She had never heard of my book, nor I of hers (although apparently I was the first to recognize the Sappho reference in her title). We exchanged our books accompanied by firm promises to read and report back.
Somehow my one-year strokeaversary slipped by without a blog post, even though Sara and I marked it privately. Now here we are: way past twelve months. Already to 14 and counting.
I’m not sure why I didn’t push myself to post a one-year column on the actual day.
Well….that won’t be happening anytime soon, although I still hold out hope. While I can walk farther and faster than at any point since my brain damage, my best distance is a couple of kilometres with a limp. It’s hardly 100 km in a week like we did in 2024, striding into a new coastal village every afternoon in the late-afternoon sunshine.
I also dreamt that at one year post-stroke the part of my body the slowest to recover, my left hand, would be fully back in use. I imagined somehow I’d be chording smoothly on guitar, holding my mug of tea, and most importantly, typing. The truth is that yes, I can actually DO all those things, sort of! It’s a miracle. And I recognize that miracle when I’m properly “glass-half-full” thinking. For instance, I’ve typed this blog-post using both hands.
But the deeper truth is more nuanced. Chording is still slow….usually too slow for a song to really feel like a proper song. A full cup of tea is dangerous to hold in my left hand for too long – and a hot cast iron pan more dangerous still! But I’m able to reach, and lift, and manipulate more with that hand every week. I can now screw the milk and toothpaste lids off and on as a leftie. I regularly empty the dishwasher with my left hand as therapy. I can almost snap my fingers and make the Vulcan salute. Holding a nail in September while hammering was sometimes an act of faith. But the nails got in. Eventually.
Typing is not as slow as it was. But it’s still tedious, difficult, and tends toward errors. Sara says that she can tell my typing has improved because in the last month I’ve written a lot more pieces – articles, reviews, and the like. “You must feel more comfortable composing,” she remarked. “You’re getting back to your enthusiasm for new ideas.”
I feel that too. This fall I taught an online course on Leonard Cohen and St Paul, and had a wonderful time with my adult students. My classes about early Christian asceticism at StFX are fun, and recently I took first-year kids on a tour of the Saint Ninian Cathedral, being sure to point out features I write about in my book “Someone Else’s Saint.” Sara and I each gave keynote presentations on subsequent weeks at different institutions in Halifax, which was a chance for trips “to the big city” and mini-holidays.
When she read what I just wrote above, Sara pointed out that maybe it wasn’t disappointment that stopped me after all. Maybe I let the 12-month blogpost slide simply because my fall has been so incredibly busy. True enough. But the anniversary didn’t pass completely unmarked.
It turned out that I had a follow-up appointment at the hospital one year to the day from my initial TIA – Trans Ischemic Attack, September 16th. So I ordered two cakes from our local Sobeys and Sara and I took them in to mark the day: one for the physio ward, since that’s where I’ve spent so much time post-discharge, and the other for St. Martha Regional Hospital’s third-floor hospital wing, where I lived for almost four months last fall.
Those cakes turned out to be a pretty good metaphor for the hospitalization and recovery process, and for the nature of institutions. On the physio wing, it turned out that almost all of the Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists who’ve worked with me this past year were there. To a chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” the cake was quickly divvied up. There was lots of laughter and shared memories, and many thanks and congratulations given and received. It was wonderful.
However, when I carried my one-year cake to the nurses’ station, it was a different story. That day, none of the faces looked familiar at all, except my own GP, who was at the desk. Apparently, there’s been quite a bit of turnover recently on the ward. A nurse politely thanked me for the cake, took it, and congratulated me on my recovery. Sara and I stood around a minute or two awkwardly, then left. I’m sure the staff there that day enjoyed the sweets. But through no fault of theirs, they didn’t know me from Adam. There was no one at the desk from “my” past, no one who shared my memories, and no one to mark with me those tumultuous months that were so significant.
That’s life, I guess. In the end, our experiences change us profoundly. Sometimes permanently. But for everyone else, things can sometimes go back to normal pretty quickly.
Speaking of major life-changes this fall: in October, Sara’s parents moved back to Moncton for the winter, after a wonderful, but very busy, summer of cooking, canning, and building. I took a very quick, very short trip to Montreal to hug my kids after their own family tragedy: the untimely death of my ex, their mom. Sara and I made our first juice from our first grapes, and filled our pantry with summer’s jellies. Since then my own step-mother, Mary Anderson (Hattum) passed away, along with another good friend in Saskatchewan, John McPhail. Oh yes, and a feral cat we’re calling Theodore seems to have adopted us, on and off….
Things aren’t the same as a year ago in so many ways, some large, some small. I keep having to learn and relearn the lesson that life is beautiful, often fragile, and that the time to tell folks you love and appreciate them is right now.
I feel very fortunate to be alive, and thankful every day for the chance to experience this world in all its confusing glory. Strangely enough, I believe my life has been enriched by my stroke a year ago, and by the struggles that have followed. I appreciate you who have accompanied me through this year (plus a couple of months). As the leaves drop, the Grey Cup finishes (yay SK!) and November tilts toward Advent and Christmas, I hope you find some love and joy in these days as well.
All Germans idealize the North American “West”and North American landscapes. Germany is a crowded country that has lost so much of its own “wildness” but still maintains a strong national mythology of origins around it. And yet …
All Germans love to read, and as a bonus, as truly civilized people are multilingual and can often read English books like mine, unlike most anglophones and folks like me, who struggle with anything more than simple tourist directions auf deutsch…
SO. After all these expectations, how did the review turn out?
