night. This is I could say. said, night night, night night, night night. I said like that, my mom was like, are you tired? I’m like, yes. I was so tired. And she laughed. like, it’s funny now I laugh, like.
I said, night night, night night. Yeah, I was totally wiped out. I think that was the first week.
You’re on your wiped out. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I understand what that’s like. I remember being wiped out, just doing a few steps in rehab. ⁓ when I was doing occupational therapy in that, and then being wiped out for the whole day. it’s like, guys, I don’t want to do anything else, but, ⁓ yeah, rehab is hard, but not rehabbing is potentially making life harder anyway. So you have to do.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:06:27)
the rehab and it took me a month to sort of start getting comfortable with the three, four sessions of rehab. ⁓ Yeah. Every day. Whereas at the beginning it was one was enough like guys half an hour I’m ⁓ and thinking about walking and thinking about where your leg is going to go and thinking about your arm and everything too much thinking.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:06:46)
Yeah, so it, I think the first week I was at the hospital, I don’t know why, but I did find out later. I sang like two different songs. Mind you, I didn’t sing them. I said it out loud. And the one song that I hate this song, I hate this song now. I hate this song back then. In general, I hate song. And I said, my milkshake brings all the boys to yard. That’s it. And my friend, Roderick, was like, what?
I was like, my milkshake word is all boys yard. I was like, it didn’t dawn on me that that was a song. And I was saying a part of it. And it turned out that the spot my brain is, is well, then it was, it was dead to the, I think the verse of the songs, but it knew the words. So it said out loud, did that song. did, um, no diggity, no doubt. I say no diggity, no doubt.
over and over and over again. They got me started, so no digging it out.
That’s crazy. Of all the things to remember, my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:08:03)
That’s so embarrassing and funny at the same time. It’s a really good story. love it. ⁓ Looking back, right? You’ve definitely changed in many different ways. Like how have you changed? Not just physically, not just, ⁓ you know.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:08:13)
Not just sort of noticing what you can and can’t do anymore, but also emotionally and mentally. Where are you at with the, I know you get emotional, but I still get emotional when I talk about my stroke in the right place. So what’s the emotional and mental kind of recovery like for you?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:08:43)
The emotion like, so the part of my brain that has a problem dealing with emotions. So I get emotional whenever I’m not upset. I’ll be crying. I don’t even really I’m crying. And somebody says that you’re crying like, huh? ⁓ I feel that’s when I know I’m crying. But it totally like, it changed my life. Like some good, some bad, but it changed my life. I just have to
goes a lot slower. I told you that earlier. I do have to go a lot lot slower. But it changed my leg. I don’t know. I don’t know. It just changed. It changed it. don’t know how. Yeah, I can’t like put that down. But I know this weird thing. But now I can cook. I couldn’t cook to save my life. And mind you, my mom died in November and she was a really good cook.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:09:40)
So I think after she died, just picked it up. I made stuffed lasagna and bread with it. I don’t even know how I made that, but I did it. It was really good. I don’t know. I know.
That’s a win. Why not? We’ll just take it. I love it. ⁓
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:10:02)
Yeah. Yeah, I do love those
moments, but yeah, I just don’t like, I don’t want to. So sometimes I go out, I get tired or, or about, yeah, I go out have like, most I have is two drinks ever. This is, I don’t know why this happened to me, but like, before I could drink a lot, not a lot, but a lot for me. Um, but now like I have like two drinks. like, I’m done. Like,
I don’t think I’m drunk, but I just think that I just can’t have anymore.
Yeah. You know, I’ve stopped drinking. I haven’t had more than about 20 drinks in 10 years. It makes me feel like I’m having another stroke. That’s why I don’t do it.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:10:39)
Wow, that’s good. I need to do that, but I don’t do that yet.
I wouldn’t do it in that case either. Yeah. I think that’s a way I cope with it actually. I go all by myself all the time.
