Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Rewiring the Brain with Games

Cognitive ability loss is often hard to determine in a hospital setting mainly because it is a away from your home environment. The patient isn't in their daily home routine. Sure you can count to ten or recite the alphabet, but getting back to your old, normal routine is that is the true measure of what was lost. The effects of the stroke come home to roost and are glaringly obvious and tragic.

Me for example when I arrived home, I sat in front of my computer. I had a month's worth of story ideas stockpiled in my head. I'm a writer and that's what I do. After switching everything around so that it was left hand accessible, I opened up my MS Word program to type. The first challenge I faced was how to type one handed. I typed 120 WPM with two hands and capitalizing letters, or numbers, or symbols was a no brainer before. Now I had to figure out how to do it all with one hand. There are still somethings I haven't figured out how to do even with a smaller, compact keyboard. It's almost a feat of magic holding two keys down by pressing a third.

What I see or pretty close. IT IS GETTING BETTER!

I started to type and everything got jumbled in my brain. Letters, spelling, and not to mention grammar was gone. I jokingly call it my Dyslexic/ADD (letters are backwards and twisted in order), but that's the way it seems when I try to put thoughts from my brain to the keyboard. Luckily Windows 7 has a spell checker for everything otherwise my posts in here would be jibberish. One of these days I'll show you a uncorrected posts even now and May will be two year since my first stroke.

In one of my outpatient rehab sessions I found out why. In reciting my alphabet verbally, I lost letters. What I thought was so easy and a no brainer when asked to do it was gappy like I was in grade school first learning my alphabet instead of using it for over fifty years. Numbers had the same difficulty once I was past ten and got into double digits. Forget simple math like addition and subtraction.

But yet I can read for the most part. It's very tiring to do and mentally taxing. That's because of my skim and context reading ability. I'm thankful every day that I didn't lose that. But editing written text requires being able to read each and every word and analyze the sentence structure. That, at this point, is beyond me in critiquing and editing. That's the baby step I'm working on by blogging.

I have talked at length ( here, here, and here)of how I use computer games to rebuild my cognitive gaps. I'll play word games and number games trying to rewire my brain back to normal. It has been a challenge, but I persist. Now imagine being an author with these kind of issues.

Don't take me wrong. Every stroke survivor has their own issues in resolving their past with their present situation. I'm just an author. It was my livelihood and will be again. I just have to work harder to achieve it. Just like we all do. We each have our own goals fraught with reality of impairments.

For me, regressing backwards one morning in my game playing ability gave me the lightning bolt that I'd had another stroke. Games that had become easy and repetitious to the point of dull were hard again. It was more than stress and my body's reaction to it. It wasn't a momentary thing but over days and weeks. Granted, I've got some serious stress factors going on now, but when I pushed them aside and analyzed the results, there was little doubt even without a MRI. A follow-up MRI proved it. A small new dead area close to the previous one. Just enough to set me back some but incurring only minor new damage.

The thing about rewiring the brain is that it has to be enjoyable to you even if it's a workout. We are and always have been a game playing family from a game playing family. Bingo was how I reinforced number recognition in my TBI daughter so it was natural for me to do the same for myself. While I may never play twelve cards at once online and thirty in real life again, I use it to rewire my brain to recognize numbers,  simple addition, and the concept of higher and lower. Addition, huh? In POGO one one of the types of bingo players will post how many they needed for bingo in chat. Three cards-three numbers. So I took to adding my three numbers together and comparing it to other players. There are all sorts of "tricks" you can do with games if you have an imagination.

Now for how far I've come playing online games daily. I can play Tri-peaks Solitare, that's numbers forwards and backwards without a cheat sheet. If you haven't read my previous post on this, my cheat sheet was a slip of paper that I put over my function keys that was numbered forwards and backwards A-K or 1-13.

I've progressed from Bingo Luau (three cards with medium speed of spoken numbers and the numbers light up when I pass them) to Fortune Bingo (three cards, medium speed spoken numbers, and the numbers don't light up when I pass them, plus no pattern help is given other than the diagram at the top of the screen) just like regular Bingo  cards. Yes, I'm still making mistakes with this new game. Numbers get reversed in my head as I'm searching for them and I'm still having to repeat the double digit numbers in my head or verbally while I search to keep them straight like 1-2 for twelve.

I also no longer look for the same number throughout the card. Somewhere in my mind I knew the number called would only appear once, but in playing I would search in multiple rows and even the same rows for the number repeating itself. Insanity was calmed in my method of searching for the number by only looking in the assigned row and realizing that they'd only appear once. Now I can place my cursor at the bottom of a row and read the whole row. This was a major breakthrough.

The point is the games have measurable progress. I can see myself making positive progress. As far as my writing goes... It's not going anywhere. I don't have the uninterrupted time I need to focus on getting my writing ability back. AND, the key to getting any cognitive skill back is repetition and doing it.

