[worker_person]

It's not fun. I had a small stroke while in a music lesson. Instructor was very confused as to why I suddenly couldn't play or follow any instructions.

Programming has been this weird mix where I would see a simple problem. Say a fibonacci sequence. Something I could do in my sleep.

I would look at it. Understand that I can solve this in seconds. Then it would take me a week to muddle through it, badly.

So I know how to program just fine, but I somehow I can't actually do it. So it's been relearning things I think I know how to do.

The saving grace is people would often ask how to approach a difficult problem and I could still quickly figure out what the issue is, and what approach to take to resolve it. So I was very helpful to others, but I couldn't do the work I suggested.

Weird stuff.

[klenwell]

Reminds me of this story from This American Life that they replayed recently about a retired physicist diagnosed with Alzheimer's who loses the ability to read a clock:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/583/itll-make-sense-when-yo...

What is interesting is he is able to analyze why he has difficulty reading a clock. (As he explains, it's a surprisingly difficult problem.)

Fascinating and a bit heartbreaking. I'm happy to hear you're coping and recovering. Best of luck!

[bavell]

Thanks for sharing. Reminds me a lot of my grandfather who survived 10yrs post-diagnosis. Couldn't recognize his children most of the time near the end but he was a great guy and thankfully he kept most of his affable nature until he passed.

[nonrandomstring]

What you're describing fits well with the description of declarative versus imperative knowledge [1], the subject of a recent thread here. Perhaps your experience suggests they are encoded by different neurological structures! I hope you continue to recover.

[1] example: knowing what a square root is, and all the common roots, but not knowing Newtons method or any trick for finding them.

[ryanianian]

Glad you are able to see the bright side. Are you employed as a developer? I'm curious how disability policies or laws etc might impact you.

[agumonkey]

Are you better now ? these events taught me patience.. way more than I wanted to but still.

[jfarina]

Can you work in a paired setting?

[worker_person]

I used to love paired programming. I've done it successfully a number of times, but I had a few years where I did't know if I could function or not at any given moment.

One minute I'm solving the hardest problems a company has. Next I can't remember where I'm working, Resolves itself in a few minutes, but leaves me exhausted for a couple hours. Scares the crap out of people.