Sunday Stroke Survival: If All Else Fails, Punt

I know football season is over for another year, and punting a football is nigh on impossible living post stroke, but if the shoe fits you wear it. Hmm, wonder if I fit enough clinches in the first line? I also said the no-no word "impossible."<grin>

Jo, are you feeling okay? Actually, I'm fine and dandy so put your mind at rest. I just get frustrated at times and that's what this blog is about...working through frustration.

Everyone gets frustrated from time to time. But, as a stroke survivor, it seems to happen more frequently over the littlest stuff. Mainly, you are trying to  do something that should be second nature to you you've done it for so long before your stroke. Like walking or going to the bathroom, but all of that went out the window after your brain fart. Actually it's known as a brain infarct, but it's the many times where you go, "Oops, that didn't work right," and PFFT, it's gone." Thoughts evaporated just like the knowledge was never there.

Normally, before your stroke, you chocked it up to being busy or having too many irons in the fire. God forbid, you give age credit for these mishaps especially if you're under 50 to old fart's disease or CRAFT. You can blame it on old fart's disease, if your over 50. But now, after your stroke, it happens all the time and it gets frustrating to live with.

I often repeat what Thomas Edison says about creating the light bulb here.  You don't think he got frustrated a few times during this process? I'll bet he did. There are plenty of times along this living post stroke journey that I've looked at this and said, Edison was a braver man than me. But then, I realize he only tried 10,001 ways, I'm well above that number in attempts to walk unaided by my AFO or cane, and regaining use of my arm in almost six years of living post stroke. I still haven't found that one successful way of making them work like they are supposed to, but I haven't quit yet either.

Do you ever just get tired of adapting and just want to do? Oh, yeah! It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to have to adapt everything to get anything done. I've always taken pride in my adaptability. I was able to turn on a dime to figure out a way to do something. With the starvation and blood killing off millions of brain cells, even my turns now take a minimum of three points to make a turn (physically and mentally). But, I thank God for this adaptability trait every single day. It allows me to still follow my dreams (more on this in a future post). In other words, I fall back and punt. Going with Plan B, is never anyone's first choice or it wouldn't be Plan B, would it? Even if it takes Plan C,D, or even F to get where you want to be, isn't it worth it? Whenever you strive for something more, there will be frustration. Think of it as a stretched Newton's Law of Relativity.

The thing that balances the frustration-doing point is desire. You have to want to do it. Edison wanted to create the light bulb. It didn't matter how many attempt it took him to him. He had the desire to do. So what are you that passionate about?

Coping strategies

• Those passionate things would be the things to focus on first. Count each little success until you achieve the big one. It takes a lot of dominoes to make a chain reaction of them falling in sequence. 
• Pick several passionate things to achieve. Work at each one. When one things gets too overwhelming or frustrating switch to another.
•  Give yourself some wiggle room and plenty of pats on the back along the way. 
• Look at things often retrospectively to see progress is being made. 

The comparison may surprise even you. The first time I used a knife after my stroke was awkward  and ineffective, but now I can cut anything. I just kept trying. Most times now, my fancy Swedish adaptive cutting board never gets used. Sure, the cuts aren't straight my cubes are even, but I get the job done with little effort. Retrospective vision is often overlooked. Don't do that! Allow yourself to give yourself pats on the back frequently because you've worked hard for them. Remember, if it were easy there would be no frustration.

Nothing is impossible.

Sunday Stroke Survival: Adapting Using YouTube

As I've said, I've become a YouTube junkie since my strokes. Most videos are short and to the point. Some offer in depth details on how to accomplish certain things. There are also a pile of videos on anything you can imagine. For many, this is a untapped resource.

Now I don't think everyone that makes a video is an expert on what they are showing. Far from it. A lot of YouTube creators are novices just like me. Me, I'm Abby Normal so I enjoy quirky creativity. Otherwise known as thinking outside the box. If there was only one way to do things, let's face it as a stroke survivor, we'd be up the creek without a paddle.

