Botox is In!!

 The Botox injections are in and working. Or at least, beginning to. The pressure on my ankle pulling it to the inward and downward spasms are lessening. Now, I just need to get into physical therapy to get some gains to combat the post stroke spasticity. It will means Tens application, physical stretching, exercises, and yes, even dry needling to make it all happen.

The things we go through trying to recover what we lost. Or, for me, to recover what the spasticity has taken away because I was well on my way towards recovering my arm and hand function when the spasticity gradually took it all away again. Darn post stroke complications or side effects. I could play woulda, coulda, shoulda until the cows come home... if I had some to begin with. But it doesn't change the facts. It is and I have to get it back.

Rebecca over at Home After A Stroke and Dean over at Dean's Musings have posted over and over about how many repetitions it takes to recover. Both have been at this longer than I have. The amount is staggering, but none of us quit. We're all working toward recovering.  So, once again I'll get ready to get up and go. In the hope of strengthening my tricep, extensor muscles and my ankle enough before the Botox begins to wane. The spasticity won't pull me over the abyss into full fledge painful contortions again.

This I can fight. The fight for a PCP and endo will have to wait for days between therapy sessions. I'm picking the battles I can almost win. I waited for the painful cramps during the six months of doctor scheduling. The didn't occur until the week before my Botox injections. That's a positive because normally they would have started the week before my three month Botox injections. I'm not discounting God's Grace in all of this either. I've been thanking and praising Him for weeks now. 

  Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: Weather, Tornados, and The Three Little Pigs

I'll bet the weird title made you click on it thinking, What in the world is going on now? If you think about what these things have in common, you'd think of strong winds. You'd be partially right. Or, I could be spouting a lot of hot air in a windy, winding, wordy sort of way. Keep reading.

In the past several weeks, Mother Nature has been in PMS mode. April showers begins May flowers, but it's only February. Surrounding counties as well as ours have been under daily flash flood warnings.  I'm not worried yet. Our creek is 600 ft below us. Now if that threatens to flood us, we better have an ark!

This has been the strangest winter on record. One it's in almost 70 degrees with torrential rains, and the next day brought eight inches of snow! Followed by the next day with 60 degree temps and rain with flash flood warnings. We haven't had two days of sunshine in a row in two months. On the days the sun does appear, we've been hit with wind gusts in excess of 50 miles an hour!

I'll bet you  are wondering what this weather report has to do with post stroke recovery or living post stroke. I dunno, I'm just writing. Let's see where it takes us. There has to be intersecting lines somewhere, right? Not really I know where I'm going. Doh! You know me better.

Having a stroke is a big blow to everyone including you. Your family is affected just as much as you in different ways except one. All concerned and you. want you to recover as much as possible fast. If they are as close knitted group like mine, they rejoice with your successes, be cheer leading from the side lines, and knock you over with kindness for a time. My terminally ill husband was a prime example of the latter. He literally shortened his already short life expectancy in the first six months trying to help me or do for me. Not because I asked him to, just the opposite, but that was the way he was. It worried him to no end when he could no longer be my loving husband and a total patient sliding into home.

The second thing that comes to mind is the chaos factor and effect. From the beginning, your whole world has been through a tornado and what's worse, you are trying to decipher what happened with a brain that is damaged and in shock. What worked doesn't and you can't understand why. You are praying it's just a nightmare you'll awaken from, but you don't.

A roll of the dice and you could be one of the lucky ones and recover all in that golden 30 days...unlikely, but it does happen. Another roll of the dice and you reach the 100% recovery goal in six months. I say, it's a roll of the dice because that's what it is. Ir isn't how hard you work at recovery or most of us would have 100% recovery. I know I would have. I spent every waking moment visualizing and exercising my affected side while strengthening my functioning side. I willed my arm, elbow, wrist, and fingers to move. I had minimal success within the first six months. Bur in the end, the high tone that I fought since day 1 after my first stroke and escalated into rigid spasticity won out. Well, that's not true, I'm still fighting it by any means possible.

I've faced many such tornadoes of chaos before and after my first stroke. I wish I could say sifting through the rubble of my old life doesn't get easier with repetition. At times, I feel like the three little pigs against the wolf. Except there's no third pig with a house of brick. Or, I never reach that level of a completed brick house before it blows my house down mid construction.

I stay in the reconstruction zone and it can drive me nuts! Having to live post stroke is an everlasting do over for me, or it seems to be. It is for me, when another stroke or health issues sets me back to almost square one like my urinary control issues I'm going through now. But I'm fighting my way back to my new old normalcy... to get back to using regular menstrual pads just in case. It's a viscous cycle of do overs, I'm going through or blows.

But still, I'm still fighting the big blows that come down the pike because...

 I'm too mean to die. Too stubborn to give up. And most important, I'm in God's Hands!

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: Touchy Feely- Stretching the Limits

I hope y'all had a fabulous Christmas and Santa brought you all you wanted. I pray y'all have a safe and blessed New Year.