Thanks to Google translate, you can read on for yourself….
The Review
p. 43 New Pilgrim Perspectives:
“A devout Muslim embarks on the Way of St. James, and a Canadian professor and long-time pilgrim follows the trail of spiritual wandering in the vastness of the Midwest. Two inspiring book recommendations from Protestant pastor and passionate pilgrim Traugott Roser.“
“The Search for a Lost Home (Die Suche nach einem verlorenen Zuhause)“
“Matthew Anderson, Professor of New Testament at Concordia University in Montreal, is an experienced pilgrim who has also led his Canadian students through Spain, France, England, and Norway and has made a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker on pilgrimage. After many trips to Europe, he wonders whether pilgrimage is also possible in North America and what pilgrimage might mean there. In his new book, “The Good Walk – Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails,” he tells a compelling story of humanity’s age-old paths through the prairie of the Middle West. It is an account of a painful yet healing search for home: “Pilgrimage together with others—in the broadest sense understood as spiritually motivated hiking—is a way of searching for a lost home.” Anderson is a descendant of settlers who farmed…
(P. 45) and built small towns on the supposedly deserted plains of Saskatchewan (see photo above), and [the region once called] the Northwest Territories. Since 2015, Anderson and his wife Sara have been traveling the trails once used by traders, settler treks, and the Northwest Mounted Police, a paramilitary force commissioned by the Canadian government. But Anderson not only gets close to the story of his own family, descendants of white European immigrants, but also of the people who lived there before and were deprived of their land through sham treaties, displacement, and targeted extermination.
Pilgrimage: intercultural and interfaith
Anderson is accompanied on his journey by various companions, including Don Bolen, the Catholic Archbishop of the Diocese of Regina. Descendants of the First Nations, the Lakota, the Nakota, and the Nehyawak (Cree) accompany them or host them, as do descendants of settlers and the Métis, descendants of European-Indigenous marriages, who historically mediated between cultures as fur traders and are now considered an independent nation.
Anderson sees his hikes through the vast landscapes as pilgrimages to places whose history has been partly forgotten, partly erased. This also changes the landscape and its perception itself: through narratives and archaeological evidence, places of living memory emerge.
The places create new relationships and deepen old ones. In this way, the pilgrims come into contact with the spiritual world, [sometimes] with the elders and wise men of the Indigenous peoples, [sometimes] with their own family history, and [always] with nature. Through Christian and Indigenous rituals, the pilgrimage becomes an intercultural and religiously unifying experience. At the same time, it is a painful journey that ties in with the tradition of penitential pilgrimage: The extermination of the North American bison took place in the vastness of the prairie. This deprived the Indigenous people of their livelihood, and thousands starved to death while faced with the government’s deliberate inaction. It is equally painful when the pilgrims encounter survivors from the church-run boarding schools (of both Catholics and Protestants):
On behalf of state authorities, children were taken from their families and Nations and placed in Christian schools. Only in recent years did the public learn of the graves of thousands of nameless children who did not survive the ordeal.
Reward for Physical and Mental Effort
The paths across the prairie demand physical and mental effort from the pilgrims, but they also reward them: through community, forgiveness, and understanding. Matthew Anderson ultimately even succeeds in finding peace for his deceased parents and for his sister, who died very young. The pilgrim’s path is a good path, and with the project Anderson describes, a new, very unique pilgrimage tradition begins in Canada.
I couldn’t put either book down; it was precisely the different perspectives of both authors that inspired me to consider my own pilgrimage
I couldn’t put either book down; it was precisely the different perspectives of both authors that inspired me to consider my own pilgrimage on the Way of St. James in a new and more profound way: as a consciously religious experience, as a path to encounter God, and as a path to reconciliation.”
Dr. Roser’s Own Pilgrim Book
I wouldn’t be much of a friend, if at this point I didn’t mention that Traugott has published his own pilgrim book. It’s in German, titled Hola! bei Kilometer 410: Mit Allen Sinnen auf dem Jakobsweg (Hola! At kilometre 410 with all senses on the Camino de Santiago).
I wonder if a rather free, but still good, translation might be: “Hola! Fully aware and alive at kilometre 410 of the Camino de Santiago.” It’d be great to see this valuable book out for the English-language reader as well! (By the way, the other book he reviewed with mine in the above article sounds fascinating).
Traugott does all kinds of interesting teaching and research, including (like me) teaching Bible and Film classes. He is also an ethicist who teaches about ethics in healthcare and palliative care.
Thanks, Traugott, for the great review. Buen Camino! Looking forward to walking with you some day soon!
What better therapy than dancing with Gabe? (video below)
As the ONE-YEAR anniversary of my stroke approaches – wow! – my recovery continues to follow the quick rise and flattening curve (see below) that the medical staff predicted for me, as for other stroke survivors. And it’s true – eleven months in, the changes are more subtle. However, every week there inevitably still turns out to be some marked improvement. My physio supervisor, Jessica, tested me last week and told me I’m much stronger in my leg than just a month ago, and my left arm has also strengthened considerably in recent weeks. The Theraband exercises must be helping.
My recovery has gone far, far beyond what many of my doctors and medical team initially predicted in the dire days of last fall. With Sara’s urging, I continue to believe that the curve will never flatten out completely. As the book Stronger After Stroke maintains, there never needs to be a complete plateau to recovery, for a stroke survivor who is fortunate enough to have good support, a stabilized health condition, and dogged determination to work together with the brain’s natural plasticity.
