After a Stroke~ It's the Little Things That Irritate

After a stroke attempting to do anything "normal" is grounds for frustration. I've talked about quite a few on this blog. I got around washing dishes (because we use so few) by doing them in the bathroom sink.

The Problem
For two years, I've been asking OTs for a solution for washing glasses by hand. It took this month to find an answer that works and it was mine. Inside of the glasses... no problem, but the outside...woah, Nellie!

I was so-o-o-o-o frustrated I was even looking at replacing my 16 oz glasses that I bought a month before my stroke for some square ones just so I could wash the outsides more easily. Not to mention that I've broken 8 out of 12 just trying to wash them. Four glasses are plenty for the two of us. If more than four are needed there is always paper or plastic, or a coffee mug.

I tried everything. Nonslip pads, towels bunched up and rolled, and even using other dishes to semi hold the glass in place while I washed the outside of the glass. Let's face it the shape is rounded and it rolls, and worse yet it's slippery especially with soap and water on it. You end up washing half a glass's outside over and over again. The other side, not so much. It just irritated me. I could wash an entire kitchen sink full of dishes one handed, including silverware, in the time it took me to wash one, stinking glass. But I refuse to drink most of my drinks in those one serving containers, but prefer a glass.

The Solution

So my new-ish OT were talking about this problem. We were bouncing ideas off each other. Most of hers, I'd tried and failed (broke the glass or failed to get it clean). They must teach these in OT school or something. I told her what I needed was one of those thing-a-bobs bartenders used to wash glasses with. It washes both the inside and outside of the glass. The kind that suctioned cup to the bottom of the sink.

She pulled out the adaptability supply catalog and nothing of the sort was offered.  Then the light bulb went off in my head. I was an executive chef once upon a time and still got restaurant supply catalogs. They were priced between $45-$65. I never thought of it as sticker shock when I was buying supplies for the restaurants I worked for. But now, my mouth hit the floor. Kind of steep in price. But I was frustrated enough to start rolling pennies again. Heck, I'd have to roll pennies again for new glasses too.

Well, Saturday, my grandsons came over to do the yard work so I had time to go shopping. Not the know what you are going to buy and shop, but look around and search type shopping. I had to go out and find some smaller shirts for my husband anyhow. Might as well look for brushes I could convert into a glasses brush like the one pictured above.

My shopping was done at thrift stores like church stores, Goodwill, and Salvation Army. Just because something is second hand doesn't mean it's trash. Most of the clothing has been gently used. I don't want to invest a lot of money into my husband's shirts. He just has lost so much weight that his regular medium shirts looked like XXL on him. Granted his rib cage is still the same size but there's no fat or muscle padding them. Men do have their egos and vanity to consider. I've learned to tread very lightly on them.

While looking through the odds and ends, what do you think I found. You guessed it. AND for $2.99! Well within my price range. So I bought him one less shirt than I originally planned. I still bought five, button down, dress shirts. The aides hate having to button the buttons but he hates polo shirts and t-shirts.

Polder is not a top of the line brand of bartender equipment, but it will do for my purposes. Replacement brushes are anywhere between $15 to $32 depending on where I get them if I need them. It's still cheaper than the models I was looking at brand new. So still it's a win-win situation.

The other thing I found that is a real godsend is the handle scrubbers(palm scrubbers by O Cedar). They come in nylon, steel, and copper. I've even found them at the Dollar Tree, the local dollar store. Needless to say, I buy them there now. It sure beats $3.99 at the grocery store.

I still have my dishrags for therapy, elbow extension

Shamelessly fishing for compliments :)

exercises, while cleaning my counters. It sure saves my finger nails and cuticles too. Not that I'm into fashion nails or polish, nor the glamorous life. Torn finger nails and cuticles are just painful. Cute, huh? Why thank you. I made them.

Living post stroke is a daily challenge at the very least. But with a little brainstorming, feedback, and some ingenious inventor out there, it can be done.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

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.