Okay, so you reckon the drinking kind of helps take the edge off every so often if you’re feeling down on something.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:11:06)
Yeah. And I think that somebody, if I can talk to somebody and they want to hear my stroke, ⁓ I’d gladly tell them that. But Zach and Jason and every I know, I can’t like talk to them about it because like, yeah, it’s frustrating.
Yeah. Because also you have a conversation with them. That’s different. Like it’s not a you and me talking about stroke. I don’t have to come in and step in and go, worry about you. I don’t have to say, you know, but mom, this or Patricia, that like, I don’t have to do any of that stuff. You know, we just have a talk. We share our conversation. You get it off your chest. I’ll get mine off my chest. But then you’re talking to the family and the family then they’re not as
disconnected from it. And therefore it goes the way family conversations go when somebody has been unwell. And I’m the same like with my wife. think that’s why the podcast exists because I’m here. I am 14 years later, still talking about the stroke every week on the podcast. My wife doesn’t need to have that many conversations about what happened to me. It’s just.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:12:14)
She doesn’t need it. She physically,
emotionally, mentally does it every so often. I say to her, no, I’m screwed. And she’ll say, you know, what’s wrong with you again today? And I’ll say, you remember I had a stroke 14 years ago, every so often I say it just because I need to say it. And then she goes, Oh yeah. Okay. I get it. Um, and then, and then they can get off my case when they’re being, um, when they’re giving me a hard time for being, um, moody or
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:12:51)
or whatever and then and then we’re okay but we don’t have deep and meaningful conversations about it anymore there’s no point because she can’t change anything she’s not the right person for that a therapist is for me if I need to if I need to and if I and if I can’t see a therapist another podcast guest is my therapy like it’s
Finding Joy in New Passions
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:13:12)
It totally is. when I first had a stroke, whenever I go out with whoever I out with, I told them I had a stroke. Mind you, I didn’t want to tell them I had a stroke, but I couldn’t tell them I had aphasia. I think they’re not going to understand, what that is. So I have a stroke that way I can say I have aphasia, blah, I tell them that because they give me time to let it out, get what I’m trying say out.
That’s a big deal for me. And so I think that when I did that at first, it kind of bothered some people. like, listen, I’m going to do it whether you’re with or not. I do it because I need to do it. I have to do it. It’s not because I give two shits what anybody thinks about me having a stroke, but it’s about aphasia. I can talk if they let me get it out. So I think that now everyone’s OK with it. But at first, they’re like, what the fuck? I’m like, yeah.
The learning how to interact with somebody who’s had a stroke and has aphasia is a big task as well. My wife, even a few times said, spit it out. I’m like, dude, spit it out. Be careful what you’re saying. You know, like, and I know she wasn’t being nasty or mean. She just thought I was, ⁓ delaying the conversation or whatever, you know, I’m all being distracted or whatever. And I’m like,
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:14:15)
just bloody wait, shut up, be patient and wait, know, like, you know, and we, we, we’re there now and we understand each other. But early on, was her learning that like you, my brain, my brain doesn’t work. ⁓ and my mouth unconnected like they were before.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:14:59)
I don’t know if it’ll come better or not, but right now it’s not. So just wait, just don’t say anything for three seconds. It’s your problem. If you can’t handle, ⁓ three seconds of, ⁓ dead air time, it’s not my problem. Just stop.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:15:17)
So when I first had it and I got out, I went to this Chinese restaurant with a bunch of my girlfriends. And I didn’t know I said to my friend Jill, I said, when you come back up here, can you give me the shirt that you wore mind to homecoming?