So on this 11th-month strokeaversary, here’s some of what recovery has looked like!
Theraplaying
The wonderful physical therapy and occupational therapy folks at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital are starting to hint that I can’t be an outpatient forever. Of course, they’re right. “As much as we like you and look forward to our sessions,” they tell me, “we have to make room in our case load for new patients…” The hospital has been incredibly generous, and I’ve come to really love my outpatient team. I moved from two sessions a week to one only this last month. Colin, the smart and thoughtful tech who took over from the equally helpful physio tech Janna, is now regularly kicking a soccer ball with me. The catch: I have to use only my left foot. I’m finding that soccer and the funny-face bean-bag toss are my favourite therapy activities. Like a toddler, I’m improving my balance, coordination, and hand movements through play, which makes it seem (almost) easy.
Medicating
After my heart surgery in April to close a PFO (the hole between the upper chambers of my heart), the Halifax surgeon put me on precautionary Plavix, to guard against post-operative complications. I just came off of it and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been bruising after every blood test (one time the blood actually spurted out) and also when I bump or ding myself as so often happens in summer gardening and construction season. I remain on low-dose Aspirin and a suite of blood pressure pills. But my GP and the cardio team at the hospital have dialled back even these a bit, and now I can crouch and stand up without threatening to black out. Sitting on my haunches to look in a cupboard reminds me of my old self.
Straightening
It was Lindsay, the incredibly gifted and helpful Occupational Therapist at the Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre in Halifax, who suggested “Oval 8 Finger Splints” for my left hand’s fingers most reluctant to recover – my ring finger and my pinkie. My pinkie has been broken a few times over the years of basketball and tended to go its own way even before the stroke. I find the splints helpful at the end of a busy day when my fingers tend to curl and stiffen. My typing is improving slightly, although when my left hand quickly tires, those two fingers droop and tend to type their own messages.
Hearing
Of the many effects of the stroke, one of the most subtle has been a slight alteration in my hearing, or more accurately perhaps, my brain’s processing of what I hear. I’ve noticed more trouble understanding Sara when she’s in another room, or there’s ambient noise.
At the same time, my need to focus more carefully on whatever I’m doing so as not to lose balance, trip, or drop something, means my ability to multitask, including “listening, while…,” has diminished. And, I’m not young anymore.
So my audiologist appointment finally came through. The audiologist took me into a sealed quiet room, ran tests on both ears, then gave a series of tests I had to respond to.
The results? Apart from the normal post-stroke inability to multitask because of increased need for concentration, my ears are typical old guy’s ears: some age-related hearing loss, and that’s it.
I actually enjoyed the challenge of having four numbers spoken at once into both ears and having to try to correctly identify them!
Canning
When Gabe, my youngest, came to visit in August with Ray, they said they wanted to do some jelly-making like we did last year. The Saskatoons were done and it was a bit early for the chokecherries, but the jelly turned out well.
Our place is prolific for berries despite the scary and record-breaking drought. I spent hours picking Saskatoons earlier in the season, and our strawberries and grapes are plentiful.
Holding boughs with my left hand while picking berries with my right turns out to be good therapy, too.
Dancing
Gabe’s visit this month also gave me a chance to re-learn and re-try the swing steps we’ve done so many years together, and also to re-learn some of the guitar chords my fingers have forgotten, from all the songs we used to play together. I’m thankful.
If you watch the video (click on the photo below), you’ll see how my face goes mask-like (not direct stroke damage but because I’m concentrating on not falling), my left arms wants to pull in and tighten, and I lose my balance briefly. But overall, what a joy, and what an improvement! Sara has been keeping up my dance therapy since Gabe left…
Reading
My worlds overlapped recently when The Canada Lutheran asked Sara to write a column for their regular Q&A feature. As usual, Dr. Sara Parks, who is a consummate teacher and communicator, produced something interesting, academically solid, and pitched perfect for non-academics. Have a read below.
I recently finished Tanis MacDonald’s wonderful book Straggle. I highly recommend it – it’s full of beautiful writing and profound observation. And Tanis’s thoughts on “ungainly” walking fit my new post-stroke life so well….
Travelling, Walking, & Celebrating
This was also the month that I took my first solo plane trips. I’d been invited west to celebrate the tenth anniversary of our Wood Mountain – Cypress Hills trek in the summer of 2015, featured in my book The Good Walk (URP, 2024). The Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, which has spearheaded the walks since, was having its board meeting at Wood Mountain in conjunction with the event.
Even though Sara could not accompany me to hoist bags, hold my hand and generally be my security blanket, I was lucky that my brother Mark and sister-in-law Barbara (a recently-retired physio) were there to meet me in Regina. We stayed in their camper at Woodboia Camp near the Wood Mountain Historic Site (the NWMP Fort at Wood Mountain). That’s where Hugh Henry, Richard Kotowich, Hayden Thomassin and I started out 10 years ago to walk the 350-km North-West Mounted Police Patrol Trail (Traders’ Road) across Treaty Four territory.
10 years later, posing with Hugh Henry of the Sask History and Folklore Society
Among the highlights of my trip was visiting the Badlands in the “East Block” at Grasslands National Park. If you ever have the chance, be sure to visit this incredible place.
