Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Fitness Bit

Confession time again. I've never been physically fit. I've never been able to pass the President's physical fitness test even as a child. I've always had genetic discrepancies work against me.

I was genetically predisposed to things like asthma, arthritis, cardiac problems, and assorted other things that were not conducive for physical fitness. When it came to the roll of the dice for bad genetic combinations, I always came out on the losing end starting from birth being several months premature.

That never stopped me from trying. Does anything stop me from trying? Nope.

Over the years, I've been a weight lifter. Imagine being five feet squat in height with a partner who is 6'2" tall, lifting a patient who is twice your body weight, including the weight of the stretcher, cardiac monitor, oxygen tank, etc making it four to six times my body weight. Yeah, I was really into weight lifting.

Sprinting, I could go from seated to a 100-yard dash in under a minute. But sustained running, I would be hard pressed to run a three-minute mile. With full gear equaled to a 50-pound knapsack, it was closer to five minutes. As I have said before, I don't run for the sport of it.

Chin ups, sit ups, push ups- "fuhgeddaboudit!" (In my best Brooklyn accent). Not that I didn't do them, but max twenty-five was my limit. I just didn't bother most times. But ask me to climb a tree, or crawl through muck to get a patient or chase children, I was first in line.

So is it any wonder why I don't strive for physical fitness after my stroke? Why? I've got a bum ticker (heart sick). I still have poor lung capacity since birth. I do what I have to do and that's a lot physically. Doing exercise for the sake of exercise was not part of who I am. There's got to be a useful goal in mind other than be physically fit...like lifting patients or chasing children.

What I lack in physical fitness, I made up for brain fitness. I was the type of person who could utilize their full brain. Both left and right sides at the same time. I knew I'd never be a contender for the physical, but in the brain I could excel.

So what did I go and do? Have a stroke that damaged my brain. Now, my stroke was in the left hemisphere. Languages, math, and all sort of very useful items in daily living are centered there including control of my predominant right side. Like thinking linearly, I have a very hard time doing. Sequencing is an important factor in speaking and writing.

For example, yesterday I went for an AFO adjustment. It was 4 pm and had a day full of hospice, husband care issues, and just living. I was beyond tired. With my aphasia, the combination is a no win situation. I found I couldn't find the right words to explain what was wrong with the brace. Too much pressure on my big toe and ankle. Also the sole on my functioning side shoe had a bubble form between the applied build-up and the original sole.

All that would roll around in my debilitated brain and what came out of my mouth was, "hurt," "can't walk," "cut," and blow out." I was repeatedly hitting my brace while trying to speak. I ended up pulling my shoe, AFO and sock off, and showing the brace maker what the problem was. It was all my unfit left brain function going berserk. Luckily, he understood and fixed the problems. With aphasia, if all else fails--point. Funny thing is, I can type my words better than speaking them. That how I blog even with aphasia. A thesaurus helps too in finding proper words.

So while I'm exercising to regain my function of defunct body parts, I'm focusing on getting my mental fitness in order with online games.

To be physically fit, I don't bother and never strive for it other than get use back. I realize it's a no win task. But mental fitness and acuity, that's a goal I can work towards.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Neuro What?

The first I heard about neuroplasticity was through a television commercial. Like most non strokees, I always looked for ways to utilize my brain to the utmost capacity. More than likely the same was true for you. I had no idea what neuroplasticity meant. I sort of assumed it meant some form of brain power training.

 

After my stroke, I heard the term again. Not from my rehab team, but from other stroke survivors. I still lived under the assumption that what you got back in the first six months was it and I needed to learn to live with the adjustments.

Boy, was I ever wrong!

You can teach an old dog new tricks or relearn forgotten ones. The brain is constantly developing and learning. Or in the case of stroke survivors...relearning. One of my guiding principles in life is that death is the absence of learning. As such, I made it a point to try one new thing each day. I still do even in spite of my stroke. Although the list is filled with things I used to do but haven't since my stroke because of physical limitations. It doesn't stop me from trying. I want my old life back and consider my stroke recovery my lull. It has enabled me to live outside the box with permission. Permission to think abby normal is a great thing.

My therapy exercises are still done, but I change them up with different things to challenge myself. I know me. And this is important that you know yourself. For me, I tend to get bored with doing the same thing over and over again. I thrive on challenges. Yes, it is sort of setting myself to fail, but it also gives me a chance to figure out a way to get the task accomplished. See I don't look at failure as not achieving, but a challenge to figure out how to accomplish a task.

It's using my brain power. Yes, I may try a dozen times and not succeed, but eventually I will figure out a way to get it done. After a stroke, you have to be determined to succeed.  No matter how small the achievement it should be celebrated. Celebrate it with whatever you like. For me, it's one of those blow things you get as a party favor. For the life of me I can't remember what they are called. I'll toot my own horn a bit.

It may seem egotistical, but hey, I deserve it. Go figure. I can use a word like egotistical and actually spell it right on the first go around but I can't remember the name of that blasted blow thing! Such is the way of stroke recovery.

A long time ago, I realized I didn't know it all. But that didn't mean I couldn't learn a lot of things. I was in fact practicing neuroplasticity. I was constantly reteaching this old dog new tricks. Now with my stroke, I'm slowly relearning what I once knew and trying new coping mechanisms to accomplish what my stroke impairs me from doing.

While pre-stroke I played with thinking outside the box, I now am constantly there because I can no longer use two working hands and two working feet. I use a spell/grammar checker in all things language orientated when before I abhorred it. Abhorred- another word that fell in the proper place. Now what is that blow thingie called? Think brain think. Ah, brain damage! You got to appreciate the irony of being able to instantly recall some data while losing others forever.

