Bruce Fowler, generally a happier guy than I have ever been, models a t-shirt depicting “Mr. Happy.”
Of course, you have only my word for that. But as I am asking you to believe me anyway, here is how I have changed, in five not-so-easy ways:
Continue reading ‘After the Stroke: the new me’
Take a walk with someone you love!
Share your love openly and with enthusiasm!
This is the last post planned for the Stroke series. It’s time to re-enter society.
Wonder Woman mobile mock-up
I am now walking on my own about 30% of the time and with a cane the rest. In a couple weeks I will be carrying the cane around as a back-up plan only, and the week after that I’ll be carrying it for show. And I was able to get around a driver rehab eval, partly because over the last few months I have worked hard to gain back most of my mobility.
So the first time I got back behind the wheel, I drove around the block behind my apartment, nice and slow. I pulled back in and said to my self “that’s it? No way.” And that day I went to the bank and to get gas and to stop at the library and the drugstore. No incidents. I got home and I was bushed. But that wasn’t so much because I’d been driving.
I found out it was FAR more difficult to get in and out of the car than it was to drive while I was inside it. That was especially true the first time I tried to get in as a normal person, right leg first. The right side was the side affected by the stroke, and my fricken leg got caught under the steering wheel. I kid you not. The knee was bent, and I could neither straighten the leg nor pull it out while bent. Either way I didn’t have enough strength – not enough to overcome friction and slide my foot, not enough to roll my leg to the left and free it from the wheel. It took me ten minutes to get out of there. I should’ve had someone slick my pants down with soap or something. When I finally did get my leg free, I found the seat wasn’t all the way back. DUH!
(So OK, I wasn’t used to driving with the seat all the way back.)
Once I set it all the way back, I had no trouble getting even my right leg in and out unless I was fatigued. I made a note about that. And as I drove, I found myself only having difficulty bringing the car to a stop once: I hadn’t allowed sufficient “assured clear distance.” I made a note about that too, because no doubt the driver rehab eval people would be watching for that. As they should.
Can you figure out which is the real penny? Without looking at one? Right. We have to concentrate for that. So it is with driving.
The real problem for a rehab patient isn’t necessarily in the reactions of muscles and joints: it’s in our heads. Just as for any other driver. We have distractions when we drive, some of them built into our cars. We have cell phones and iPods, and that’s just the beginning – for fully healthy drivers. (If you doubt that distractions are the issue see Hallinan, Why We Make Mistakes. We make mistakes when we drive, and distractions are usually the reason.)
For a gimp like me, who spent two months almost exclusively indoors with very little mobility, driving opens new worlds – and I want to see them. Unfortuntately, if I pay attention to them – by reading signs and checking out new construction and animals and flowers and hot chicks – I’m not paying attention to the road.
And no amount of rehab will provide a cure for a driver who’s bound and determined to let his attention wander. I have always been ADHD – my attention wanders as is. But unlike everything else I have encountered on the stroke recovery journey, driving isn’t about my safety alone; it’s about the safety of everyone who could be hurt by my car while I’m behind the wheel. I have therefore made some commitments, which I will make public here:
It’s worth saying here that therapists and nurses have suggested possible modifications to my car to make driving easier, such as hand brakes. I appreciate that, and no doubt such accommodations work well for many stroke recovery patients. But such equipment won’t make me concentrate harder. That’s in my head, just as it is in yours. 
End part 17. I’m not at full health, but I’m close enough to be going on with. Thanks very much for hanging in there with me through this, and for the kind wishes I have enjoyed. In July I will have all this edited and collected into an e-book, free for the asking. Something you can give your friends who have suffered (or might suffer) a stroke. Cheers!
The stroke recovery odyssey continues, with a different focus: now I’m out of the hospital, and must remember, or relearn, how to live.
Yeah. It’s somewhere around there.
Melissa taught me some exercises to stretch out my back muscles and spine, saying that may offer me some present relief. And that was when I started thinking about the nature of pain, and what we learn from it.
Many writers treat pain from a spiritual perspective – emotional hurts. That’s OK, because even though that’s not what I’m dealing with here, the lessons might be the same. Here are the lessons, and yeah, some of them are drawn from emotional parallels.
Pain suggests there’s a problem. My first reaction to this? “NO DUH.” But I thought about it a minute and remembered that I knew in my heart I had a problem with blood pressure before the stroke, and instead of doing something about it, I just went on doing what I did and feeling guilty. Sometimes people (especially men, I’m told) avoid seeing the doctor because they don’t want to hear about problems. That was me too. The difference for me now is: I KNOW I have a problem, so there’s no more dancing around it. Lemme find out what it is and see what can be done!
Pain reminds us that we have limitations. Professional athletes will at times “play through pain” because they are needed by their teammates. And sometimes, pain doesn’t need immediate treatment – certainly not in my case – especially when that pain is not profound or debilitating.
Pain lets us know that there is a difference between what we DO do and what we SHOULD do. Again, “NO DUH.” But if we have this constant low-grade pain like I do from sitting, that suggests that it’s time for a new strategy, beyond even seeing the doctor or taking pain reliever. With Melissa’s help, I obtained a really comfortable chair that I can work in, but even that is something I must take a break from at times. As in avoiding medical attention, we continue down the same path only at our peril.
In my case, I can reduce the occurrences of this pain through Melissa’s stretching exercises:
Read more here. OR, I can visit a chiropractor, or maybe get an Asian massage.
Pain reminds us of what it was like, well, not to be in pain. What it was like when our parents eased the pains of our daily lives. Those reminders may offer us suggestions we can use to, well, ease the pain today.
Pain can be in some cases temporarily deadened by the timely application of pain reliever. I wish I had a buck for every time a home care nurse or therapist would ask me “well, did you take anything for that?” and I had to answer “no” and look like a clueless git. I’d be able to fund a date for dinner and a movie with those bucks.
Pain is a reminder of my mortality – and my humanity. I’m not going to live forever, but I’m going to live while I’m alive.
End part 16. I hope you are healthy, and I also hope this series helps make a contribution to your health. This is the most friendly thing I can do for the world.
We move to a new stage in stroke recovery: I’ve been discharged from home nursing care and therapy, and the doctor is not recommending outpatient therapy. So the rest of the recovery is now up to me alone.
Edwin Shaw’s driver rehab simulator
That’s right: it’s up to me, and me alone now. And if there’s one thing that they hammered into me at Akron General Medical Center, Edwin Shaw Rehab Hospital, Pine Valley Care Center, and at my own pad with Accessible Home Health Care, it’s safety first! I must be safe if I am to become whole. I’ve talked to several dozen health care pros to reach this conclusion, and collected ten things that I must make sure I always know, if I want to be safe. If you ever find yourself recuperating, you must know these ten things too. Here we go.
Continue reading ‘The Stroke, part 15: safety first in ten steps!’
No Such Thing as a Bully logo
And they are free to learn friendship skills. Continue reading ‘Friendship Skills, from No Such Thing as a Bully’
The stroke recovery odyssey continues, with a different focus: now I’m out of the hospital, and must remember, or relearn, how to live. In this episode, I went into a rant with someone I love, and relearned what empathy is.
Anacin’s big difference, from the 60s
I’ve fallen behind on the stuff I need to do. Way behind. The problem is this: instead of getting going on it, and catching up a bit at a time, I’m making excuses. The nurse comes. Therapy comes. Someone else comes to take me to the store. Those are all valid, of course, but I can’t let a one-hour therapy visit or trip to the store shut me down for the whole day. There’s still forms to fill out and people to call and some work to do that I can still do.
Continue reading ‘The Stroke, part 14: empathy’