I like options. I guess that's my saving Grace. I don't like things to be the same. I honestly like change as long as its for the better. I know life is about adapting to change. Otherwise, I feel like a smelly, stagnating pond yearning for a refreshing input of clean water.A chance to rejuvenate into something more. That's not to mean I welcomed my strokes. I would be certifiably nuts to want that. But still, being paralyzed, recovering, the spasticity battles, and everything else has been a challenge to overcome. I've never faced a challenge without giving the old college try of beating it. This was has been daunting. But I still haven't given up.

I watch assorted YouTube channels and think, "How can I do that?" If I reach a decision that it's impossible right now, I watch several others and see how that creator did it. If I watch enough ideas, I eventually figure out a way to do it or not. Somethings even with adaptation isn't possible without help.

sweet potatoes

Last week, I harvested sweet potatoes and left them to dry. It being Sunday, homesteaders never have a day off, it was either process them or start to losing them. I wasn't going to allow that. They weren't huge, but enough that two would make a nice side dish. We are still amending our soil for better harvests. Next year, will be better.

I wanted to leave the nicer ones whole and store them in a box for fresh baking. I do love baked sweet potatoes. I could make a whole meal with them. Meanwhile there was a slew of them which were misshapen and sliced by my shovel that had to be canned. I've never frozen sweet potatoes before so I didn't even consider it.

left whole for storage, >than 1/2 the harvest

Now as a person with one usable hand, I have extreme difficulty peeling vegetables. Most times I leave the skin on and just scrub them. But sweet potatoes have to be skinned before canning. I asked Mel to peel them and she was disinclined.  I placed them in my big 23-qt water bath canner and boiled them for 5 minutes to soften the skins. I was hoping to loosen the skins enough too peel them with my fingers. It worked. I sat by my jars and peeled, sliced, and filled my jars. After about an hour, I had filled five pints jars this way. Mel took pity on me and peeled the rest with a paring knife. Soon, my pressure canner was full of 18 pint jars of sweet potatoes. It took Mel an hour to peel all the rest. It was so much faster with her helping. Not that I couldn't have done it myself, I was getting it done. I did adapt, but allowed for expediency.

Today, it's on to the corn. I saw a YouTube video on how to make a cut corn off the cob easily with a drill and thought, I can do that.

Of course my buckets were larger than my corn device so it took so adaption for me to do it one handed. Although I could have built it.  I left it to Mel to build. Up until now, I froze the corn whole in its shuck, but now I have corn kernels and creamed corn canned too!

With YouTube I've relearned how to garden, knit, spin wool, cook, and assorted other skills I thought were lost to me forever since my strokes.

So if you've ever sat in wonder of how I do all that I do living post stroke, now you have the answer.

Nothing is impossible.

What a Difference a Week Makes

I don't know why I'm surprised, but each time after the Botox kicks in, I am. I had therapy yesterday. The Botox hasn't kicked in totally because there are still grabs and catches during therapy in the bicep, pectoral, and other muscles in my hemiplegic arm. I mean some hard catches that make me take a sharp intake of breath. The spasticity never truly goes away completely. The spasticity just becomes more manageable.

We were warming up with stretches after the heat packs. I know, I know it should be cold packs, but I'm Abby Normal that way. We've done both, but the hot packs work better.

Now pre- AC joint tear, I had recovered about 85% of my shoulder's range of motion. For the first time in two years, I hit the 85% again. The therapist had my arm over my head in the supine position. Yeah, it was passive motion on my part.  My active range will come later, but for now, it's just stretching. But let me tell you, it hurt so good!

She was surprised, because she's my new therapist and hasn't seen this range from me before. I just wanted to see how far it would actually go before the muscles clenched. Yeah me!