Two things I’ve been home kind since I was in high school. So is it 23 up in some years and I looked at my I said that and she’s like, yeah, It it it just like makes me laugh and that’s I was then now like like I said it but I said it I Did
The brain, the brain is anyhow, people after stroke, ⁓ the same, but different, you know, things work differently. Things are rewiring things. Things are all over the place. You know, it takes a lot of time and a lot of healing. think I kind of hit my
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:16:05)
my best sort of recovery phase after the first seven or eight years, six, seven or eight years is kind of what I felt best about myself. It took a long time for me to get there. And I went back to work. know, 2012 was the first incident. didn’t go back to work until after 2019 in my own business, which is what I was doing before. And so it took seven years for me to get back into the swing of the routine and all that.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:16:31)
harder than it was then because I was dealing with the physical challenges, but it took a long time. So, ⁓ I think you’ll get there and I want to offer hope to people that, ⁓ early on in the recovery that things will continue to change and improve. ⁓ what, what do you like doing now? Like what’s your little, you know, what’s the, what are the things about your life that you kind of love to do that are making you feel good?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:17:08)
So I’m really big into football. I’ve always, but it’s funny. Like, so when I was in spawning, so I’m a big stealer, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Fran. Yeah. So, they had to, do you go to the play, the, the play house? Well, to go to the play house, they had to be, they had to win and we had other, three other teams like win and lose. So.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:17:34)
In Spoding, I was watching on my phone, she had the TV on, she had an iPad that she had it on, and I was watching all three of them and she looked at me and she’s like, you have not changed at all. I’m like, what do mean? It’s because I was doing that and she kind of laughed at me, but it’s kind of true. I still like the same thing. I still like, I love the way they play pool. I was really good at pool. I was really good. I can’t.
shoot as good as I used to shoot before, but I can still shoot. I went out with Zap one time and I beat him and he’s like, how the hell did you beat me? like, I don’t know. I like a game, but it’s not that I was so good at a pool. don’t, again, I don’t shoot as good I did, but yeah.
You like doing activities like that?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:18:27)
That’s cool. Why not? love it. you know, with the way that the, the grid iron works in the United States, if your team doesn’t get to the super bowl, like, it really depressing? Because I know you guys have separate, like there’s a, there’s a, there’s two different divisions and then.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:18:44)
There’s two divisions. Yep. And there’s four divisions.
There’s two divisions and there’s four, I can’t remember the call, but in each division.
Okay, so each division is split up into four. Okay, so to get to the top of your division, do you have to have playoffs against the other four?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:19:14)
Yeah, you have to play have playoff against only so my my conference conference that was insane. There’s two conferences, AFC and NFC. So AFC the Steelers are in. So they have to be not all a team. They have a playoff that they have to go through. But then once they get through that, then they play the NFC in the Super Bowl.
Wow. Okay. So they’ve got to get through their own division. They’ve got to then be the top of the NFC and then they’ve got to play off in the Superbowl to potentially win the Superbowl. So it is a massive big deal to make it and win a Superbowl. Massive.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:19:51)
so Pittsburgh has, we’re tied right now with the paths and it makes me effing mad because I live in Boston and like, so we’re tied with them now, but ⁓ I like to say we have more than they do, but it doesn’t matter. So we’re tied.
Yeah, okay. I hear more Super Bowls. So you, I just Googled it the last time the Steelers won the Super Bowl was in 2009.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:20:19)
And I was at that game. It was so much fun. ⁓ God, it was so much fun. San Antonio Homes caught the ball in the end zone. It’s the most amazing catch. Watch it. Watch it. He’s amazing.
I’ll check it out. I love ⁓ big games, you know, where two really good teams go against each other and your team just gets over the line. Like, I love that you never ever forget it for the positive, but then the other team never forget it because of the negative.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:20:43)
against, that’s not the last time we were in a secret role. played in a secret role. 2009, we won. think we played in 2011 or 12 and we lost to Green Bay. I went to that game too and I was, yeah, I was mad. But we lost.