Thinking outside the box is a challenge. It exercises your brain. It stretches like silly putty what is impossible into something possible. There are a lot of gaps to work around in my brain. While I know it has redundant capacity for use, it does get frustrating some times. But does it stop me? No! I won't let it.

I was at my father's 80th birthday party recently and when you combine his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that's a lot of names to remember. My niece brought her brand new finance with her. He was told he'd be tested on who everyone is and what family they belonged to afterwards. Just to remind y'all... I have one biological sister and eight adopted siblings. Of my siblings, we are all grandparents now. That's a fair passel of people.

In the end we told the young man that we were joking. It's hard enough for us to remember who is who. I'm confused by my eight going on nine grandchildren, but I can always remember who belongs to whom because they act just like my daughters. This year's birthday was doubly sad with my father's rapid onset Alzheimer's and failing health. He could remember his children's names but didn't recognize them except for me.

If neuroplasticity is the way the brain stretches itself like elastic...in constant relearning then Alzheimer's or dementia is the failure of neuroplasticity or antineuroplasticity. While I look forward with hope of recovery that can take place in the coming years, my father will regress farther into the antineuroplasticity.

The abilities of the brain to heal itself or not heal itself is a gray area of gray matter. It is a young science that constantly contradicts itself with the passage of time.  What is believed to be true today might be proven wrong tomorrow, but for today, I'm hoping that my brain can recover what it's lost with my strokes through the neuroplasticity models. At least it throws the door wide open  to try. Now what is the name of that blow thing?

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stoke Survival ~ This and That

I find that I'm spending quite a few hours on You Tube these days. One because it's quick snippets of information and two because it's entertaining.


With my current lifestyle of crisis management and turn on a dime decision making, I can't really do much else that is time consuming. You Tube is the answer.

No this isn't mine but close.

I've watched tons of videos about square foot gardening... something I'm going to try in the Spring to get a better handle on planting and harvesting my above ground garden. When energy and time spent are governing factors it made sense. I've also been researching how to build a bigger cage for Babs, my gorgeous bunnykins, she's getting a bit cramped in hers, and different ways to feed her other than store bought pellets. But that's not all...

I have to be honest here, I've been less than enthusiastic about my recovery of late feeling like somebody was kicking me when I was already out for the count. I ran across this particular video this week and it gave me a needed boost. While I've heard this song too many times on the radio, I never related what it could mean to me towards my recovery until I saw this video. A totally a eye opening revelation for me. It's my new favorite song.

Just the fact, that the video was pantomimed (actually singing although muted) by an otherwise 8-year old, nonverbal, autistic child got me thinking of aphasia affected stroke survivors and how it felt to me being nonverbal after my stroke but having a millions thoughts running through my head and not being able express them. My brain never stops thinking. The images may be of cancer kids but it could easily relate to us as survivors.  Listen to the words. I hope it will do the same for you that it did for me.

I've been researching stroke recovery too. Reading blogs, abstracts, and books are okay, but nothing beats the visual progress of stroke recovery and adaptive techniques survivors use. As I've said before I have an incontinence problem, as well as few other hundred things wrong with my stroke. I try to apply what see and think outside of the box in all things.

For me, urinary incontinence is not really embarrassing but a nuisance. I hate wearing pads.I didn't like it when I had to wear them during my monthly cycles. God bless menopause and a hysterectomy. See some good things come with age besides hard won wisdom. I use all the techniques I learned in physical therapy like the clock and fluid intake measures. I may wiggle in my seat to see if I've got to go like a woman with a crotch itch in church. That's one way men have an advantage, they just scratch or adjust themselves in public and pinch it off with the handle they've got, but for a woman...it just ain't lady like.

But also for me, there is the added bonus of a diuretic, Lasix, which keeps the fluids from pooling in my body and my defunct heart. For the first few hours after taking that miraculous little pill that keeps me out of congestive heart failure most times, it's a crap shoot for bladder control. It's a fine art of juggling most mornings and I'll explain why and how I adjust my clock to cope.

I take relatively high doses of Zanaflex with my Baclofen for muscle spasticity. The Zanaflex drops my blood pressure too low when I lay down. We're talking about low double digits. To combat this before bed I ingest something salty before I sleep, this causes my body to hold fluids thus keeping my blood pressure raised. Not a perfect solution but it works. My cardiologist thought it was ingenious and great problem solving. But as a result of ingesting the added salt and retaining fluids, and taking Lasix in the morning becomes a nightmare while it tries to get rid of this extra fluid. I adjust my time schedule for the first hour for twenty minutes after taking this med. On average that's how long it takes for my kidneys with Lasix to fill my bladder. The second hour, I'll add ten minutes making it every thirty minutes. I'll keep adding tihis way until I'm back to the original every two hours time frame.

If I have to somewhere while this counting up is underway, I'll urinate before I leave and when I get wherever I am going and keep the schedule. I'll admit that some days are worse than others, but the important thing is, I don't let it stop me. If I don't make it to the bathroom, that's why I wear a pad.

But with pads comes another problem. Diaper rash! They really aren't meant to be worn 24/7. Now this condition in an adult is painful and embarrassing! I'm sorry, but no one else is going to put diaper rash medicine between my legs, but me. Picture this... a woman with a brace on one leg and one useable arm, bending down to look between her legs and applying Balmx between her legs. Since my recent stroke, I  some renewed balance issues. Oft times my head is thumping the wall across from the toilet. Not hard mind you, a sort of a semi controlled lean forward, but just enough to stop my forward mometum. Luckily for me in this older home, the bathrooms are only 5x7. If it were any bigger, I'd more concerned. But for now, this works for me.

Nothing is impossible with determination.