One of the most significant tests of my recovery was putting on my hiking boots (this time, with elastic laces) and re-walking a portion of the trail from Wood Mountain to the Lakota First Nation. Ten years ago, we did the three miles easily in the morning. This time, I cut out when the trail got muddy and hard to walk, and rejoined later. I managed to walk about a mile and a half in total.
Another highlight was meeting Dr. Claire Thomson, who led us around the historic site at Wood Mountain and gave both an academic and a personal history of the area. Dr Thomson is a descendant of one of the early North-West Mounted Police officers, and of his Lakota wife. Her PhD research on the Lakota history of Wood Mountain won the prize for best doctoral thesis in Canadian Studies recently…I quoted her in The Good Walk and was delighted to meet her in person.
My life as an author looks like it will keep me busy into the fall as well. In September the Atlantic School of Theology is hosting me for a series of six online lectures on Leonard Cohen and Saint Paul, following up on my book Prophets of Love (MQUP, 2023). You can find more info on those lectures by clicking the “Almost Like the Blues” link HERE.
This week my interview with CBC Radio One Cape Breton’s Wendy Bergfeldt came out on the afternoon show “Main Street.” God bless the public broadcaster! I was excited for my first Nova Scotia CBC interview…and our talk went so well it was broadcast over three separate afternoons! It was wonderful meeting Wendy – it turns out we have LOTS in common: growing up from Scandinavian settler grandparents in SK, attending the U of S in Saskatoon during the same years, living in the UK for a while, and then settling in Nova Scotia. Oh, and did I mention? A shared interest in decolonization, history, and pilgrimage! I’ll post the links to the interview soon. (In case you missed it, my earlier CBC Montreal interview with Sonali Karnick can be heard here).
Next Month: One Year
Soon it will be a full year since my stroke. I’ll be marking the occasion, for sure. Will I be celebrating? I’m not sure what to say.
My stroke cost me a lot that I haven’t yet regained: my sense of secure balance, my ability to walk long distances, to run, to dance smoothly, and to play songs smoothly on the guitar. And crucially, I can’t type with both hands like I used to, which is how I’ve written my essays, lectures, and books.
BUT: the stroke helped me realize what a community of support is around me, how good so many people are, what an incredible partner I have, and how precious life and health is. I’m thankful every day for just being able to walk and speak (and pee and shower!), teach, read, think, and do what passes for a “normal” life for me. Much less all that’s listed above.
In the end, it’s all gift. Because of my stroke last fall, I realise that now more than ever.
So, see you next month! I wonder what surprises await?
Sara found a more elegant solution for dripping juice than the complicated ladder-thingy I typically used.
When Sara and I first arrived in Nova Scotia for her new job at St. Francis Xavier University, I was bemused to find all kinds of connections to Saint Ninian. In Montreal, I’d endlessly debated Ninian’s existence with Prof. Sara Terreault when we taught pilgrimage together at Concordia. When we moved to England and I was taking advantage of pilgrimages there, I’d enticed friends Ken and Christine to come over and join me as the first group of Canadians to walk Scotland’s nascently revamped Ninian walk, The Whithorn Way. Almost as soon as I arrived in Antigonish I admit I started concocting a fanciful pilgrimage here called “The Nova Scotia Ninian Way,” that would explain the strange choice of Ninian as the patron Saint of the cathedral here while weaving in the often suppressed histories of Gael and Acadian settlers, and original Mi’kmaw peoples on this Land.
Sara found it a bit weird that I was pulling all-nighters for a talk that wasn’t any longer than a lecture for class. Finally I revealed to her that the talk was spiralling out of control! The deadline for the annual Pottersfield Prize for (unpublished) Creative Non-fiction was approaching …. one thing had led to another and I had myself a manuscript. It was a braiding together of two walks to Ninian–one in Scotland and one in Antigonish–and the stories of impossible underdog successes amid terrible colonial destruction on both sides of the Atlantic. To my amazement, the book, Someone Else’s Saint, won second prize!
Since there was going to be a Real Life book, I knew then and there that there had to be a Real Life pilgrimage to match. What kind of a fraud would I feel like at book talks if I hadn’t even walked the trajectory I was describing? So the “word became flesh.” Soon, a map was drawn, rest stops were arranged, and a dozen or so adventuresome pilgrims (you know who you are…and thank you!) signed on to walk the inaugural Nova Scotia Ninian Way. We timed the pilgrimage to end at Saint Ninian Cathedral just in time for their 125th Anniversary Mass.
Talk about a bucket list moment.
I sure didn’t think it was likely the Nova Scotia Ninian Way would be walked again.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Ken essentially has a PhD in meaningful walking, he’s the author of Walking the Bypass, out soon with University of Regina Press, and he’s all through the Scottish portions of Someone Else’s Saint (although he wasn’t 100% enamoured of his depiction in the infamous STINGING NETTLE scene and the WET SOCKS FIASCO) as he let me know via his blogged review.)
But what an honour to have the likes of Ken check out this Antigonish Pilgrim Path AKA The Nova Scotia Ninian Way!