Just out of the hospital this past summer, I had horrible balance. It was carry my cane everywhere or do the touchy feely thing with walls and furniture. A major part of the problem was I was never given PT in the hospital. I went from prone in bed or sitting in bed to discharged home. Let me tell you, standing up that first time without help was scary. I'd only been in bed for almost two whole weeks. I wobbled a bit as I commanded my legs to hold me

Playskoll Webbles

up. Webbles wobble, but they don't fall down, but people do. No I didn't fall. I may be impatient, but I'm not stupid.

The paperwork for discharge had been signed and home care instructions were issued.  I had waited two hours for the aide, and Mel and I were ready to go. I got to my feet and the bed alarm went off. The nurse rushed in, but I had to get dressed to go home.It was three steps to the commode. With the bathroom door opened, the nurse couldn't help me. I made it and plopped my hinny on the seat. I had Mel pass me my clothes and shoes. I got dressed.

Luckily the handicap rails were on the correct side for me. Have you noticed this problem? You got a 50:50 shot, right? For me, it 75:25 of the rail being on the correct side in any given handicapped bathroom. I'd choose wrong and the rail is on my right affected side which offers me no assistance. Pulling my pants up was a acrobat feat worth paying for, but I accomplished the task. Getting into my shoes was problematic, but they always are. My cane wasn't in sight. The staff had stowed it in this closet. As I was emerging out of the bathroom, my aide appeared. "Honey, I told you I'd help you."

Months passed. Where I once was walking inside the house with no assistance, I found I was having to touch or hold walls to keep my balance. Coming off the antipsychotic drug helped, but I was still having issues with balance. A reduction of the seizure med helped even more. I was only doing the touchy feely thing in wide open walking, with stairs, and any place that wasn't level. Physical therapy helped restore my confidence in my feet and legs. Eventually, I was able to come off the seizure meds entirely. Almost instantaneously, I was able to walk upright again and have my balance back. Almost entirely the need for that touchy feely instinct is gone.

She's carrying a leaf in her mouth. Goofy dog!

I still touch a piece of furniture or wall if I have to step over a household animal, or brace myself firmly against a tree when the 80+ lb Kassity comes barreling down the hill straight at me. Even a non impaired person would do that. She's all energy and forward momentum. She doesn't jump on me, but stops and leans on me to be talked to and petted. But even that would throw me off balance without my cane. Yes, I'm now back to walking without my cane outside.

Now, it was a question of strengthening. It's taken forever (just 4 months) for me to get three-quarters back to my old self. I've got to get that last quarter plus to be ready for spring planting and pruning five months away.

This week, I was out on the property picking up kindling for the wood stove. That's one of the chores I do around here. About 50 ft behind the house is where our ravine begins. In increments, this slope drops 600 ft down to the spring fed creek which borders our property on two sides. Well about

5 or 6 ft down, I see some choice dead fall branches. The slope was less than 45 degrees. I puzzled out a route around the small trees and bushes to get down there and get back up the slope. The branches would make quick work of the 38-gal trash can full of kindling I had to fill. So I went for it. I was stretching my limits for sure, but I was feeling good and froggy.

We use junk mail and tree twigs and branches to start our fires with. Waste not, want not. When it's been dry for a few days, I'll fill the (3) trash cans with this kindling. So anyhow, I traverse down this slope. I'm holding small, small knee high undergrowth and testing my footing with each step. I was under no illusion that the bush would stop me from sliding, but that little support bolstered my confidence to climb farther down.

I might note here that it's a 45 degree or greater angle slide down to the creek below (about 660 ft). I'll add, if I didn't hit a tree on the way down. I sure didn't want to do that - let alone the climb back up again. I may take chances, but I'm not stupid. Maybe a little insane, but definitely not stupid.

About half way down, I started a another pile of my candidates for a pile. I stuffed them under my affected arm now that I have limited control of my shoulder again. I climbed to where there was a pile of limbs I saw from the top. Looking up from where I started I felt a wave of self accomplishment, but the real trick was making it back up. I gathered branches and twigs and tossed them up the slope as far as I could... about a foot with all the undergrowth. I repeated this process until I had the pile licked. I made my way up to the pile and repeated the process until all branches and limbs were up on semi-flat ground at the top.

I leaned on the propane tank and broke my prize up into about 12" pieces. I brought enough from my jaunt down the slope to fill the trash can. I closed the lid and happily rolled the trash can into the barn. Later, it would be divided into 5-gallon buckets and brought into the house. Each 5-gal bucket will start 5 fires. The trashcan will be fill ten 5-gal buckets. That's a whole lotta warmth in three of those trash cans. I'll fill all the cans before the snow starts falling and keep filling them until it does. We shouldn't need much after that because the wood stove will be constantly going.

