Sunday Stroke Survival: Smiling in the Face of Adversity

 A few years ago I participated in a book collaboration on adversity. In going over and reviewing 2020s posts, I realized my blog had gotten away from smiling in the face of adversity.  Every other post was whinny. It was full of complaints rather than solutions. It was whinny to the point of petulance which was against what I was blogging for.

I apologize for that. I let circumstances rule my life rather than focusing on the big picture. That's about to change starting now. I'm getting back to "normalcy" again.

Have I recovered as much as I lost with my strokes? Yes, and no. With each subsequent stroke I spend an inordinate amount of time relearning and getting back to where I was before. Being able to talk and do as close to what I was doing prior to the newest stroke. I'm thankful that it's not losing new stuff. It's only relearning the ability to do rather than recovering new stuff. But, recovery is recovery.

Now, that I'm getting Botox again for the time being, I'm refocusing on balance so I can make it down the 45° inclines and declines in our homestead property. Will this ability serve me when I move into a senior apartment later on? Who knows? There are always situations that may arise where this will come in handy. 

Remember, no skill or ability is ever wasted. I'm still waiting for another possible Baclofen pump placement. Having good balance and posture is always a good thing. My focus will be getting as much ability back (contractures allowing). Even going so far as to recover enough that I can have surgery to reduce the contractures. That's a workable goal.

Making sure my specialty equipment is in good working order is also paramount. It deserves due diligence on my part. An AFO that is causing problem just breeds more issues. The same goes with ill-fitting or worn shoes. After pulling my wheelchair and roll-a-tor from storage in the barn when I broke my foot again, I found dry rot on all the tires. They had to be replaced. This could have been cheaper and easier if I had just paid them some attention while put up with petroleum jelly. My cane  tip had worn through with the metal scratching the floor, before I replaced it. How much support would it had of been if I really needed it? The same went to my bath chair and bedside commode. Rats had set up housekeeping inside the commode bucket! So I'm turning over a new leaf and giving these things monthly checks. Things do wear out with use, but decay from neglect stops now.

I'm putting on my smiling face in spite of adversity again. Enough sitting on the pity pot. I'm thinking of renting mine out if anyone is interested. Out of sight, out of mind. I'm back to being proactive and smiling through it.

Nothing is impossible!

Sunday Stroke Survival: Combating Adversity

One of the hardest things about living post stroke is combating adversity. I mean carrying on with your life as if nothing devastating has happened is a challenge, right? It's hard to stay motivated when you are talking about charging uphill for years. Now, I can say that because it's almost been six years since my first stroke. I'm still charging. Maybe not with the gusto I once did, but it's still going forward. Even when I'm standing still, it's a battle not to back slide down the hill so that counts. Sometimes, that's the best you can do so stop knocking yourself.

Today, I faced a task, that on the surface, seemed easy enough. I was asked to remove the old door from the well house. The door had split in two and needed to be replaced. Part of me should have known that anything built prior to our move to this property would be cockeyed. That's how we came up with our homestead's name in this first place. Nothing was done properly the first time around. When looking at it, you turn your head to one side and wonder why they did it that way. But honestly, we do things in not the normal way ourselves too, but it works.

I digress as usual. Back to my story. All the previous being said, how hard could it be? I'm just removing hinges, right? I approached the door, about two hundred feet from the house. I'm armed with a drill, two screw drivers (slot and phillips) and a hammer. I even have a chisel stashed in one pocket because I don't want to have to traipse back to the workshop once I start. I'm ready to do battle. I already know whoever hung the door used gate hinges rather than standard hinges.

I pulled the broken piece of the door away to get a closer look at what was left attached about six inches was left that was hinged to the frame. I put my tools on top of the well house. It's about 4' tall so my tools would be in easy reach without stooping to the ground. See, I'm thinking and doing smarter. I take a look at the screws except they weren't screws, but lag bolts. WTF! Now I'd have to go get the wrench set. But I investigated further still thinking smarter. Not only were they lag bolts but the back (inside) where the bolt came through the wood, the bolts were bent over 90 degrees. The idiot did not use a hack saw to cut the bolt excess off and put a nut on to hold it in place HE BENT THEM! To me this was beyond cockeyed carpentry. I knew at this point, this was a two handed operation. Sadly, I walked up to the porch where Mel was stacking firewood and gave her the bad news. Not that I couldn't have figured a way to straighten the bolts out with one hand, but I couldn't see a way of doing it without causing more damage.