Recently, a near-miracle happened. For the last couple of months, one stroke recovery strategy for my left arm has been playing catch with my wonderful therapy assistant Jaana. She throws a tennis ball aimed vaguely towards my torso, and I try to catch it without using my right hand. Typically, I’m not completely catching it — more catching/cupping it between hand and torso. (Throwing it back to her is also a challenge because my spastic fingers won’t let go.) But last week, Jaana accidentally tossed the ball too high and suddenly, to her immense surprise and mine, my left hand shot up and I caught it in mid-air! Neither of us could believe it. I hugged her and we immediately ended my session for the day on that high note. No way was I was going to top that (in fact, I haven’t been able to do it again since, although I’m able to consistently catch underhand, sometimes just with my hand, more often against my body).
A few days ago I managed to tie my work shoes without help. That felt like a major win. Afterward I sat awhile, pleased with myself but so winded from bending over, I had to wait to recover before heading outside. On my new meds my blood pressure actually gets low sometimes! The herons have returned to our little inlet, along with scads of songbirds, so I can sit on our deck during such recovery times and just …. recover.
My Left Leg
The physiotherapist regularly tests my left leg strength and flexibility. Although I’m still limping, and have to be ever-mindful not to trip over my dragging left toe, this month she discovered it is now back to full strength! Why the limp, then? “It’s strong enough to walk without a limp,” she explains. “The problem isn’t your leg. It’s your brain.” I don’t know how to convince my brain to relax that left calf and to pick up my left foot and bend my left knee automatically. Sometimes I’m pretty smooth, but as soon as I’m tired or cold, I’m prone to a kind of geriatric side-to-side waddle that means a sore hip. With absolutely every step I have to remember to lift my foot. It’s frustrating (until I remember how recently were the days I couldn’t walk at all!)
Lately my twice-a-week physio dates have me walking on different paths near the hospital while the therapist assesses my gait. I even found a labyrinth. Sometimes I walk to music, which seems to make my gait smoother. I guess my brain responds to The Stones better than the stones.
Botox? Why not?
You may not have pegged me as a Botox kind of guy, but I’ll soon be a new man. The doctors arranged for a shot of Botox in my left calf in the hope that — just like Botox deadens face muscles to prevent people from getting wrinkles — it will temporarily deaden my calf enough to keep my leg from “hitching” with every step, training my brain to trust that a smoother, more natural gait is safe again. (When one is initially paralyzed by stroke, the brain sometimes learns to “freeze” an area to protect it from flailing and hurting itself, much like when you’re dreaming about running but your legs aren’t actually moving.) My initial Botox appointment was cancelled because I had to fly out west for my brother-in-law Vern’s funeral. I was told the next opening would likely not be until September. I admit I’d been looking forward to a possible breakthrough for my leg. In the middle of my little funk, Sara, who has often had moments of clarity that have helped my recovery, said: “well, if shocking your arm worked so well for your hand, why wouldn’t it help your leg? Hook those wires up to that calf and give it a try!” (I’ve since found an article that confirmed her insight.) After only a couple of days of shocking my calf, I’m already noticing small improvements in my gait. (And my Botox is now bumped forward to mid-July!) At so many stages, I don’t know what I’d do without Sara’s help, advocacy, advice, watchful eye, optimism, wisdom, and sense of humour.
Longest Walk so Far!
Last week I had a visit from fellow writers-about-walking, Ariel Gordon and Tanis MacDonald. They were in Nova Scotia at a writers’ retreat at the Elizabeth Bishop House. We traded books. I took them to Pomquet Beach, and they convinced me to try walking the beach with them. (Both have written about walking slowly, and Tanis about walking and disability.) We went slow, checking out beach stones and shells. By the time we reached Chez Deslauriers road, about a kilometre later, I think my left foot was dragging more sand than I was leaving behind! But it IS getting better, even pre-Botox! I later realised it was my longest walk since the stroke.
My Speech and Hearing
I’m very, very thankful for all the things I can do. AND, it seems I can accomplish more and more each week. But when I forget to focus on how far I’ve come, and think too much of everything I want to accomplish, I can get frustrated.
Something that’s not as obvious to outsiders is that my stroke seems to have caused a kind of aphasia. During a social event recently, people had to ask me several times to repeat myself. Sara tells me that she finds I’m speaking more quietly. This may be a sign of hearing loss (of course, there is an age factor as well). But since the stroke, I find I can’t distinguish between a “v”, “d” or “p” when someone is speaking, making me misunderstand whatever they’re saying. And because of the stroke’s effects, I “hear” people slurring “s”s, even when they’re not. Almost every physio I spoke with about this said the same thing, “Matt, I think you’re noticing this because you’re you. Most stroke patients wouldn’t be this observant.” I guess it’s a blessing that that’s pretty much the stage of stroke recovery I’m at: the fine-tuning stage! (They did put me on a list for a stroke-related hearing specialist.)
On the plus side, I have recently become eligible for a beer that one of the hospital LPNs, Dionne, promised me last fall when I couldn’t move my hand. She said when I left the hospital that we’d go out for a pint of beer if and when I was able to raise the glass and “cheers” with my left hand. As of this week, I can now raise my left hand completely above my head, and I successfully cheers-ed Sara with a wobbly left handed glass of sparkling. (Ironically, my right arm now has a frozen shoulder from overuse!)
Another first: I was delighted this last week to pull the cord on our hand mower, start it up and actually cut grass. Both hands on the handle!
My Heart
A bit more on my heart surgery for those who may be interested: on April 23 in Halifax, the very professional, very personable – and very skilled – surgeon, Dr Sumaya, made an incision in my groin. He pushed a catheter tube through the incision and up into my heart’s upper chambers. Once it was in place he inserted a wire through it to explore the unusual gap that has existed, undetected, between my heart’s upper chambers since I was born. That hole allows blood (and potentially, clots) to slip through where they shouldn’t, taking a dangerous short-cut to the brain.
