No one told me

If I could prepare anyone for living with the same issues that I battle with every minute of every day,   I would tell them how things will be different.  I would tell them to think outside of what you were taught.  I would tell them that using your teeth becomes imperative and learning to do it while no one watches is the challenge.  Anything you used to do with that affected hand will have to be done by the good hand now.  Your other arm, the not affected arm, will get so tired it will make your whole body exhausted because it is doing the duty of 2 now.  I wish that I had had someone to turn to. I wish a therapist or doctor would have supported me and helped me through this terrible time. None of the doctors helped me. None of the therapists did any benefit in my recovery. They did more harm than anything positive. They told me I was damaged and mentally slower. They told me that I needed to accept that I would never drive a car or hold a full time job again. They told me that I needed to accept being mentally handicapped. One particular horrible occupational therapist named Carolyn at Lakeview Neuro Rehab insisted that I was mentally broken now.  She gave me an IQ test 3 weeks after having a major stroke.  She did this because she said I needed to accept my fate and to stop being so defiant and arrogant. She talked to other therapists about me in front of me referring to my diminished mental state. She treated me like a non-human.  She was terrible and the worst person I have ever met. When she asked me what my long term goal was I told her it was to flip her off with my left hand. For everyone she ever destroyed with her venom…I wish her nothing but a terrible and negative future.

What I found out through my own research was that there are helping aides for people like me. There are special can openers and nifty cutting boards with spikes to hold items down.  There are little tricks to learn in order to still do things a little easier.  But, some things still and always will be an issue. Things that are a struggle to do and to figure out with pre thought how to handle things in any situation.
These are some:

• Putting on mittens, gloves, socks
• Buttoning and zipping  your pants, shirts, coats
• Bras.  Anything that needs fastening, tying  or pulling over the head tightly 
• Pulling sleeves down (especially with tight shirts)
• For girls:  doing your hair ie: ponytail, braid, trimming yours or others hair; putting hair in rollers, curling iron, flat iron
• Cutting round objects ie: tomatoes, they squish; hard objects like onions or apples roll fast so you risk the finger chop
• Cutting meats
• Peeling cucumbers, potatoes, apples
• Carry a large hot/boiling pot of water to drain in the sink
• Making a snow ball
• Bike riding
• Playing sports like “catch” with your kids or badminton, baseball, volleyball
• Go swimming in deep water where you have to tread water
• Going to a water park or amusement park where you need to hold on for the ride (I’ve almost become a statistic with this one… scary)
• Writing a note on a little post it or scrap of paper
• Shaving your arm pit
• Opening and applying a band aid, pad, panty liners... anything really in a plastic cover
• Rubbing lotion on your other arm
• Jewelry: bracelets/ watches that attach, necklaces, earrings with backs
• Painting your nails on other hand or even filing them
• Carry the  laundry basket upstairs/downstairs
• Tying on/ putting on your shoes or clothes (especially in public)
• Buckle the strap on a pair of dainty heels 
• Holding a delicate little baby
• Opening a bottle, jar, can of anything, yogurt, applesauce
• When someone hands you a pill and a drink to take it with at the same time
• Buffet lines for food. Carrying a plate and serving yourself
• Parties where you hold your plate and eat while socializing
• Getting blood pressure checked on arm filled with spacisity.  They usually will get inaccurate readings so offer other arm automatically. Same with blood draws.
• Typing

It took years of occupational, physical and speech therapy.  I had to regain my balance and to pay extra attention to my left side. I had to remember how to lift my foot when walking and to not mis- judge and walk into a door frame.   I had to re learn how to kiss.  I had to learn how to swallow properly.  Most of these I learned myself and through life lessons, not from any therapists.  I would tell the younger me not to listen to any of the negative disparaging things that doctors and therapists say to me about my future.  I would tell myself to only focus on the blessings of surviving that I got to see my children grow and to always follow your gut. Remember that you are a survivor. You are stronger than you ever imagined you could be.  Sometimes surviving IS the only option

Ode to a Tick

Oh tick,

What is your purpose?

You appear on my body as if a phantom, coming out from nowhere

I see you stuck onto my flesh like a blood sucking freckle.

Why oh why do you plaque the earth?

With your outstretched legs awaiting to seize my preoccupied form

Arachnid arachnid oh parasite of blood

How do I stop you?

You are not partial to my flesh or that of my dogs

All that you crave is impartial sanguine essence

I varnish my body with DEET, to hell with the toxins

Not to be your paratrophic host is my only objective

Ah ha there you are! You thought I wouldn’t find you

I pluck you off, not missing any part

Cannot leave your head or any small feature

Dispose of your remains ensconced in a watery grave

Flush, there you go circling down to your ultimate destination

"I should take a mental picture.... click..."

My daughters had friends over last night.  I love when I hear the laughter and noise they produce. I am not saying that sarcastically, I really do.  Being young and carefree is such a short time in our lives. Before we know it we are paying rent and mortgages and being sure to turn lights off as we walk out of a room to save 25 cents worth of electricity.  Stress comes with the responsibilities and demands. A teenagers job is to be good, help out and get good grades. If they just do that then life with me is peachy keen.  All of my kids have followed those rules. They are great kids. I think I'll keep um.  I don't mind closing my door in my bedroom because the video game being played creates yells from jump scares.  I don't mind going to the grocery store and being sure we always have chips, salsa and junk food for them.  It makes me happy to see them enjoying life. It makes my heart smile to hear the laughs. No matter how many they invite over,  all of them are welcome.