in Australia in Australian football has been equaled 16 championships since they’ve been around, which is like for 110 years or something. And they’ve lost the most championships though. Yeah. So they’ve been in the most they’ve won almost the most, but they’ve lost more than any other team.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:21:21)
know how many we lost. bet we’re up there. No, no, I don’t think we’re up there, but…
Yeah. So we’ve seen a lot of heartache in those years where so many losses I’ve probably seen about, I reckon I’ve seen maybe seven or eight losses in a, yeah. And, in the gridiron when I was a kid, probably my twenties and my teens, I used to follow, you’re going to know exactly what, what, what I’m getting at now.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:21:37)
I used to follow Buffalo Bills because my name’s Bill. I used to follow the Buffalo Bills. But how many did they lose in a row in the nineties?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:22:04)
They’ve never been to the sea,
Yeah, they’ve been to the super bowl. They’ve lost. Yeah. I’ll Google now. I’ll tell you how many, how many they lost. How many, Oh man. In a row to super bowls did Buffalo lose.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:22:20)
think they did it to their super elf. Maybe I’m wrong.
In 1991, they lost to the Giants 20 to 19. In 1992, they lost to Washington 37 to 24. In 1993, they lost to the Dallas Cowboys 52 to 17. And in 1992, they lost to Dallas Cowboys 30 to 13.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:22:38)
So they haven’t been there since then, right?
Uh, I believe so. And they’ve lost four in a row, 91, 92, 93, 94. I still have a hat and everything.
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:23:06)
So I think that’s what I’m thinking of. I don’t think they’ve ever won a Super Bowl. But they haven’t been there in last couple of years, and it really should have been. And I was rooting for them to win. I root for a seal all day. I don’t care, all day. But when they were out, I was hoping that they won, but they didn’t.
The zero from zero from four attempts and it was all in zero wins from four attempts at the super bowl and they’ve lost the four in a row. Yeah. It was devastating to be a Buffalo Bills fan then, but it is what it is. So as we wrap up, I’d love to ask you one last question, especially about somebody who might be listening to this interview. Who’s just going through it really early on. Like what would you say to them about
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:23:35)
the journey about what you’ve learned about stroke in general or life. Like do you have some words of wisdom?
Trisha Lyn Winski (1:24:08)
I think that like you just have to be patient with yourself and be patient in general because in the end like so I went neuroplasticity it really does exist. I’m telling you like my brain like I find places to find the words I never had before. It takes longer for them to get there but it gets there. So I was speaking really bad when I first had it. I speak a lot better now. Just give yourself time.
I know my back to work, I shouldn’t have, but I really like to work. All these little things I did, I shouldn’t have, but I did. It taught me that if I ever had again, I won’t do that. I have to just take my time and do it myself. I feel like, well, I get young too, so it’s hard to say what I would do, but yeah, I just gotta take my time. I have to.
I love it, Trisha. Thank you so much for reaching out, staying up so late to be with me on the podcast. really appreciate it. was great to chat to you.
Trisha’s Journey: Emotional Anger After Stroke
Well, what a wonderful conversation. Trisha was 46 years old, no risk factors, a carotid web she never knew she had and a stroke that changed everything in an instant. What stayed with me most was her honesty about the anger, not knowing who she’s mad at, just being mad. The aphasia that frustrates her more than any physical deficit. The moment she realized her son and ex-husband were traumatized.
and that she’d forgotten to look at it from their perspective. And her reminder that at the end, the neural plasticity is real. The brain is still finding new pathways. Give it time. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it and subscribe so you never miss a story like Trisha’s. A huge thank you to my Patreon supporters. You are the reason that helps this podcast keep going.
and stays free for every stroke survivor who needs it. A special welcome to those who have joined us recently. Thank you so much. It genuinely means the world to me
you’re in recovery and feeling that anger, that confusion and that sense of why me, I wrote about all of it. It’s called The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened. It is available at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. I’m Bill Gassiamas. Thank you for listening to the Recovery After Stroke podcast. I will see you in the next episode.
The post Emotional Anger After Stroke: Trisha Winski’s Story of a Carotid Web, Aphasia, and Learning to Slow Down appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.