It's one of those days when fighting adversity is me standing still. While loading the wood into the back of the truck to bring it to the house, it was more of me standing still. The cut wood was in an unlevel area and heavily overgrown. I helped where I could but it wasn't much as I watched Mel do the lion's share off the work. Loading the wagon with wood from the wood shed and bringing up to the porch is another story. That I can do all day long, but wood split in the wild part of the acreage, there's just no way for me to do it without falling. I just went along to keep her company I guess because that's all I could do. But now the wood is stacked on the front porch for the wood stove for another week or so.

Now, I'm playing poor, pitiful me blogging instead of sharing the work load around here. I will be throwing some steaks on the bbq for dinner. I'll even roast some potatoes and corn to go along with it. Ooh, if I feel really adventuresome, I might even make some sourdough rolls to go with it. Maybe some deviled eggs too. We've only got ten dozen eggs in the refrigerator. That's the ticket. Move forward uphill by accomplishing what I know I can do. Now for dessert, I can do a peach cobbler. It's only noon, I got plenty of time since I'm not doing anything else.

Combating adversity is a cinch. Not really. When adversity seems overwhelming, focus on what you can do and do it well.

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: Quote Rings True

I happened upon a quote this week and it got me thinking.

There are several different themes and variations to this proverb, I found them researching this one, but this one struck home for me.

Most of us go through life just plodding along including me. We live each day one after another like a donkey tethered to a water wheel. It's not until we are hit/punched in the face with adversity that we get the opportunity to challenge ourselves. We have three choices: excel, or fail, or accept somewhere in the middle.

Now, nobody really wants to fail. Failures don't give you that warm fuzzy feeling and pride in your success, does it? Nah! Just the opposite. It feels like a punch in the gut by a wrecking ball. So the choices are really two: excel or accept somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the middle works until you learn to excel.

After a stroke, it feels like you've been punched in the gut. Your whole life has been turned upside down and even twisted in a kaleidoscope fashion without the pretty image. Unless you are one of the blessed few that recover everything within a month after your stroke, you are looking at adversity that may last years, or even the rest of your life.

At first, it's frustrating to relearn what you knew how to do yesterday. It's a hard, rocky road. There is no smooth, grassy lane to side step onto. You just have to knuckle down and plod on to regain even the previously simple tasks you had been doing for decades before your stroke. Learning or relearning is never easy. Just after my stroke, I compared myself to my six-month old grandson. I was having to learn to feed, speak, walk, and toilet train myself all over again.

Once the basics was relearned more or less, I entered into childhood again. There were tasks of reading, comprehension, math, cooking, and cleaning. I'm still struggling with some of these items even five years after my last stroke. All this time, I'm also battling grief over the loss of what my strokes had taken away from me. Temper tantrums, think a two-year old, stemming from frustration. This is compounded by PBA (pseudobulbar affective disorder), tremors, and spasticity added as side effects of my strokes. Nothing like kicking a horse when it's down.

I ventured into my teen years by adding driving into the mix. I reactivated my immortal and I-know-everything teen attitudes too.  This I did as a survival mechanism. I was experimenting with what I could do and doing what I wanted to do. I was testing boundaries. I added activities I was doing before my strokes like knitting, spinning, and homesteading. It's not an easy process and I'm learning/relearning as I go. This time, I without wanting to date or deal with boys/men so it's easier. I also walk to the beat of my own drummer so it doesn't matter what others think. This a positive side of approaching the teenage years again being over 50.

All of this happened in a matter of months instead of years because I'd been here before. I was a head strong with a genius level IQ before my stroke. I still am somewhere in the deep recess of my mind. It's still trying to navigate around the dead patches in my brain. As I said before, I'm still trying to perfect my relearning in all the ages like toilet training from the toddler age, tempering my adventurousness, and rebellious side, but holding onto the fun.

This journey through adversity, I have learned more than I did the first time around this life and gained a level of wisdom I couldn't have learned without it. I've always thought that death was an absence of learning. A stroked brain is the mother of relearning a different way. I've used my creativity to a level that I couldn't have dreamed was possible by figuring out how to do what I needed or wanted to do. It's cockeyed, but it's getting done. So what if it isn't done the same way everyone else does. I'm a unique individual in a world of copy cats. You know what? I kind of like it like that. Why be ordinary in you life when you can be EXTRAordinary.

Nothing is impossible.