Strokedaze

Strokies Need Sleep!

What do strokies share with babies?

They both need much sleep for two reasons:

• Sleep provides recovery time for all the sensory input assaulting the brain.
• Sleep time is needed to provide opportunity for laying down new neuropathways. (Yes, neuroplasticity is not free: It takes an energy toll.)

To learn more about the importance of sleep in stroke recovery, click here.

I am now two and a half years out from the cerebral hemorrhagic stroke that threatened my survival. And still I need an amazing amount of sleep. The Z monster lurkes behind every activity.

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Thinking About Writing A Book?

Fellow Strokies: Why not write about your experience as a stroke survivor to help heal yourself and guide others?

Here is a passage from someone who should know about the power of writing your own life story, author Beverly Donofrio:

"My books so far have been old-fashioned memoirs, the hero’s journey: Falling into disgrace or despair, struggling through the fires of hell to rise, graced with a new life or at least more peace. This classic dramatic arc is not superficially imposed, but the way I think; identifying and tracing the arcs in my own life helps me find meaning and purpose."

All strokies should know about the hero's journey that each stroke survivor lived. If you have the time, please click on the link above to Beverly Donofrio's blog for today, "Confessions of a Serial Memoirist," in online commentary published by The New York Times.

Then start writing. The time has come.

 

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Acceptance or Apathy?

Sir Wiliam Osler, perhaps the most respected and esteemed medical teacher of the last century, wrote, “By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy -- indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self-satisfaction.”

Perhaps another, more common source of apathy comes from just giving up. Resignation. As a former physical therapist told me one day, "What you are going through right now is hard. Physical therapy is hard work. And that is why some stroke survivors just drop out of physical therapy and decide that life in a wheelchair is just not that bad."

Acceptance. Life in a wheelchair. Acceptance.

Well, as tempting as that might be, tomorrow I start a new round of physical therapy here at Hilltop House. And there was plenty of apathy to overcome to set this up: Change Medicare address (not a small feat), cancel my HMO advantage plan (a large feat), and re-establish myself as a patient with my Mountain Town doc.

Apathy, Be Gone!

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Give Yourself a Pep Talk

Today in exercise class here at Hilltop House, I wanted to burst out in tears because my left lower extremity was not participating, retreating instead into its residual paralysis. What got me over this emotional hump was Teddy Roosevelt's advice, which I started reciting to myself as a mantra:

• Do what you can
• With what you have
• Right here
• Right now.

Whew! It worked once again. I finished the class with dry eyes and a thankful spirit.

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Living In The Silver State: Home Again

Altitude adjustment:

Being back in Hillside House means readjusting to the altitude. We are 4852 feet above sea level, almost one mile high. I love being at this altitude. I spent almost ten years in Denver, the mile high city so this thin air feels good.

Still, it has taken almost a week to be able to walk the whole hallway without getting a tad short of breath.

Now I am quite settling in: adjusting to the altitude, loving my new room with its aquamarine accent wall, enjoying the local community of friends, and spending time sitting on our great patio.

Soon my brain will settle down and I can return to the writing of my forgiveness book. Meanwhile I will just enjoy being here.

 

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Back to the Future

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

--Dean Acheson

A big change looms. Later this month I become a permanent resident of Hill House in Mountain Town. My fond memories of assisted living in Hill House right after my cerebral hemorrhage now become the realities of the future. I look forward to the good food, rejoining my friends who still live there, and enjoying the beautiful, protected patio and its bubbling fountain.

Although living Coastside has many advantages, I did come to love the Silver State when I lived there. The place is a state of mind as well as a geographical location. To appreciate this, set aside a chunk of time to view this documentary film.

Mountain Town is at an altitude that is almost a mile high so my next post will come from lofty climes...

 

 

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Owning Our Own Stories

“We can’t run from fate, but can only run into it.”"

--Michael Meade

My goodness!

I am drained, wrung out of all emotion. Some tears remain, but not many. I have just watched the DVD of The Welcome, the Movie.  This moving documentary takes you inside the hearts and minds of some of our surviving war veterans and their families.

This movie was featured at the recent 2013 Mendocino Film Festival, winning the festival award for Best Feature Documentary. This film festival is an annual event quite worthy of putting on your future calendars. I have attended several of their sessions and have come home enriched each time. Check the Mendocino Film Festival website from time to time to get future dates on your calendar right now.

Click here to see a preview of the movie, The Welcome, the Movie.

Of note, Michael Meade, the amazing facilitator featured in the movie, has written these books that you might want to check out:

• Fate And Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul
• Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss

So, fellow Strokies, here we are dwelling in our own stories of loss. What tale of pain and renewal shall we lay claim to and own?

 

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Getting Sensation Back

I am beginning to get a small amount of sensation back in my left hand. In addition to the "miracle treatment" known as "tincture of time," I think the following three things helped me the most:

1. Taking Vitamin B1 daily at the suggestion of a retired neurologist friend. (Disclaimer: Do not do this on your own unless your doctor concurs you should try it.)
2. This simple exercise recommended by my occupational therapist: Rub your fingers over a rough surface and then a smooth one. Do this with your eyes open and then closed. Repeat daily.
3. Watch your recovering hand perform duties such as picking up objects and moving then.

I plan to continue these three things. In the words and advice of one of my physician teachers:

• If what you are doing is working, keep doing it.
• If what you are doing is not working, stop doing it.

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Back Home In Coastside City

A few days ago I returned home to Coastside City, leaving behind my coveted life in Hilltop House in the Silver State. I will miss it!

Then again, as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz said over and over, "There's no place like home."

Atmosphere adjustment reigns. Did you know that the foggy coastal chill can reach all the way down to your bones?

For now I am just glad to be home.

 

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When Pigs Can Fly

A few days ago, I won a toy, while engaging in one of the activities here at Hilltop House. This little toy reminds me, in its own whimsical way, of a time past when one of our nurses at Parkland Hospital wanted to do a study to validate the safety and effectiveness of allowing family members to attend and witness critical resuscitation procedures of their family members being treated in the emergency department. Long standing medical tradition forbade such a practice.

The surgeon in charge of the resuscitation area refused to let the study be done. "You can do this study when pigs can fly," he told the nurse.

The nurse persisted in her efforts to do the study. When the direction of the emergency room changed to another department the nurse at last received permission to do the study, which soon became the famous Parkland Family Presence study, a research project that changed practice in many hospitals across the nation.

When the study was published, we had a party honoring this nurse and all of the research team involved in the study. In the middle of the party table sat a large cake decorated with flying pigs.

Now I have my own flying pig to remind me to never give up.

So off I go on my Rollator to practice walking: persist, persist, persist. As I stride off on the walker, I hear the faint flapping of pig wings overhead.

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