Now for the down side. It only took a couple of hours after therapy before I knew we had pushed too far. Yep, you guessed it. The muscles screamed at me and it was ache and groans upon movement of the arm. I hopped in the shower. Alright, it was more like I sat on the shower chair and pivoted into the shower. I let the scalding hot water pulse the sore muscles away. I did take an extra 4 mgs of Zanaflex too.

I got out and was feeling groggily, content over the achievement I made. Literally drifting on cloud 9 because of the extra dose of muscle relaxer. I went through the rest of the evening in the clouds (read drugged fog). Nothing bothered me. A self satisfied grin firmly painted on my face. I did it!

This morning, there was a residual soreness but nothing like the day before. I'll be ready to do it again. A little bit later, I'll try the stretch again via a Theraband tied to my cannonball bedpost. I won't be as aggressive with myself as yesterday because I want to be in good shape for therapy tomorrow.

I've gotten a number of lengths and colors (resistance strengths) of bands over the years and if I need more, all I have to do is ask. They last forever. I've got some that are ten years old. They have a permanent place of honor in my sock drawer. Why do I keep them, you may ask. I just remember my Mama telling me, "There will always be an again." So far, she hasn't been proven wrong.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stroke Survival ~ Failure is NOT an Option

A few weeks ago Barb Polan talked on her blog about failures as a stroke survivor. I say failure is not an option I will not accept it in recovery ever. How about you?

• Do you look at your rehab efforts and recovery as failure?
• Do you look at you rehab efforts and recovery as humbling?
• Do you look at your rehab efforts and recovery as setting yourself up for failure?

Stop that! ( Dean that's for you grinning)

You are not empowering yourself, but demoralizing yourself and setting yourself up for failure. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Ever heard of it? The thing about stroke recovery is that it's all about the brain...damaged brain, healing brain, thinking brain, and the visual brain. The human mind is powerful and is constantly learning until the day you die. The neurons are constantly firing to remember, to store, produce movements, and has redundant system operating systems just waiting for re-education and activation.

You've all heard the phrase, "You are what you eat." The same applies to stroke recovery, "You are what you think." I often use a quote from Edison and always screw it up. I find 10,000 to big of a number to visualize. Have you ever visualized it? It looks like a crowded mess. But the point is taken...keep trying until success.

To feel successful is awesome to anyone.It is strived for and just as elusive to obtain for everyone. Granted we just want to have our old lives back prior to the stroke. But realize this...even with 100% recovery, it won't be the same lives EVER. We are forever changed by circumstances we live through.

Okay, so you want to be a little more normal. Like me, I'd love to have my right arm back. Life would would be semi-sorta normal if I could use two arms, elbows, wrists, and fingers. Just the thought fills me with abundant joy, but that just ain't happening right now.

thinkstock.com

I remember my in hospital based rehab just after my stroke, I was determined and very optimistic about making it happen before I came home. It didn't happen. Okay, I thought, two months of hard work and I'll have partial use. It didn't happen. Then the date was within six months of my stroke. Nope, but I did manage some voluntary elbow movement. A victory to be sure, but was it enough to me? Nope. I extended my goal to a year, my first anniversary of my stroke. In fact, I back tracked due to a separated AC tear in my shoulder and spasticity set in. Was I disappointed, yes! Was I a failure, no.

therealbeastboy@deviantart.com

All of this was very disheartening but a failure to achieve? Because that's what failure or the sense of failure really is. Nope. I was still attempting my goal. I am still attempting my goal after almost 18 months post stroke. Just what have I achieve and grab onto as successful. That's the key to any good cheerleader. "That's okay. That's alright. Now get up and fight, fight, fight!"

But what if you've been going at recovery for weeks, months, or years without success? How do you keep going and not accept failure as an option? I don't know about years because I'm not there yet, but it helps to have a good support network. Even if it is one person. A spouse, a dog, your kid, another stroke survivor, even if that one person is me. 