I was awake watching the screens. To me, what Dr Sumaya was doing looked like a plumber or electrician trying to thread a “fish line” through a tiny hole. He couldn’t do it, and told me that the gap was smaller than expected and perhaps they wouldn’t need to plug it after all. However, a quick “bubble test” determined there really was flow between the chambers (meaning: possible future brain clots).
“I’ve Never Done This Before”
A surgical huddle followed. I was on so many relaxation meds I didn’t catch most of it, until I heard the surgeon say: “Well, I’ve never done that before.”
THAT woke me up! I may have some of this garbled, but he explained that they proposed to push/drill a second hole between my heart’s chambers, large enough to pass the soft metal umbrella washers through, then bring them together to close both gaps.
He asked if I agreed. I did. Within a few minutes I could see something against the beating flesh of my heart that looked for all the world like a child’s drawing of a flower. “That’s the device,” said someone. Within minutes, all the surgical staff seemed happy. So I was too. “If that was the first time,” I said to Dr Sumaya, “you should write this up.” “Oh, it’s been done elsewhere in the world,” he answered, “just never here in Nova Scotia!”
My Energy and Weight
Did I mention fatigue? A side-effect of my taking on new things constantly is that some days I find myself taking naps. Lots of naps.
Partly because I don’t eat as quickly (too much chance of biting my cheek or tongue), I’m always the last to finish my plate. I tend to eat smaller portions than pre-stroke, and weirdly for anyone who knows my predilection for peanut buster parfaits, my appetite for sugar has diminished. The weight I lost last fall seems to be staying off. I have more of a taste for salt now, and enjoy making home-made pizza!
My Prospects
Now that it’s been nine months since my stroke, I’m realizing (yet again, for the umpteenth time) that recovery is a marathon, not a dash. In fact, recovery is a pilgrimage – one which has changed me more than any of my other walks, and one that I’m still on.
Thank you for your many good wishes, and for the support I still feel, and that still keeps me going. Just the other day, I heard voices at the door as I took a rest. It was the greenhouse crew that a year and a half ago, put in “Sara’s Forest,” the 50+ trees planted for her big birthday. They’d come to check on the trees…and to check on me!
My Birthday!
It was my birthday on May 30th – the BBQ was an unexpected present from Sara’s folks. Sara got me a lovely (made in BC) teak shower chair. Now I can take the old plastic one back to the Red Cross!
My birthday made me realize yet again how grateful I am to still be here. And grateful, too, that so many of you care enough to accompany me on this ongoing journey through stroke.
Several kind folks have messaged me recently asking for a health update, and saying they’ve missed my posts. The fact is: I’ve had a stroke-and-surgery update half-started on my laptop for maybe six weeks! But so much has been happening I couldn’t finish it until now.
In this post, I’ll share some of those events. In a forthcoming post, I’ll focus on more of the details of my actual health update — especially for those who’ve also had (or have loved ones who’ve had) major strokes, or who’ve had PFO Closure surgery, or who may be waiting for news of my hand and leg!
# 1 Heart Surgery in Halifax
A month ago I had a procedure to close the PFO (hole between the upper chambers) in my heart. I was kept awake for the surgery which went well …. but it meant long hours of final grading to finish beforehand, travelling the 2 1/2 hours to Halifax the night before, with Sara as my chauffeur, nurse, and help-mate, the operation itself (more on that in my next post, but a pivotal moment was hearing the surgeon say “I’ve never done that before”!), then trying to follow doctor’s orders (no lifting for a month) to recuperate.
#2 A Book in The Hand
The moment we drove down our driveway on the trip home from the hospital, my – now patched up – heart leaped. Two boxes sitting on the doorstep turned out to contain the first shipment of my latest book, Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia (Pottersfield Press, an homage to Nova Scotia and to Scotland, and second-place winner of the 2025 Pottersfield Creative Prize for Non-fiction). Sara lugged the boxes in, as ten pounds is my upper limit for lifting while I recuperate. Excitement soon yielded to post-op fatigue…
#3 Throw a Tartan Over It
Just a few days after my return from hospital, I was able to launch Someone Else’s Saint at the wonderful Antigonish Heritage Museum. It was a lovely warm evening, thanks to the talents and scheduling flexibility of friends Barry Mackenzie (colleague from the StFX history department and director of the museum), Lewis MacKinnon (poet and Executive Director of Gaelic Affairs for Nova Scotia), and star musician Mary Beth Carty (Canadian Traditional Singer of the Year 2024). During setup, Barry rapidly produced a variety of tartans, one to cover the cardboard recycling, one for the book table staffed by Sara, and one for the treats baked by museum volunteers. He confided that one of the museum’s life hacks is “just throw a tartan over it.” Even though there were other community events that night, and grade deadlines and convocation to compete with, my (now hole-less) heart melted to see departmental colleagues, community members, and even fellow pilgrims all the way from Halifax come out in support.
