Talking about Aphasia

Gilles Guimond begins the interview with a handshake and a warm smile. His manner is friendly, but his language is slow and deliberate; he must struggle to remember and pronounce every word.
“What…is…your….name?” he asks in French. “I…happy…to…meet…you.”

This manner of speaking is a result of Aphasia, which affects thousands of people across Canada.

In 2002 Guimond underwent surgery for a heart bypass and later suffered from a stroke.

The result was damage to left hemisphere of the brain, which houses the language centres and some motor skills.

Though he’s still the same genial man as before– a successful owner of a large Canadian Tire franchise in Hawkesbury who is quick to laugh – he now struggles to find words and understand language.
Guimond estimates about 150 people suffer from Aphasia in the Hawkesbury region.

It can be caused by a stroke, cerebral trauma or tumors that affect the brain and there is no way to reverse the effects.

“I thought I had gone crazy”

Guimond said the onset of aphasia was terrifying.
He remembers waking up in Hawkesbury’s hospital after the stroke and not being able to speak a single word.

Incredibly, his knowledge of English and French had completely vanished.
He did not understand speakers on television and could not even remember simple things such as the word for hand or foot.

While his mind and personality were the same, he could not speak to his doctors or his wife and explain his condition.

It was as though a vital part of his brain – the language centre – had been reset to zero.
“I was scared,” Guimond said in French, with the help of fellow worker and interpreter Roch Joanisse who speaks with him daily at Canadian Tire.
“I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I had gone crazy.”

For three months, Guimond took language courses every day.
He had to re-learn how to move his tongue to pronounce words and rebuild his vocabulary.

Today, the formerly bilingual Guimond can no longer understand English nor did it ever return; he speaks a limited french that requires much effort.

“No English anymore,” Guimond said with a snap of his fingers. “All gone like that.”

A little-known condition

Stéphane Séguin is another employee of Hawkesbury’s Canadian Tire who has aphasia.

He woke up with the condition in 2004 after an operation for a brain tumour.
While his symptoms are less severe than Guimond’s, he said he is glad to have found a workplace that understands his condition.

“It’s like having the word on the tip of your tongue all the time. You try to think but it’s not there,” he said.
Both Séguin and Guimond said it’s common for people to assume aphasia is a sign of mental illness or slowness of wit, though it isn’t.

“Nobody knows about it,” Seguin said. “But people need to know it is not an intellectual deficiency.”

New group in Hawkesbury
Last year, Guimond founded a society in Hawkesbury for people with Aphasia.

It is modeled after a group in Laval, which helped him after his release from hospital.
L’Association des Personnes Aphasiques Hawkesbury had a dinner at the Legion on November 5.

It offers a place for suffers and families to trade stories, and organizes lessons in French speaking and pronunciation.

According to the society, only about three per cent of people affected by Aphasia return to work and many stay home for fear of embarrassment.

“Many of them stop going to restaurants and other social situations. They can retreat within themselves. Long term, you can lose a lot of your friends,” Joanisse said.
During an hour-long interview on November 20, Guimond patiently answered questions about his condition.

There are many examples of how he could not remember words and struggled to understand language.

For instance, Guimond cannot pronounce the name of his condition or the society he founded.
When he recalled the year of his stroke, he could not remember the words “two thousand two,” instead saying “two-zero-zero-two.”

He also used the words “years” and “months,” interchangeably, as though there was no difference in meaning.

Guimond explained that aphasia affects all language and not only speech.
He has trouble writing and can barely read more than a sentence without forgetting where he started.

“Before? Books. Now? Nothing,” he said.

He also said he cannot enjoy music as before and he doesn’t understand if people talk too fast or overlap others.

With so many challenges, some might wonder why he hasn’t retired.

But Guimond said keeping an eye on things and talking to customers is something that makes him happy.

He even delivered the keynote speech at the Hawkesbury Canadian Tire’s big renovations celebration in 2005, speaking before 300 people.

“I thought all the young people would laugh at me. But people are friendly. They are good people,” he said.