Left Neglected: week 8 strokeaversary report

I finished a fascinating novel about a brain injury called “Left Neglected” this last week. At one point the main character is afraid she’s being sent home from hospital too soon. She doesn’t feel ready. I’m starting to wonder if this is happening to me. When I’m tired, my speech still slurs, and then I have to be careful eating, or I bite my lip or tongue. My walking has improved greatly. But when I catch or stub my left foot, as I inevitably will at some point, I’m always a split second from falling, especially while using my cane. Still, I’ve graduated to being allowed a cane sometimes. And now, the nurses at St. Martha’s are starting to greet me in the hall with “Why are you still here? You should be home by now.”

However, it’s not the nurses, but the physios and the doctor who make that call. For the sake of my hand they want me around a while longer. Back in September I was predicted to go home mid-December. Now I’m hearing it might be in just a couple weeks! There’s another wrinkle: Dr. Gorman and Lori, the head physio (that’s Lori and me above), are checking whether I could be sent to a specialized occupational therapy facility in Halifax to try to help my left arm improve. Sara immediately dubbed it “hand camp.” “You can still go home weekends,” Dr Gorman assured me. I’ll know more soon.

I’m not young but I’m the youngest patient on our wing. That and my strong recovery mean I don’t need much help from the nursing staff … so they tend to ignore me. This weekend they moved me to a private room. Hallelujah! This means I’ll get a full night’s sleep without 4 am wake-ups, and blaring Jeopardy and nature shows all day.

My walking is still not great, especially when I’m tired. But it’s not bad. As of this last week, I’m officially evaluated as independent with a cane and walker. It’s ironic that the arm motion I most have to practise is the one you make when giving a “cheers” (the little arm wagon you see below helps me rebuild that muscle).

One thing I have trouble with is clipping my fingernails and toenails. Phyllis, an LPN who is the closest to a saint-nurse I’ve ever met, came on her own time at lunch and cut my toenails while we talked about Kenya and Cape Breton. I’ve never had a pedicure and it felt wonderful. There are so MANY people and kindnesses for which to be thankful: delicious Barr’s chocolates from Stratford ON thanks to Susan and Darin Jacques, letters from Rev. Aaron Billard and visits from Rev. Peter Smith, the local United Church minister, & cards from my cousin Raymond Anderson and from George Greenia.

I’m still trying, with limited success, to learn how to supinate my wrist and open my fingers. Opening jars requires almost acrobatic skill and sometimes both knees. But I’m getting better at small tasks that require closing and holding my fingers. In the physio kitchen I peeled a carrot and a potato. This Remembrance Day weekend I got to spend THREE days at home – blessed days! – and the best physio of all was holding cards for a game of Uno with Sara’s parents Shirley and Winston (I had to pry my fingers apart afterward to get the cards out).

Sara and I were given 20 spruce trees which we planted around the property. Or, I should say, which Sara planted while I pointed my cane and gave advice. This was my chance to try walking with a cane over rough and uneven terrain. I didn’t fall!

The pictures and videos perhaps make things look normal…but they’re not. I move at a glacial pace around a room. If you called me and my back was turned I wouldn’t glance over my shoulder for fear of losing balance and tumbling. When I’m tired or cold, especially in the mornings, my hand and sometimes my entire left side can go into a painful cramp. I’ve developed an itchy rash from sleeping on rubberized mattresses for two months, so Sara is putting cortizone cream on my back.

BUT….I’m so far ahead of where I was!! Every day I feel how deeply upheld I am by the prayers, meditations, and thoughts of so many of you. I rely on that support every step. I continue to know how fortunate I was to have suffered a stroke that only affected my motor skills. I get to go home more and more, and spend time with Sara. And I have an appointment at the end of November in Halifax as a first stage to fixing the hole in my heart that perhaps let a clot through to my brain.

Sometimes I feel like this crab, with one puny arm and hand that just won’t develop. But when I look back I see how far even that hand has come. I’ll learn more this week about whether I’m being transferred to Hand Camp in Halifax. Just today, for the first time since the stroke, I was able to walk – okay, hobble – with Sara down to the water at the end of our property. That has always been a life-giving place for me, and it was so good to stand there again and breathe the cool air.

I’m thankful.