I was too pooped to pop afterwards. I sat in front of my computer playing mind games and watched a movie for four hours before it was time to cook dinner. Well not exactly cooked. I opened two pint jars of beef stew I'd canned earlier in the year, but I made biscuits. By this stretching my limits showed me that I'm getting back to my old self again. Now for my next testing of my limits... you'll have to wait and see.

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: The Energizer Bunny

At times, I feel like the Energizer Bunny. But the battery is running low so instead of  him beating his drum in a rapid cadence, it's more like skipping every other beat. Kind of like my heart is doing right now. No, that's not good news either.

But I'm stronger than last week. I managed to go with Mel to the dump. More for moral support than actually helping because I'm still under a 10 lb weight lifting restraint. I actually managed to feed the rabbits and chickens three times this week. I leave the watering to Mel, it's too much repetitive bending for me to do comfortably yet, but I'm doing more while am healing up. I've even managed cooking our main meal (3 PM- 5PM) five times this week. So that's an improvement, but it's not happening fast enough.

While I know I'll get there in time, I have this ticking time bomb booming in my head with every passing day while I recover and get semi normal again. The time bomb is the cancer in my thyroid area. Everyday that passes is another day that it might spread to my lungs, brain, or lymphatic system. I'm already living post six strokes, a failed baclofen pump placement and removal, and a failing heart. Did I really need cancer too? Talk about a quadruple whammy!

I-131

So as you can tell, my patience is running a bit thin right now with it taking so long to recover enough for this next surgery. The radiation therapy has a basically, for this type of cancer, carries with it a 28-day half life of isolation protocol. I have to spend the first two weeks in a lead lined room in the hospital. After that I'm discharged home, I have to maintain a 3-foot distance from every living thing (plant and animal). My bedding and clothing need to be washed twice, any eating and cooking stuff will be contaminated and must be washed in the dishwasher or use disposables. Meals will have to be cooked by Mel. Been here, done that, and didn't want to do it again.

That brings up another point. Disposables must be bagged separately in bio-hazard bags and held for 90 days before it's safe enough to be disposed of. Even though the hospitals can dispose these, it can only happen after the 45-day mark. Imagine how many diapers, and paper goods will be generated in that time frame.

Now if the cancer has spread, that a whole 'nother can of worms. More radiation (not the isolation type) and chemo to look forward to. Sure I can afford at least a 50-lb weight drop, but I can think of a dozen less drastic ways to do  this. Losing my hair is the least of my worries. I'll be fighting for my life. When I've gone through this before I wore peasant skirts and blouses, big earrings, and silk scarves. These were my gypsy months. But as a sexagenarian, I don't think I'll bother with that this time. Before, I stayed in the work force and was in the public eye more.

Around here, the rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs, and garden don't care what I look like so long as they are tended to. Well I take that back, Buddy Baby (rabbit) and Lil Bit (cat) do like to lick my eyelids and brows, and groom my hair as a signs of affection. But that's it. Mel will just have to get used to it. With the weather cooling down, I can always knit myself a couple of chemo caps while they pump that poison into my veins, right?

Did I mention my patience is wearing thin? My thoughts turn positively morbid when I get like this. Can't you tell? My positive, uplifting, and optimistic side  slides into oblivion the more my patience gets thinner. I can still pray so I'm not totally without hope. This is the most important thing to me. Now, God is giving me enough patience to get me through today and that's my blessing. He keeps reminding me that He is control no matter what happens. He's got my back, front, and both sides.

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: Recovering in Slow Motion

Recovering from a seizure, near death, a massive infection, and a baclofen pump removal surgery is no picnic. It's recovery in slow motion. Add advancing age and living post stroke into the mix makes recovery even slower.

I am now  2 1/2 weeks out of the hospital. To date, I've cooked 2 meals with assistance, been out of the house once for a shopping trip (I didn't go in, just sat in the car), I've taken two full showers, and walk one row of the garden (26'). Mind you, not in the same day or even every other day. I haven't had the strength. Even climbing four stairs is exhausting. We've had a couple of chicks born to a broody hen that I haven't been out to see. After each event, I've had to take a nap and takes a day to recover from the activity!

I'm feeling every one of my years. I no longer need a helping hand to rise from a chair although it still takes a couple of attempts.My functioning side is weakened from so long in the hospital. I wasn't allowed to get up from the bed at all until I was discharged.

So what am I doing about it?