It would take all my concentration to write sentences in a cohesive manner. Right now, there are too many interruptions and an ear constantly listening for my husband. It's too distracting to focus with all of this going on. I have to respond at a moments notice and when I come back to my screen the thought is gone. By the time it comes back there is another thing which has me leaving the screen again. Too frustrating and maddening to even attempt writing other than my blog.

I have a humongously growing list of people waiting to read this book and that should spur me on to write, but it's too hard to do right now. I must keep calm and unflustered to handle my daily growing list of have-to-dos. Although part of my mind balks at the lack of forward progress of the book and I chastise myself for laziness, I also realize I'm a damaged human being that her wants won't kill her. All my efforts are focused on getting through this day and what it brings instead of want-to-dos. This is as it should be.

So as for my cognitive skills recovery, I'll stick to game playing. It's a measurable step forward in recovery each and every time I play. I'll continue to set mini goals for each game and try to achieve them. No effort is wasted. When my brain tires, I stop and do something else because it is mentally taxing to rewire the brain. That's the thing about recovery after a stroke, you start off with a clean slate and everything you do is a goal and achievement. Whether it is making a sandwich, doing rehab exercises, or playing games over and over again. I'm trying to get back to taking things for granted instead of looking for goals and achievement beyond the normal. Right now I'm striving for the new Abby Normal in my life. As should we all.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Writing After a Stroke

I think we are finally out of the woods for the time being. Until the next time. My husband's congestive heart failure and pneumonia are now a thing of the past and I'm not in constant vigilance mode. This morning he took his oxygen off and walked to the bathroom without getting deathly pale or severely out of breath. He even took the trash outside and came in only mildly out of breath. His color has gone from ashen gray to a ruddy, pale pink again. I'm so thankful for all the prayers.


I've been going around and round for the past few months and not accomplishing anything towards the forward progress of Don't Get Your Panties in a Wad. It is frustrating writing after a stroke. Sure, I can blog, but writing a book is different.

The muse just aren't with me when my focus is scattered in too many different directions. I used to call myself a master juggler. Not any more. It's tough tossing one ball in the air and catching it.

Could part of my problem be fear? Possibly. With two agents chomping at the bit trying to sign me up for this book and talk about an auction, the old fear of have I still got it comes into play. I've been analyzing everything as to why I've stopped writing this book. Maybe Alex's Insecure writer's group would help, but that's not the only reason.

As I mentioned Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak with a teenager doing her volunteer time in therapy before going to college for a PT license about writing and publishing. Did you know they have to log 100 hours volunteer in a PT/OT center before they can be accepted into school? I didn't until my stroke.

Anyhow getting back to this young girl, when she found out that I was a previously published author she lit up with excitement. She was writing a novel herself. Then we started talking about writing after a stroke. She couldn't understand what the difficulties were. Of course not. It's all about your point of view and experiences. There is no way a 17 year old girl is on an even playing field with me having grandchildren her age and recovering from a stroke.

So I broke it down for her.

• In writing you plot out your stories. It takes sequencing and linear thinking. Both of which were impaired with my stroke. Although I'm working at it, there is still a deficit.
• In writing you need command of the language you are writing in. I lost all fluency in languages except English, my third language. Spelling went out the window as did all but simple grammar. When before your stroke you were fluent in eight languages and you are left with one, it can be quite disheartening. Not to mention you are not even fluent in the language you are now speaking. This is evident by all the red and green squiggly line in what you are typing. It gets really irritating when you think you used to write 50-100K words in three months without either.
• In writing you need to be able to focus and not be scatter brained. Now with my "Dyslexic/ADD" any interruption is the death of whatever you had in your mind. That's me now since the stroke. 

So what's my problem now? I hit 37K words before this writing stoppage. It should be easier now that I've partially recovered what I lost, right?

Wrong. I managed to write so many words because I really did not have many demands on my time. Now, I'm driving, gardening, cooking and my husband's care issues has escalated. Marry that with the low energy levels that plague me, it spells disaster. My muse and desire to write hides under the bed whimpering like a dog during a thunder storm. When I ask my neurologist when can I expect my energy level to return to somewhat normal, I get the depends  and every stroke is different answer. At first she said after a year, but I'm there now with no return of my energy. If you don't know something, just say you don't know.

I still need a nap or two to get through the day depending on what's going on. Then I'm in bed sleeping by ten even with the naps. We're not talking about my old twenty minute power naps either. I'm talking a hour at least possibly three. Now admittedly, I am no longer leaving the therapy department with the vague sense of nausea and falling in bed on arrival home anymore, but on therapy days I'm done for anything more strenuous. I do my gardening, chicken and rabbit care before therapy because I won't have the energy afterwards..