I'm donning my high school cheerleading outfit. Actually, truth be known, I never was a cheerleader, but I did dress up as one for Halloween. Hmm, it rides up at the midsection. Grumble, grumble. Darn these spandex panties. one leg fits into the waist band now. Ah heck, good enough. Here I go. Squeezing the pom pom into my paralyzed hand and grabbing one in my functional one and waving them wildly visually.

"Go Strokee go!

If you can't do it

Nobody can!" 

It's all basically up to you.

Nothing is impossible with determination.

Sunday Stroke Happenings and the Indie Author

Typing one-handed is a challenge, but is doable. It just takes some finagling. But some things on the keyboard is more challenging than others like pressing <ctr, alt, del> at the same time.

Things that normally takes two hands are near impossible. I say "near impossible" because they honestly can be done with a little ingenuity.  I have figure out how to do the little <shift and mouse click> to check all the boxes in my e-mails to delete multiple e-mails at the same time. But I have finagled a way to do it if I place the cursor and mouse in the right configuration. Not so difficult ...try it. Figuring out how to use the shift key and some others while typing was a trip down the yellow brick road in stretching the fingers to accommodate the movement.

My typing speed has grown to a whopping twenty WPM corrected. It has taken me three months to get to this speed using the "f,g,h,j" as home keys. That's longer than it took me to learn how to type with two hands at forty-five WPM back in the dark ages when I first learned to type on a manual typewriter. I remember starting slow and then picking up the speed to sixty, then eighty with two hands.  With one handed typing it's a bit slower but I expect to reach forty-five words a minute by Easter, if I keep practicing. It all depends on how much real life keeps me away from my computer. It's been doing that a lot of late.

Fortunately with keyboards, we have a delete key and backspace key. I've learned to highlight text to delete or change what is typed fairly quickly. Now using the keyboard and the mouse together has been problematic, but I'll figure out a way to do this to or find a way around it. Think editing manuscripts where you move chunks around. So eventually, I'll get my novels back into Amazon Kindle.

I'm always trying new stuff without adaptive equipment. Think of the pleasure I'll have when I break down and buy it to make life easier. My girls asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told them go in together and get me an adaptive cutting board. Cooking has always been a passion of mine. Not that I haven't learned to cut vegetables and cheeses, and spread butter on toast without it, but it will be easier and faster.

The good Lord knows, I've spent a small fortune on quality knives over the past thirty odd years and to not use them would be a crying shame.  Although the Rocker T Knife is excellent for small quantities, I miss really cooking for a crowd. This was the first 4th of July and Thanksgiving I haven't cooked or prepped large quantities of foods for the generational get together of our family. If this is your first time to my site, on average, a family get together in my family is fifty to three hundred and fifty people depending whose coming. I missed it terribly. Even though my sister did the cooking and she is a good cook, it lacked the panache style but a good time was had by all.

I now am consistently writing on an 8th grade level( standard for novels and non-advanced levels in nonfiction) which is a far cry from the 4th grade I was writing at. Yeahhhh! I'm a teenie bopper once again. <g>  I'm still struggling with spelling and grammar. Can't win them all. Whoever thought I'd be happy to reach a teenage level in writing at my age? So the book is coming along slowly. Like I said in my pastor's blog, God is teaching me patience. And boy, it's a hard lesson to learn!

I haven't given up on my right arm, but realizing my initial expectations were a bit optimistic and am figuring out how to do without until I get it back. Every day the shoulder gets a little bit more movement. It's taken some really hard work to get it to where it was before. Working the elbow is difficult with the bicep muscle weakened from the Botox injections, but I'm managing both active (moving it without assistance) and passive movement (with the help of my left arm or somebody else). The wrist and fingers still nothing. I'm still wearing the splints and braces to manage the tone I've got in my right side, and fighting an up hill battle, but drawing my sword and yelling "Charge!" as I move onward with my life.

So what battles are you facing?

Keep writing and loving the Lord.