• I've enlisted the help of my home health care PT services for strengthening. Not that I don't know the routine by now, but the refresher is good.
• I make a point of rising from my desk every hour and walking the 40 steps to the bathroom. I usually don't make it so I've back tracked into pull up again. But, this is a strengthening exercise. I'll retrain my bladder later.
• I make a point to do one little thing extra each day. It could be making myself breakfast, snacks, lunch, or dinner. Like tonight, I'm making Goulash from scratch and biscuits. That's something new so far. I may have to cook the ground beef and sit down, chop the onions with my slap chopper and sit down, drain the beef and add the onions, and sit down, and add the spices, tomatoes, macaroni and sit down while it cooks. Finally make my baking powder biscuits. I'll sit down again while they bake. I'll serve it up. Mel will carry it out to the back porch because I need my functioning hand to maneuver the steps. I'll be sweating and exhausted by then, like I've worked all day in the garden and tended the animals.
• I'm still taking a daily two-hour naps to get through the day. Between the baclofen, dantrolene, and seizure meds I stay sleepy. I haven't dared to take my valium to ease the increasing pain from the spasticity.
• I keep a 1lb hand and ankle weight on my functioning side by my computer and do 10 reps every two to three hours. While this succeeds in tiring me out further, it would be time spent watching a movie or show on Netflix anyhow.

Still I'm in slow motion. The stitches came out this week. They were starting to get itchy and getting caught in my abdominal binder. The incisions still catch me and let me know I can't move that way yet. So I know I'm healing. I've now finished all my antibiotics. If any germs lived through a month of four heavy duty antibiotics deserves to live. You'd think that I recover faster doing all of this, but I'm not. I'll keep at it. Maybe one day, I'll awaken full of energy and giddy up and go but I'm not holding my breath.

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival~ What Your Children Can Teach You

Last week, I touched on some of the problems my youngest daughter and I share. You see she is a traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor and I am a stroke survivor. The learning and relearning processes are very similar. Children learn from their parents, but little thought is given to what we as parents learn from our children.

Yes, we learn about life but so much more. I often say I use my children and grandchildren in my stroke recovery and it's true. I am now using all the learning strategies I taught with her with for me.

On the 20th of this month Stroke Tattler ran an article which I didn't post first here on my blog. You can read it HERE. The gist was dealing with the school system with a child I knew in my gut had a problem. Although it took seven years to find out the real answer to the question,"What's wrong with my child?" We found out and did our best to teach her how to cope with the traumatic brain injury which caused her problems.

A lot of damage went unaddressed in that seven years which had to be dealt with.

• Feeling stupid
• Low self worth
• Under achievement
• Depression
• Inappropriate reactions

These are hard to handle as an adult, but when you are ten years old it's a mountain of issues. We had to educate ourselves, go through trial and errors to fix them, and be encouraging at the same time. It wasn't easy, but we did it. It was another seven years spent remolding her image of herself from brain damaged to a person anybody would want to be.

We reinforced the negative (slow, retarded, stupid) with positives (unique like God made you, ability to think outside the box, fresh take on an old concept). How she could take pride in being unique instead of being singled out from the crowd labeled different. The kids even copied her hairstyles. Thinking it was cool. All of this led to something we coined as "Jennifer Logic." It was strictly hers. It was logical although she went around curved lines instead of just straight A to B. The irony was she was right when she explained her reasoning.

Jenn at Christmas toy drive 2001

It was just a fresh take. It also had it's own brand of humor. Like this picture from high school. She had just ate lunch and was stuffed and she was an animal. So she got in the box. When someone said stuffed animals had hair and were furry. She let down her hair and fluffed it out. It was down to her hips and she looked like Cousin It still standing in the box marked "Stuffed Animals." "Any more comments," she asked.

But by feeling unique, it empowered her. Although she never wanted to be part of the popular crowd, she was. She was also the voice for every kid that had problems and befriended them with open arms because she was one of them also. She knew what it was to be different than anyone else and take ownership of it. She took what we taught her and put the Jennifer twist on it making it her own.

Jenn in college 2010

When in college in 2010, she was diagnosed with a serious problem. She had graduated from high school and a specialty school already. Her Hemochromotosis dumped large amounts of iron forming tumors in her brain. It compiled into  huge chunks of iron attaching itself to the scars of her brain because of her brain injury. Because of the proximity to her brain stem, surgery wasn't an option. She would die in the attempt to remove them, or very likely be a vegetable for the rest of her life.

Everyone was brokenhearted about about losing her. She had this uncanny way of making everyone love her. The neurologist gave her the "any time now" speech and she'd best get her affairs in order. I held my child as she suffered and cried, "but I'm only 23. I haven't begun to live yet." Still she continued in college while we started looking for alternatives.

What she learned from me, never give up until you are dead and follow your dreams. What I learned from her, my words in action. While I had encountered several bad twists of fate in my life and beat the odds to achieve what I wanted, I have never faced death so bravely. She fought and fought hard in her own unique way.

Jenn and her stepfather 2011

Job offers started rolling in from all over the globe upon her graduation. But she hesitated. She was still under an experimental treatment protocols. Others in the programs had died or become too incapacitated to continue, but she rallied. The treatments called for injections into the brain stem via the back of the neck. She exhibited Parkinson like body movements and a worsening aphasia problems but still she continued every two weeks. My future son in law went to one of these treatment sessions to hold her hand during it. He passed out. He just couldn't believe that she was letting them do this to her. But it was keeping her alive.