In the old days, I used to build myself up to get more energy. Do one more set of ten or twenty in exercises, but a stroke is weird. The build up just doesn't work. Granted I'm better than I was a month after the stroke but less than 25% of my norm which isn't good. I watch my grands play nonstop and wonder the age old thought of if I could only bottle it, I'd be a millionaire. It's not like pain is draining my energy because the Botox injections knocked most of that out. 5-Hour Energy drink be damned. It doesn't work in this case. All it does is give me heart palpitations from too much caffeine.

So when will I finish this book? I dunno. I'm biding my time because eventually it's got to get better.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Wednesday Writerly Way ~ Determination to be an Author

Oops, I forgot it's Indie Life Day!

A writer friend of mine has a blog where he reviews and
posts on a variety of subjects. Malcolm Campbell has always had a witty point of view. So I ran across this on his blog and decided to share it here.

For those of you going through the query and rejection stage of publishing  You are not alone. HERE's the list. The most notable is the beloved Dr. Seuss. I was amazed at the comments that were given for the rejections because now in retrospective- it's a moot point.

The point is...the author didn't give up on their efforts. One author got 79 rejections before they finally sold their manuscript.

I can remember one author who lightning struck in reverse, like me, who got a publisher with contracts in hand and recommending agents in the past two decades. That other author is Jack McDevitt. But then he's been in publishing as long as I have. But Jack had been querying publishers after a long search for an agent.

What's an agent going to do when you tell them that TOR (or in my case Doubleday) has recommended them? Snatch them up, of course. It's almost guaranteed cash in the bank. Admittedly, this is backwards of what it's really like being an author submitting to an agent. Nowaday, you have to go through the agent gatekeeper first.

On a side note...I got a call last week from one of my old agents about the projected completion date on my new WIP, Don't Get Your Panties in a Wad.

Projected completion date? I've just spent two month NOT writing and dealing with my life. All I could answer was, "I dunno." Not very professional I know, but it was an honest answer. I haven't even made the decision to traditionally publish the book yet. Jokingly, I answered, "Never." Needless to say she didn't take it so well. I basically told her,  "Don't call me. I'll call you." Agents hate that so I might be in the market for another one eventually because I'll tell the other agent the same thing. If I traditionally publish this book. I've got to finish the rough 1st draft first.

This was one of the major reasons I've temporarily stopped traditionally publishing. I didn't need the added pressure. I used to only blog about my books when they were in their final editing stages and I changed tactics with this one because my stroke recovery is current and ongoing. Readers wanted to know what was going on in my life and my stroke recovery is up front in my focus right now. At the time it seemed like a logical decision.

You may have noticed I no longer post snips of this book on my blog. That's the reason why. It was garnering too much attention from agents and editors alike. I'm determined, yes, but not that determined. Once upon a time, I could handle set in stone deadlines, but that's not the case now. It takes the joy of writing away. Let's face it. I am are more apt to do what is pleasurable to do than what I am are forced to do. Hey, I'm human. When I am struggling to accomplish it during recovery in the first place, joy is important.

So why is determination essential to the author?

• To plow your way through from beginning to end of a manuscript takes determination. 
• To edit until you are bleary eyed and want to chuck the whole manuscript and not takes determination. 
• To believe that your book has merit and deserves to be published takes determination. 
• To get stacks of rejection letters and keep on searching for an agent takes determination. 
• When the quest for publication stretches into the years mark takes determination.

Do you have the determination to be 

a published author?

Keep writing and loving the Lord.

Sunday Stroke Survival~ Housekeeping and an Excerpt

This week I have been playing at housekeeping. The reason I say "playing at" is because not a lot was accomplished. I have figured how to sweep and vacuum, wash dishes in small amounts, and put some things away, but a lot of little stuff falls by the wayside and piles up.

It drives me crazy! Not that I'm a immaculate housekeeper to begin with, but somethings get to me and I've got to find a way to do them. Now, if you've read Are You a Survivalist or a Prepper? You haven't? Run don't walk to your nearest e-store bookstore and grab yourself a copy. Anyway,  I have a 10'x10' storeroom newly built onto my house. It has been one of those renovation nightmares where one thing leads to another, and leads to another with a stroke thrown in for a major chaos factor. With a fifty-year old house there's always something that needs to be done, but I digress. My "dyslexic/ADD" is bad today. Back to housekeeping.

I can mange putting away one or two cans, and even carry a small plastic bag of canned goods into the store room, especially now with the improvement of my balance and walking without a cane. So groceries and stores are put away, but large boxes and things like those huge cases of water-- forget it. They throw me off balance and I can't see my foot placement.