The biggest thing that happened has yet to completely sink in. My always-happy, full-of-life-and-fun, strong as an ox brother in law Vern Enslen had died – a shock to us all, but above all to my sister Kandace in Medicine Hat. As soon as it was confirmed that I could safely fly after surgery, Sara and I booked the next flight to Alberta. There (still somewhat unsteady on my feet) I conducted the largest service the funeral director had seen in years. “By far,” were his words: “It’s a testament to Vern.” Vern, pictured below, was a gregarious and good-hearted extrovert who made friends with everyone – turned out the funeral director was a buddy as well. We spent valuable time with my sister, still in shock, and with other family, including crowds of my cousins Sara had never met. We had booked a “manager’s choice” car rental out of Calgary airport to save money, and were surprised to be handed the keys to a 2024 Mustang convertible. We both had the exact same thought: it would be just like Vern to arrange this from the great beyond, to remind us of the jovial, sport-loving, boisterous tone he would want his friends to take as they celebrated his life well lived. It seemed odd after a funeral, yet somehow fitting, to be cruising back to the airport with the top down. After the accumulated fatigue of grief, unexpected travel, working with my sister to arrange the funeral, and the intense two days of visiting, we returned to Nova Scotia on a red-eye flight that involved no sleep and a LOT of walking–the most I’d done since the stroke. Whewff.
#5 Heart’s Desire
The night of the funeral turned out to also be the night of the Saskatchewan Book Awards gala. Before Vern’s death, I’d been notified that The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails was shortlisted. An unimaginable dream come true, for a book so close to my heart — a memoir of my family’s history and our prairie walks, intertwined with the troubled history of Canada’s prairies. But after Vern’s death, the nomination fled to a dusty corner of my mind. Immediately following the funeral, I collapsed into bed at our Medicine Hat hotel, and didn’t even think to check for the winners. Then an email pinged in from my friend and fellow walker Simone Hengen, who was attending the gala in Saskatoon. She sent a photo of what she was seeing on screen at that moment: a Powerpoint showing The Good Walk. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Then I saw the little gold medallion that said “winner.” University of Regina Press had won the Creative Saskatchewan Publishing Award for my book! It was strange to be jubilant in the midst of loss, but again it felt fitting as I remembered that Kandace and Vern, with his eternal ingenuity and myriad connections, had done so much to outfit me for the long walks across the Prairies recounted in this book.
#6 Faint of Heart
Shortly after we arrived back home, earth-moving equipment showed up to widen our driveway and build a gravel platform for the trailer Sara’s parents Winston and Shirley are going to use as their summer cottage on our property. The platform and driveway were a great success – as an added bonus, they evaded a future problem when they spotted an issue with our septic tank and promptly fixed it. However, the delivery guy from Bouctouche NB didn’t have the gumption to manoeuvre the trailer into place. He was nervous about backing up, and afraid to raise the telephone wires a few inches to clear the air conditioner on top of the unit. In the end he abandoned the huge trailer on the side of the road and went back to New Brunswick, leaving us hoping for the best. Just then, a typical Pomquet neighbour stopped to chat. (No strangers here, only neighbours waiting to happen.) She offered her husband Joe’s tractor and services. The next day, Victoria Day, Joe Rennie showed up and had the unit parked in no time. Sara used our Canadian Tire snow rake duct-taped to a branch clipper to hold up the wires for the trailer to clear. Now, if we can just nab the electrician for hookup, Sara’s parents’ move will be complete…
#7 Heart-Recovery
I want to be sure to mention this: while I’ve posted a lot about my writerly highlights above, life is life. It’s also true that during these last few weeks I got two disheartening manuscript rejections from publishers, and I heard that I’d not received a different book prize for which I’d been shortlisted!
You get the picture. Between surgeries, book prizes, book launches, manuscript rejections, tragic funerals, and major construction we’ve been through quite the roller coaster of events and emotions. Major ups and downs. It feels like a year’s worth of changes have been jammed into a few short weeks.
The surgery and the busy-ness have certainly affected my recovery. More on that very soon in my next post.
This prairie boy remembers feeling on top of the world when he got called a “Montreal Creative” by Nantali Indongo on CBC Radio One Montreal in 2012:
But I have to admit being “author Matthew Anderson of Antigonish, Nova Scotia” feels pretty great in 2025. That’s my moniker in this “Story Behind the Story” interview for the South Branch Scribbler. Interviewer Allan Hudson is a New Brunswick writer and promoter of writing, and The South Branch Scribbler is his blog. He reached out to talk about the backstory of Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia, published this coming week.
If you live near Moncton NB, I’ll be joining Allan at the 3rd Annual Greater Moncton Riverview Dieppe Book Fair, April 26 2025. Riverview Lion’s Centre 10am to 3pm.
If you live further afield, Someone Else’s Saint is available from Indigo, or by request at those two symbols that the world is still a good and just place: your independent bookseller or your public library.
“Like many others, I love the hymn In the Bleak Midwinter. I always have. But as someone who walked to school through Saskatchewan’s -40 mornings, shovelled out cars in Montreal’s worst snowstorms, and now checks that the generator is ready when a Nova Scotia blizzard threatens, I’ve always felt that for Canadians, the timing of this favourite hymn is a little off.”
This is how my piece in the most recent Canada Lutheran (Jan/Feb 2025) begins. Since many folks I know and who follow this blog aren’t Lutheran, and won’t receive the wonderful ELCIC (Canadian Lutheran) magazine, I’m showing that piece here. Enjoy!
Three elderly men, two with walkers, are standing in the hallway outside my room. “I was going to go home,” one says, “but all my neighbours are here.”
The second man, Jack, pulls out a photo developer’s envelope he carries everywhere. “Jack was attacked by a bear,” the third explains, pointing.