Jenn and James 2011

Then she became pregnant. The treatments had to stop. She refused to abort the baby. "Don't worry Mom. I'm in God's hands now," was all she said to me. A month later we were in the neurologist's office with the latest set of CT scans. "Tumors? What tumors?" They were gone. She had a lot of complications with her pregnancy, but she presented me with a beautiful grandson in 2011. The doctor's words of "Any time now" was true, but not today. It's true for all of us.

I taught my children a lot over the years by leading by example, but they have taught me the same way. The coping techniques I taught her so many years ago have a voice in our daughter now as she encourages me not to give up and to keep trying. Could I do any less?

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stroke Survival~ Diaper, Pads and Back Again

Today, I'm talking about urinary incontinence and how life moves in a circular pattern. As a young child. you are toilet trained and you get out of diapers. When puberty hits, for a woman, you transition into pads for menstrual cycles.

All the wear and tear of child bearing years, just when you think you are getting ready to lose the pads forever, you sometimes develop leaks. So you add an occasional urinary pads, because when you laugh to hard or sneeze you lose bladder control.

For me, it was five tumors in my lower abdomen which caused the problem. Once they were removed with all my rusted old pipes of reproduction, part of my bladder, and my colon along with them. A mesh sling was implanted to prevent the bladder leaks. I was a happy camper. The tumors were thought to be the size of walnuts, before surgery, were actually the size of my surgeon's fist... all five of them. I survived. Extremely thankful it wasn't worse. No more bladder worries, I was done.

A funny things happens when you think you are done. You're not. I suffered a stroke and had to relearn a bathroom schedule like I did while my own children were potty training. I was back in diapers to prevent accidents on a much larger bottom than when I was a child. Restricting liquids for a period of time before bed and watching a clock. Every two hours I journey to the commode whether I feel the need or not. That's just to get out of diapers.

That tingling sensation I used to get as markers that I had to go was gone. I do feel a heavy weighted pressure in my lower abdomen when I shift positions as an indicator. But gone are the sensations that distinguish between a bowel movement and a full bladder.

So unless I fidget in my chair, think shifting your weight from one butt cheek to another, I cannot tell when nature calls until it is almost too late. I'd gotten so good at it that I transitioned to menstrual pads again versus the thick urinary pads within a week of being home from the hospital.

 Within a two month honeymoon of having my stroke, my heart started acting up again. I honestly loved that honeymoon period. For all extents and purposes, my heart was behaving like a normal, healthy heart. It was something I hadn't experienced for over half a decade. I was on no arrhythmia medicines and no diuretics.

I call it a honeymoon because it was joyful and short-lived. I figure it was God's Grace because He knows how much I can handle at one time. Dealing with chronic congestive hearty failure because your ticker isn't working right and a stroke was more than I could handle thus a honeymoon.

The first indicator that something was wrong was I stopped losing weight. The second was my paralyzed side started swelling. I'm not talking about a little bit of swelling. I'm talking about gross swelling. Fingers the size of hot dogs and toes like Vienna sausages. Hands and wrists the size of the incredible Hulk. I had to have my AFO widened and put a 9 1/2 shoe on a normal size 6 foot. Even the Velcro on my splints groaned in protest.

So far I've gone from diapers, potty training, pads to diapers, potty training to pads again. Now compounding or hampering my successful feeling is a diuretic. My cardiologist's choice was heavy doses of Lasix for the first two weeks then a daily maintenance dose. I dropped thirteen pounds in three days. That's how much fluid I was retaining in my body. Almost 90% of it in the paralyzed side.

What does Lasix do to a bathroom schedule? It shoots it full of holes! I was getting up every twenty minutes and going to the bathroom during the first four hours during the heavy dosing. I almost wanted to be back in diapers for all the underwear I flooded. But vanity wouldn't allow that. I just kept a stash of granny panties in the bathroom cabinet.

Now the dose has been backed down to a maintenance dose so it isn't that bad...only one hour like the poor kitty to the right. Twenty steps to the bathroom, a couple of minutes to snatch my pants and panties down one-handed, and I'm set.

In spite of all my efforts, I still pee my pants or dribble. It's a no win scenario. So what do I have to look forward to in the future as I continue aging...just more of the same. Life runs in full circles like driving donuts in a parking lot with your automobile. I doesn't stop until you run out of gas.

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.

Saturday Saunter~ Botox Werked 4 Me!

Yes, the title is misspelled on purpose. Sometimes you just have to be bad when you feels so good. And, I also know it's Saturday and not a regular post day for me, but I have to share.

For months, I have been suffering with increased tone and spasticity in the wrist and fingers not to mention other joints affected by my stroke similar to the picture, but imagine the the hand clenched in a tight fist with the thumb set at a ninety degree angle. That would be my hand, but the wrist is about right. The wrist wouldn't move past neutral into extension, and the fingers after thirty minutes work, would half way straighten.

