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.

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.

 

Been Distracted This Week & Another Excerpt

I've been distracted this week by shoulder pain. With the steroid injections in my shoulder late Friday, it still feels like a sledgehammer pounded it. It should ease up in another day or so. Alternating heat and ice in the mean time, and the doctor was nice enough to prescribe some pain killers to take the edge off. I don't know if any of you have taken Ultram, but it's as effective as peeing on a house fire in dealing with strong pain. But it does does the sharp edge off so I can sleep. I can't write a coherent sentence on it so it must be doing something.

Now, additional kickers...it's back to therapy under private pay. My wallet is really not looking forward to that. Twelve appointments at a minimum of $120 a visit. I was also given another catch-22...possible surgery to repair the damage. I'm not looking forward to that either. My orthopedist will have to battle with my cardiologist and my neurologist on that front. So I've been muddling through all this new influx of information this weekend. Needless to say, I'm scared despite my faith...not of dying, but having another stroke. The final decision date is coming up December 14th.

My mantra during my three bouts of cancer...1) I'm in God's hands, 2) I'm too stubborn to give up, & 3) I'm too mean to die; is wearing a bit thin after months of setbacks. I still have faith and will say my usual prayer,"Lord, if I die during surgery, I will be content because my work is complete and I'm with You. If I live, I know my job isn't finished upon this earth." I will put this in my "Give it to God Box" and His will remains supreme. I'm still doing all my home therapy to try and not lose anymore ground.

Enough morbid stuff! I promised you and excerpt. I've managed a 1,000 words this week. Yeah me! It's a working WIP.

Don't Get Your Panties in a Wad (c) 2013 JoAnn Mefford All Rights Reserved
Section 2 TCU excerpt. WARNING: the content does contain a cuss word and it is about a bodily function.
(excerpt begins)

Bowel movements are an entity all to themselves. Before you had your stroke you were probably like me and you looked at what you deposited in the toilet. Color, composition, and texture hold some very important clues to your health. Now, it's a six-point turn to look, but I still do. One of the questions on most forms when you go to new doctor deals with this.

What? You don't? Well, aren't I just Mrs. Abby Normal again! Well after my stroke, I didn't dare even try. I didn't feel the urge to go. One of the questions asked on admittance to the TCU was when my last bowel movement was. I had to think back. It was Friday the day of my admission to the local hospital for my stroke. Almost a week had gone by.  But then, I was on IV fluids, and I ate less than 25% of the liquid diet and puree. Not much solid waste to dispose of, I reasoned. It was determined that I needed a laxative to get my bowels moving to determine if the problem wasn't stroke related. Now, I rarely use laxatives because they always cause diarrhea in me even the gentlest ones. I normally eat a thirty grams fiber diet which controls any bowel issues.  It works for me. So they ordered a daily stool softener and laxative.

Let me tell you it was a mess. The urge to go to the bathroom hit just as I was wheeled into OT, not first thing upon waking. I told my therapist I needed to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was huge and meant for maneuvering wheelchairs around. Think the ultimate handicapped bathroom. I could almost fit both of my two full sized bathrooms in this one room. As was usual, I got diarrhea from the laxative.  I was in there so long, my therapist checked on me twice. After I was finally finished half my OT time was gone.

I still had the urinary catheter in place. Then came the clean up. I honestly tried to wipe myself. Since I'm left hand able only and the toilet paper holder was on my right, I held a roll of toilet paper with my good hand. The roll of toilet paper got away from my one handed self and rolled towards the door with me holding one end. I figured I could pull what I needed very gently and pray the cheap stuff wouldn't tear. My balance was horrendous so just the simple movement of sliding to the edge of the raised seat to wipe my bottom put me in the precarious position of falling off the commode seat.

I grabbed the safety bar to steady myself and lost my hold of the end of the toilet paper. Maybe I could reach the end with my good foot. I pulled the non skid socks off with my weakened foot. I stretched out my foot as far as I dared and grabbed a tiny edge with my toes. My toes shredded the paper, and then I had small pieces of toilet paper stuck between my toes. It was as if I had been painting my toe nails. Slipping, my brain's alarm bells went off and I could feel my left foot arching inwards, shifting my body weight closer to the edge of the toilet and a started tilting forward. I had to act fast to keep from falling. Like a sole survivor of a ship wreck clinging to a round life preserver, it was either hold the bar or slip to cold, hard tiles floor making a further mess at the very least, or hurting myself. My naked left foot firmly placed on the floor and my right leg and ankle too weak to hold me. The floor was my least favorite outcome.

I was stuck. A dirty job to clean up, me teetering on the edge of the toilet, toilet paper unrolled across the floor and out of reach with bits between my toes. I swallowed my pride and hit the emergency call switch. The pull cord was draped over the safety bar. All it took was tugging it with my pinkie of my good hand. So much for my "I do it" attitude. I was defeated. What other choice did I have?

My therapist came in saw the roll of toilet paper spiraled across the floor as if a cat had played with it for an hour, and me hanging onto the grab bar as if it were the only thing saving me from certain death. "Need help?" 

I nodded thoroughly ashamed. Her voice was so matter-of-fact and I imagined she'd seen it all before, but still, this was me.

She adjusted me back centered on the commode, donned some gloves, and pulled some of heavy-duty diaper wipes (think huge, thick diaper wipes-if you haven't seen them) which proved to be useless. The lotion to protect against skin breakdown they put in them made more of a mess. She took a clean roll of toilet paper from the cabinet. She stood in front of me while I bent over and hugged her legs for balance while she cleaned my bottom for me. Just like my daughter cleans my five-month old grandson's bottom, I thought, and as I done hers so many years ago.

By the time it was all said and done, that was my ADL lesson for the day. Mortified and completely cleaned inside and out, I lay in my bed utterly done in from the experience thinking this was an awful first impression for my therapist to have of me. She must think I'm a real ass. She had seen more of my buttocks in that one session than my face.
(end of excerpt)

I know there is some over use of some words in this, but this is still a rough draft.

You know you want to!




Keep writing and loving the Lord.