My hubby can't lift over ten pounds or walk more than ten feet without getting out of breath, so no help there although he tries. His balance is worse than mine and given he's on enough morphine to sedate a horse, well you see part of the problem.

I'm allergic to dust so either I wear a mask while dusting or wait until daughter #2 comes to town. She lives thirty minutes away. I do it most times. I have a large, shoulder tote bag that I bought in Sri Lanka many year ago that I'll put my rags and polish in. I'll pull the paper mask over my head and let it hang around my neck until I need it, and get busy.

The one thing my balance has issues with is the brush that cleans the ceiling fan. The same goes for cobwebs. I can't look up, hold the pole and maneuver it in the finely accurate positioning it takes to get the job done, and maintain my balance. So that job is left to my daughter. The only problem is that she hasn't been here since before Christmas. The cobwebs and dust are rampant in my house because it is closed up with the cooler weather. The spiders have been working overtime.

That leads me into a great tie-in for the excerpt.

Don't Get Your Panties in a Wad
Copyright 2012 J.L. Murphey All Rights Reserved
<beginning of excerpt>

Creepy Crawlies

I had been in the hospital for a month and my husband can barely walk let alone do all but the basics of housekeeping. Meaning, he might be able to take out the trash and, thirty minutes to an hour later, be able to wash a few dishes. It isn't that he won't do more but can't do more. I arrive home after my stint in two hospitals and find my home in chaos! The floors hadn't been swept, the carpets are half an inch thick with assorted stuff that usually will come up with a good vacuuming, dirt and dust on my hardwood floors, and the usual piles of things that I usually put away, but couldn't because I was gone.

What struck me worse was the amount of spider webs on and in my cabinets, door handles that aren't usually used like the one leading to the furnace, every corner including the door jambs had cobwebs in them. It was as if a spider had thrown a massive party and welcomed his all his friends including their friends into my home. These weren't the new spider webs either they had been there a while because they were thick with dust. I can't blame my husband because he might have use four rooms of our three-bedroom house. If it had been closer to Halloween, I would have thought someone had gone all out with the decorations, but it was June. 

At that point I was too tired to do anything about it having just come from the hospital. The hour drive with kids in the backseat, interstate construction, and traffic snarls had drained me of energy as a passenger not driving. Although I was partially excited about being home. I did what he did everyday and all day long, I got into the wheelchair and sat in the office. It was the last room I completed of our renovation project before my stroke. So except for the floor, it was passable. It's where our computers are and has minimum distractions with its light blue-gray walls with sand colored trim. After the sterile white walls of the hospital, it was a welcome change. The artwork is limited to two large, blue ink prints I got in Sri Lanka and family pictures. Meanwhile, my grandsons made a beeline to the gazebo in the backyard and the swing being freed from the confines of the car, while my daughter unloaded her car and set up the bedside commode in the bathroom.

I just sat there and didn't even power up my computer. Relief at being home, tiredness, and the excited babble of my husband's voice washed over me. I was only halfway listening and I had thought the hospital was loud. Finally, my daughter was finished putting things away, loaded her boys back in her car, and left. I was relieved. Cobwebs, dust, unswept floors, Nicotine saturated house aside, I was home!

As nature beckoned, I got up from my wheelchair knowing it wouldn't fit through the bathroom door. I shook my head to my husband's query of was there anything he could get for me. This was one thing nobody could do for me except for inserting a urinary catheter. I grabbed my walker and headed down the hall to the bathroom. Being a fifty-year old ranch style house the hallways are less than three feet wide. This was more walking with my walker than I had done in the hospital, and without a standby therapist. I was on my own. I felt relieved and scared at the same time.

As I passed the furnace door, my arm, the paralyzed one, hit the doorknob. My hand was covered in cobwebs and to my greater consternation there was a medium sized, black spider still in it! I couldn't let go of my walker with my good hand. My arm just hung at my side immobile and lifeless while the spider slowly disengaged itself from its ruined home. I screamed. Alright, I could raise my voice that high, but I was screaming on the inside, and trying to get the web and spider off my hand without losing my balance. I banged into the linen closet door with my back which brought my husband running. Although he is legally deaf, he does hear certain sounds.

Once my balance was stable against the door, I used my functioning hand to get the web off so it was covered with web too. All I could do is point to my hand. I croaked out, "Get the spider!"
"Huh? You were turned away from me," he responded.
I twisted so he could read my lips while my eyes were glued to the spider inching its way to my wrist. "Get the spider!"
He swatted the spider to the floor, and stepped on it grinding it into the bottom of his boot. "Ah ha, take that!"

Then he turned back to me and helped get the spider's web off both of my hands. But in all the delay and excitement about the spider, I lost control of my bladder. I waddled into the bathroom and asked for him to get me some lower garments while I removed the soiled ones.
<end of excerpt>

Keep writing and loving the Lord.