Wrist splint

It was frustrating at best and painful work to get that accomplished. Even wearing my resting hand splint or my wrist splint was impossible. The spasticity was so bad that even wearing these splint became extremely painful after a few minutes, let alone the hours I was supposed to wear them.

Resting hand splint

My fingers would curl and my wrist would arch while in the devices. My body was fighting the rigid plastic and the steel. My thumb would even work its way past the padded restraints because, you didn't want to place the straps so tight that it would cut off blood circulation.

I'm supposed to where the resting hand splint while sleeping and inactive. The wrist splint takes the place of the resting hand splint for several hours a day. But, you can't wear it and move around. It weighs about five pounds. Imagine being on Lasix, a diuretic, for your heart and having this thing on, and not having the sensation of having to urinate unless you shift positions? Yeah, it's an off/on things rather quickly!

It looks like instruments of torture to nonstroke survivors, but for stroke survivors with high tone and spasticity they are a must do. See the silver on the sides of the wrist splint above? That's steel rods.

Standard pill bottle & large

About the best I could do was wrap my fingers around a large pill bottle most days. My neurologist told me to keep a rolled up washcloth in my hand, but the pill bottle was bigger. In this case, bigger is better.

I had Botox injections last week in my bicep, pectoral muscle, and for my wrist and hand in the forearm. A short painful necessity when tone and spasticity does not respond to any other treatment. All together 20 injection sites in one arm and under it in the chest wall. Two whole bottles at $365 each went into this area. Thank God for insurance!

Once again, we will makes the maximum out of pocket expense allowable for the year per our insurance plan by the end of January. We still have eleven months to go. It's sad when you think about it. It is such a joy getting older. Heavy sarcasm intended.

I awoke this morning and did my morning ritual, but something was different. My wrist was extending and the fingers except for the thumb was relaxed. No, not full extension, but I managed twenty degrees past neutral. It's a start. Even though the shots worked on my bicep and pectoral muscle last time, there was a niggling doubt whether it would work on my wrist and hand. It's all about hitting the right spot.

I'm doing the Snoopy dance of happiness right now. I worked the wrist and fingers stretching them out to find the limits so I'll know when there's more improvement. I think I over did it because the muscles are exhausted and have resume their previous state before the shots, but I did it! It werked!

I'm waiting on Monday and the doctor's office to open for an OT therapy order. Meanwhile, I'll wiggle my dance in my chair and stretch my shoulder and elbow. Happy, excited, and once again filled with hope at the possibilities.

Sunday Stroke Survival~Baking and Doing Dishes

Now normally for Christmas, I'm feeding fifty to seventy-five people that's just the closest family members. My family didn't start out this huge...it was just my mom, dad, little sister, and me. We were just an ideal semi-American text book family.

My Girls and me

Then some friend of ours died in an automobile accident, and my family adopted their children...all seven of them. That was the population explosion in sheer madness in numbers. Later we grew up and had children of our own, and their children started having children. Up until the death this year of my step grandmother, it was four generations at any family gathering.

Every year I gave each family an assortment of cookies. Some were my own recipe and some were my grandmother's treasured recipes. That won't happen this year. Imagine... 144 dozen cookies! That's a lot of cookies just short of a professional bakery. Also this year marks, the first time I am not prepping or cooking for this small army of relatives. My stroke changed all of that.

I've done very little cooking since my stroke except for popping things in the microwave. It has been a major battle inside my brain with the former chef in me. I love to cook and bake. It has been a passion of mine since I chased all the servants out of the kitchen, and made my first vegetable soup and cake for my parents' anniversary way back in 1969. Bet that's longer than some of you readers have been on Earth. I've run a catering business, been the line cook, been the executive chef, been the general manager of restaurants, and a culinary instructor. So having to turn over the reins to someone else really gets my goat big time.

I asked my husband for one of those cake pop ovens for Christmas. I thought they wouldn't be to difficult to make one-handed. Since it just the two of us in the house, it didn't make sense to buy a pan which makes a dozen or more. Also it didn't make sense electricity-wise. Anyhow, it arrived last week just in time for my kitchen-aid mixer to die a horrible death. I can't really complain. It's lasted me ten years and I definitely put it through more than enough to make twenty standard hand-held mixers scream in protest with all the wedding cakes, cheesecakes, gallons of frosting, and meals I used it for.

Anderson cake 580 servings

So here I am with a new toy and unable to play with it. I have a hand held mixer. It was my backup for small amounts of colored frosting, but I have trouble using it now. Too many switches, bowls to hold, and hold the mixer too with one-handed. I bought a new stand mixer. It's a cheap one, but it works. I won't be making six to eight tiered wedding cakes again anytime soon.

Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting

I figured right. the cake pops were easy. The regular cake mixes made too much batter so I poured the leftover into Rubbermaid water bottles. One cake mix, I'm still not ready to make it from scratch, will make enough batter for a week of fresh cake, baking every other day  for us. The Rubbermaid water bottles are easy enough to handle one-handed. It's just squeeze enough into the cups and close the lid of the oven to bake. Four minutes and I have fresh cake. Decorating them is just melting some store bought frosting and dipping. I haven't tried fancy decorating yet just some swirls back and forth across them, and some sprinkles. But wait, as my confidence builds, I'll be experimenting more.