One kiddo is grown and lives an hour away working a great job and is playing the grown up role pretty damn well.  The other two are finishing up high school.  With in the next 3 years, my house will be silent. No loud laughter at 2 am, no cups of pepsi, popcorn bowls and water bottles to clean up.  No multiple closets to raid and swap clothes and shoes.  The thought and image of this makes me very sad.  I am a mom. I have been one since the minute I became what the country considers an adult.  I have been a mom soon after high school.  My life shifted gears so fast. Doing for him was my only focus. It was all I thought about.  Then I married and had the ladybugs.  I always worried how I would be as a mom of teenagers. I will admit, life with the first teenager had its rather shitty moments.  I was happy to get past those. He was our trial balloon. He's a great young man now, so I guess I didn't fuck him up to bad. I actually really enjoy them. I have enjoyed every stage each has gone through.  They are so funny and so loving. My cup runneth over.

Poulet

A friend of mine just got a buncha chickens. They are tiny, small, peeping balls of soft feathers. She shows me pictures and even videos like they are her offspring. They each have names. They are her"cluckers". I have never wanted a chicken before...at least not a live one. I do love yummy tasty chicken. I have owned a potbelly pig. It was an expensive and ill-advised purchase. She was adorable until she became a fat and grumpy hog. Then the asshole had to go. I sold her on Craigslist. Lesson learned. Because of that I am gun shy. Seems like a unnecessary addition to the household family. Yet, i want some. I don't know when this odd transformation into agricultural purchases originated. Finding happiness, all be it in fowl, is where it's all at. Life is filled with stress and keeps us busy where we forget how short life really is. Whatever makes us feel joy is what we need to grasp onto and hold tight. 

I also want goats......

Senses

The first time I realized that I had no feeling was lying in the ER. I kept feeling something very cold touching my foot....my right foot. Finally I pulled back the sheet to see if it was an ice pack or cold rag....nope it was my left foot. My brain screamed oh shit that can't be good.  Imagine a line going all the way down your body separating your left from your right side. The right is normal. It moves,  feels and now does the job of the slacking left side.  My right arm haaaaates my left one. I can just tell. I have no feeling in the majority of my left side. None. Zilch. To all the people that tap and pinch me asking, can you feel this? No. I can't. From a soft gentle hand on my cheek, to a shoe on my foot. The small areas that do feel are all fucked up not knowing what to do. My oh so  sensetive side and under my arm  does the opposite. It says touch = pain. As if a red hot needle pokes my skin.  Pain, cold and stress makes the spasisity seize up my left side so tight its like my muscles are fighting turning to stone. I guess kinda like a  Bruce Banner (David Banner in the 70's 😉) not wanting to turn into the green guy. Can't get into water cooler than 98 degrees.  Gotta watch myself near fire too. I've burned myself more than once and had no idea. Fire bad.  It's like my left side has become an angry 3 year old refusing to do anything except stand stiff and say NO I WONT DO IT! The best I can do is coax it calm with candy.... It calms the beast a little.

I am a stroke survivor

It's true. I am a stroke survivor. Even 13 years later hearing those words rips me to my core. It stops me and a chill goes down my spine.   It never gets easier to say. It never gets easier to explain. I hate the words. I hate the results that are left in the wake of that reality. I hate my reflection and I hate that I have had to learn a new me. I cant give you a lecture on the 10 easy steps to a full recovery. I can't tell you that prayer and therapy and shear will power will make it better. It won't. I held onto all of those looking for a miracle to restore my broken body.  The fact of the matter is I'm still battling all of the same issues years later.  On May 12, 2003 my reality changed in a blink of an eye. That morning, my thoughts of making breakfast for my babies and picking my son up from school was my fore front thoughts.  I had no idea that an ischemic stroke was about to destroy patches in my brain. My brain scans now looks like someone erased parts of me. Parts of my independence. Parts of my personality to leave behind black holes for me to fill with a new reality.  My new reality consists of always thinking ahead to all situations that will arise.  Will there be steps, is the ground even, will i have to try and put food onto a plate buffet style, will the pool be too deep that i cant tread water, can i zip that up, will anyone see me trip, explaining choking on water, being out of breath from walking,  do i have to tie that, did someone touch my left shoulder, is my face crooked because I'm tired, did anyone notice me crying when i should be laughing, how do i explain not being able to feel that..open my hand.  When the stroke happened, it was before the cork screw thingy that could go up and break apart the clot. It was on the brink of the "clot busting" drug. So much has happened in medical science to change the results of such a terrible attack.  I am so happy for everyone that is spared what me and millions of others battle. But, I just gotta say...wtf man? Why not just a couple years earlier? I always have been little miss independent.  My pride is one of the largest parts of my character.  Suddenly I had to be humbled into asking for help. I had to accept offers of.. "need help with that"? My natural answer is still no thank you, I got it.