One and a Half Years

Today is exactly 1 and 1/2 years since my first stroke.  I also had an appointment with my neurologist.

This really has been an Eclectic Journey.  One that continues.  Along the road I've been able to find things that in spite of my disability I have been able to enjoy and even improve at.  In fact one of those things has come directly from my cognitive therapy; writing!

In an effort to remember what goes on from one minute to the next my cognitive therapist has had me writing down EVERYTHING.  So I kind of got into the habit of writing down not just my actions but my thoughts and emotions.  I've written volumes (whatever a volume is) in the last 18 months.  In fact, between my journal I write by hand, my PDA and computer I'd venture to say my life is probably one of the most documented ever.  For some strange reason, even though when I talk or even think to my self my thoughts are broken and get confused, I can write and the thoughts are smooth and well, less confused.  I have a theory that my writing, which is slow, causes my brain to work at the speed of my fingers and thus can do a better job of processing.

Then there is riding my bike.  For some reason anaerobic exercise causes me to have nerve pain.  Sometimes I have to stop and sit down after walking up the steps in our house to get the nerve pain to settle down.  I found though that aerobic exercise does not cause me the same pain.  I can ride my bike for a long time with no pain.  In fact the longer I ride it, the more "in synch" my anaerobic and aerobic systems become and the longer I can then ride.  This could be because I was riding a lot before my strokes. 

My neurologist was happy with where I'm at.  I have to say this.  Considering what I thought my life was going to be when I first heard those words, "he has clots in his brain and is having a stroke" and everything going dark, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.  I have to do another EEG.  That's because of an episode I had over Easter.  I seem to have completely lost three days.  He is going to check to see if perhaps my medicine that is supposed to stop my seizures isn't pulling its weight.

StrikeBoy Strokes Again....

Or maybe that was StrokeBoy Strikes again!

Awesome Chick and I are always looking for things that are constructive for me to do yet therapeutic.  All the assigned therapy I do can be so tedious, boring and there isn't much of a feeling of accomplishment.  Yesterday I was assigned long division and multiplication of two digit numbers.  It turns out I have a long way to go to be able to do that.  That's kind of depressing for a person whose favorite classes in college were 4th and 5th semester Calculus and Partial Differential Equations.  Hey I couldn't do that stuff now anyway but common... give me a break will yah?! 

Now for the topic of today's post.  Awesome Chick and I try to come up with things around the house that I can do that have a detailed set of instructions.  That's another thing my therapists are working with me on.  It seems all my elementary school teachers were correct and I can't follow instructions.  Well the task for the day was a set of instructions from the trusty Home Depot Home Maintenance book.  Yep I was to unclog a drain in our bathroom.  It went pretty well to start.  Things took a turn for the worse when the instructions said do rinse out the trap I had just removed from underneath the clogged sink.  Hey it didn't say to NOT rinse the trap in the sink that you just removed the trap from.  I got that darn trap clean as a whistle but just about flooded out the cabinet and the rest of the bathroom.  So my next assignment was drying out all the stuff from under the sink and letting the wood dry, and hopefully not mold.  Details, details, I think those instructions were flawed.

I do not accept

I don't think I will ever accept that I had a stroke. In fact I make an effort to not accept it.  I know some people say they only look forward and that they don't look back. I won’t do that.  Just like when I was tired of being a butcher I didn’t accept that.  I did something about it and got through school and became a Software Engineer.  In life acceptance to often is an excuse for stagnation, for doing nothing.

 

I wasn't the only one there before the thief in the night, my first stroke, slithered into my life.  So, so, so many people had helped me get to where I was in my life and helped me make my life what it had become.  Everybody from my wife, my kids, and all the rest of my family and friends to teachers, counselors and even those people I I disliked or didn’t have a lot in common with.  All were partly responsible for who I was.

 

For me to say, 'I accept what happened, the past is past and I'm only looking forward, never back' is a slap in the face to each and every one of those people that helped me become who I was before the thief came. It is like saying, 'thanks for the effort everybody, but oh well.  Any future is equally as good as the last or the next’.

 
Hey I'm doing great. I have ups and downs. Sometimes I don’t think I can take another day and sometimes everything goes smooth as silk.  I'm carving out a life for myself. I'm growing and continuing my life but my past is there. Without a past there is no present, no future. To simply look forward and try to build a future, disregarding your past, is like trying to grow a fruit tree for food that has not roots.  You will quickly go hungry.

 

My strokes are there and they stole a lot from me and everybody around me. I will search for the reason like a hungry dog searching for a scrap of food. During that search; my life will continue to grow.  It will become what I and the people who are once again here for me, make of it. But no, I will never stop asking why and sit back in a Zen like or contemplative ‘false peace’.  I won’t get philosophical and giggly about “I don’t look back, always forward”. To be honest I don’t think a human person is really even capable of doing that. I think it is a lie for someone to claim it.  The reason I stroked is out there and it is going to be pursued.  Along the way my new life will rise out of my past by not denying my past.

Driving

I've been driving a bit more the last few days. My Neurologist said that I can drive around the neighborhood if I have a licensed driver with me. This is fine with me as I'd get lost if I drove to far away.

Anyway the idea is to get me competent enough that I can go through a certification program and hopefully make short trips by myself. Trips like to the store or even putting my bike in the car and driving to the start of a trail would really increase the quality of my life.