Another milestone I've made is figuring out how to wash dishes one-handed. Now I have an automatic dishwasher, but as little as we eat, it would take a week to make a full load. I mean really, two small pots, two plates, two glasses, and eating utensils for a dishwasher load? Who would do that? I don't put out serving utensils since I make up the plates from the pots and serve one hot meal a day.

I'll carry them to my bathroom sink. It's small. It has sides. I can fill the sink halfway with water and wash dishes to my hearts content. I will wash my sink before and after I do this. The last line is for all you people that went "Ewww!"when you read that. I tried to wash dishes in my kitchen. It was just to big to hold my dishes and try to wash them too. I just didn't have enough hands. Dish washing is usually a two-handed activity.

Unfortunately while taking the added time to figure out all this new stuff, my writing time has been impacted. While I'm still writing this week, I'm in Christmas mode, aren't we all? I think I accomplished 600 words in the manuscript. Maybe I'm trying to do too much once again. Possibly, but that's who I am Mrs. Overachieving-Everything. While it's been said that you should or try to learn something new everyday. I'm slower now. Instead of learning or trying five somethings everyday, it's more like one every other day. I'll be putting up a new snippet soon, so be watching.

So what have you learned this week?

Keep writing and loving the Lord.

Sunday Stroke Survival and an Excerpt

I figured after my stroke I'd experience a year of firsts. Similar to the grief process or a baby. If you've been reading my Sunday blog since June, all of it has been about this year of firsts. In fact, my new nonfiction is full of stories about my first whatever since my stroke, and other dumb and hilarious things I do. I do know it may take longer than a year to recovery, but if stubbornness and effort counts for anything, two years will be my target.

You also notice that I compare myself to my grandchildren in the way they grow and learn. I'm still celebrating the fact that I've reached a teenie-bopper writing level. While with practice, I may again reach the doctorate level like my thesis. I'm just happy that I can write on an eighth grade level for my fiction writing. For when I start writing fiction again. Eventually, that is my overall goal. I still have a dozen manuscripts to write and/or edit.

Now as promised an excerpt from Don't Get Your Panties in a Wad. I believe I said this one would be about hair, but as a female I reserve to right to change my mind and I did. Enjoy.

Copyright 2012 J. L. Murphey All Rights Reserved

My first shower after I got home was an interesting event. You could almost say it was event filled. Imagine a five by seven foot bathroom. Now, my daughter was nice enough to set up my raised toilet seat and put the shower chair, adjusted, into the bath tub. I got the shower chair without the transfer bench, rails, or back unlike the one I sat on at the shower at the hospital because my bathroom was designed with a cast iron tub and shower combo.  I don't have a walk-in shower. Because of space limitations of my fifty-year old bathroom, the extra equipment was a tight fit.

Because I didn't get the transfer bench, I had her place two legs outside the tub and two legs inside so the seat straddled the tub allowing me easy access, or so I thought. The toilet sits next to the bathtub and with the added contraption of the raise toilet seat, it was one of those bedside commodes, it left me a little over twelve inches to maneuver to reach the faucets. It was poor planning on my part with space constraints, so I had no other choice short of calling a plumber and redirecting all the water and drain works. I did lay out my clothes in the order of how I would put them on; socks, underwear, and duster.

I wiggled my way into the space and turned on the tap. I don't know about your house, but my water heater is at the other side of the house, it takes some mighty long minutes to get the hot water to run out of the tap. While I was waiting for the water to warm up, I undressed leaving my AFO on. I backed my legs until it bumped up to the seat, oh my therapist would be so proud of me, and plopped my generous rear end onto the chair.

But without hand holds, I misjudged the distance and fell harder than I would have liked for full control. For the briefest of seconds, I was freefalling, not a comfortable feeling at all. My back and head stopped my fall by colliding with the ceramic soap dish and tiled wall enclosure...thunk. It took me a few more seconds before the little tweety birds stopped circling my head and the bells finished ringing, while my legs were still outside the bathtub. Talk about a "Thank you, Jesus!" moment and I repeated it in rapid succession. It sounds scarier than it was. My bathtub/shower combo two and a half feet wide and the drop, in reality, was a less than six inches. It just felt like ten feet.

Now came the part where I lifted my feet into the tub. Left leg went into the tub...no problem. My left leg is fully functional. My right foot hooked onto the commode seat leg as I swung it around to the tub. There I am holding my leg up with my foot entangled on the leg, without the AFO on, and teetered with precarious balance on a stool with no back. Good thing the toilet seat leg had my foot or I would have tumbled off the seat for sure. I placed my leg down, and swiveled so my back was against the wall for balance. The "fall" had placed the fear of God in me. So there I was sitting on a plastic chair with metal legs, my back against the cold tile, spread eagle with one leg in the tub, one leg out of the tub, and decided I needed a breather while I rethink this getting into the tub strategy.

Finally, I caught my second wind and tried again. I scooted my bottom against soap dish and lifted my leg to the top of the rails of the commode seat with my foot resting on the hand support. So far so good, I swung my leg around to place it in the tub...my foot caught the shower curtain. Man, oh man, I thought as I extricated my foot from the curtain, the things some people do for a shower. Now, I'm set or so I thought, as I pulled the shower curtain closed. The curtain would not keep the water from spilling out onto the floor without the seat being fully in the tub. I chuckled at my own ingenuity as I tucked the bottom edge of the curtain underneath my hinny to hold it in place and lifted the handheld shower. I had a poof on a stick and my favorite Olay body wash ready and waiting. My company had bought a gross of these novelty bath items for gift baskets ten years before, and this was a leftover. This is going to feel so good, I thought as I sprayed my body liberally with hot water from head to toes.

I reached for my shampoo, not the body wash/shampoo combination they'd given me at the hospital, but the real thing. In the hospital, one of my daughters had used the waterless/ rinseless shampoos they used with the Hospice patients. I was determined to wash my hair with real shampoo. I'd dreamed of it for a month...fully soaking my head, rubbing it into a full, rich lather, and, according to the directions on the bottle, rinse and repeat. Simply luxurious, not too many things are better than the simple pleasures in life. While I reached for my favorite Herbal Essence shampoo it hit me, I had moved the body wash and poof within easy reach, but my shampoo was still up in the rack hanging off the main shower head. It stared down at me from its lofty perch laughing at me, "Nanny-nanny-poo-poo, you can't get me."

I looked up and wondered two things: how could have been so forgetful, and how was I going to get my shampoo? My brain started churning, even though it worked like a dying car starter. You know the slow sound it makes, whir, whir, whir, and before it finally does the click, click sound when it finally dies...this was what my brain was like in active thinking mode. I couldn't stand up without falling. I needed longer arms, but knew that was impossible. What would make my arms longer? My walker came to mind, but it was big and bulky. My Grab-it would work, but it was two rooms away, and I'd have to get out of the tub, dry off, and put on my AFO and shoes. All of a sudden, the prospect of having fresh washed hair didn't seem so appealing.

But I've already got my body wet, my mind protested like a child whining in a store wanting a toy that the mother had said no to. There's gotta be a way to get the shampoo off the rack, and then I looked down to the poof on a stick between my knees. Longer arms! I inched my way forward on the chair as far as I dared, and swatted at the bottle. Nothing, it barely budged. The lip wire held it in place like it was supposed to do, but I was determined. I swatted again and again at the bottle. The most that happened was it fell sideways in the rack further embedding it into the holder, so I sat there thinking of a way to get it. Meanwhile, hot water is running out of my Pollenex hand-held shower massager in my lap. That's one good thing I can say about my solar powered, on-demand water heater during summer...I have abundant hot water.

I really couldn't call for help. My husband was asleep in our bedroom, and being deaf, he wouldn't have heard me anyhow. I reasoned it out. The shower holder was just hooked on the shower head. If I hit the bottom of the rack, it would eventually slide off the shower head. I would have patted myself on the back for my reasoning skills except I had the bath poof in my only working hand. It took ten strikes at the bottom, but eventually the rack came down and the shampoo bottle fell into the tub. Success! And to quote Hannibal Smith from the "A-Team" television show, "I love it when a plan comes together."

I reached down for the shampoo. I couldn't pour the shampoo onto my hand in a measured amount so I pour a dollop onto my leg, closed the lid, and put the shampoo on the tub ledge in the corner. "God, I'm good," I said as I transferred the shampoo to my hair and rubbed until I got the rich lather I craved.

After I washed my hair and leaving the soap in my hair in a beehive reminiscent of the 60's, I washed the rest of my body, and then rinsed. I remembered the maneuver from getting into the tub and repeated it until my legs were outside the bathtub. Then I noticed the water pooled on the floor. I'd forgotten that even though I had the shower curtain trapped under my hinny, there were holes all in the shower chair. I reached for the towel while seated on the stool, that's the beauty of a five by seven-foot bathroom everything is in easy reach. I laid it over the puddle.

I toweled my hair dry, and then dried my legs and feet. I put on my socks, AFO, and shoes so I could stand up. Since my shower chair had no rails, I used the rails on my toilet seat to stand. Once I had my balance, I draped the towel over the commode to dry my back as I sat on it.  Grabbing another towel from the rack to dry the rest of me while seated, I couldn't fall while firmly seated. The bathroom floor mat had darker shoe impressions where I stepped. It was soaked. I scooped it up and put it in the bathtub.

<end of excerpt>

So have had many firsts?
Keep writing and loving the Lord.