“Got photos?” “Yeah, there’s five of ’em.” “Five photos?” “No, five bears!”
Jack hitches his pants before he regales them with the story: “I was working in the yard. Didn’t see him. He knocked me over the woodpile.” The second man takes the photo. Peers at the bear, then at Jack. “Prob’ly lookin’ for work,” he pronounces.
A visitor walks by, muttering to herself: “How many Donald MacDonalds are there in this hospital?”
Another visitor is about to walk into the room opposite when a passing orderly points to the “Contagion Precaution” sign requiring mask and gown. The woman dutifully dons a paper gown, calling out to someone deep in the room: “Donald, you’re on quarantine? You musta’ been a bad boy!”
I’ve been fortunate to hear from some of you who’ve also spent long periods in hospital. Many of your experiences were similar to mine: the frustrations of wheelchairs and bedpans placed out of reach, the fatigue and the ennui of having to strategize everything from blankets to bowel movements in ways the able-bodied don’t have to think about. The way that occasionally, new nurses who don’t know me ignore me, standing there with pen in hand to sign myself out for the weekend, and speak right past me to Sara as if I’m incapable of my own decision-making.
But there are also unique positives to being hospitalized in rural Nova Scotia. Overhearing the bear story, or Sara texting me to say she saw a bobcat at the end of our driveway on her way home one night, after her usual routine of tucking me in. What a gift to have her fussing around my room straightening things, reading to me, or sitting working alongside. (I am back into writing my Jerome project, part of my work as Gatto Chair at StFX. More than once, Sara and I have slipped and called my room, “the office”!) The atmosphere at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital is relaxed and humane; there are no set visiting hours–Sara is free to come whenever she can, stay as long as she likes, and to decorate my room with plants, lights, quilts, and art on the walls. Once last week four nurses came in just to see my room and breathe deeply. “It’s beautiful in here,” one remarked, “it’s the most relaxing room in the hospital!” I said only one word in response:
“Sara.”
Another distinction is delicious local food. I order from a small menu that includes a tasty seafood chowder that would cost quite a bit in a restaurant. You can have fresh poached haddock, or roast turkey with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce on demand. There’s excellent lemon meringue pie in the volunteer-run cafe. If you forget your wallet as I did one evening, they’ll just give you the item and tell you to pay it forward.
The portions do tend to be geriatrically small. Combined with the lack of snacks, butter, or oil (I’m on a cardiac diet), very few breads and pastas, and no glass of wine with dinner, I’ve lost 20 pounds since my hospitalization. All good – the weight loss puts me where I should have been anyway. But I wish it hadn’t taken a stroke!
Big news this week: I’m not moving. The Halifax rehab centre only takes Haligonians. When they learned I wasn’t eligible for “Hand Camp,” my incredible team here (Lori, Lina, Lee, and Ria, above) swung into action. Lori produced a binder labelled “Matt’s Handcamp” and teased me, “it’s going to be hard work from here on in.” My binder has daily check-mark columns for the next three weeks, with slots for shoulder, arm, and hand therapy, physio on my leg, “magic mirror” visualization (fooling the brain with a mirror image), and other homework.
Lee has started me on the “big” exercise bike and treadmill. She’s doing gentle acupuncture on my left arm. I’m supposed to take weekends off, but weekdays until discharge are dedicated to more intensive therapy, whenever they can get me in.
Lori has been researching some new OT techniques out of Japan that involve massaging and “slapping” the hand tendons alternatively to shake them out of cramps. (The hand has been seizing up a lot.) My new music therapist dropped by for the first time, getting me to tap a pen with my affected hand while he played the blues. Thanks to my friend Nadine from Montreal (herself a music therapist), for suggesting ways to use familiar music to improve my walking speed and gait!
Improvements: I can now lift my arm into the air while lying on my back and touch my right hip with my left hand (I should be good at that – it’s a disco move!) I can “curl” a one-pound barbell and raise a washcloth up to my face or under my arm, using my left hand. But I have no strength yet to scrub. I can move a cloth around a counter more freely – wiping cupboards is clearly in my future. I managed to pick up a marker and draw lines with my left hand on a sheet. Sometimes I can pick up and drop wooden blocks, although straightening my fingers afterwards continues to be difficult. Like a baby bird on its first solo flight, I’ve ventured out on my first walks down the hall without cane or walker. Sara and I danced a real two-step, and she’s doing less lifting to keep my left hand in the air. I took my first standing shower at the hospital, holding the support bar for the first time with my left hand.
Last week I had another left-side dream. I was in a large underground garage where an old muscle car, a 1970s Barracuda, had been left behind piles of boxes, old mattresses, and junk. In my dream I was putting oil into the rusted engine and trying to clear a path to drive it out. Speaking of which: not saying anyone did this, but IF a person had tried to drive their automatic transmission car just around their yard last weekend using their unaffected right hand and leg, it may have worked out perfectly! For myself, it looks like I will have to take a drivers’ test before I’ll be allowed on the roads, which makes sense.
This week is the 9th anniversary of Sara and I meeting, so she picked me up from the “office” after work one night this week and we went out to eat for the first time in months, with a Gabrieau’s gift certificate from our departmental colleagues! I was also blessed with delightful visitors: Phillip Kennedy, a fellow walker along the Annapolis Valley, Tonya Fraser, who gave me some hand-picked Labrador Tea and a stone from the local beach, Leona English, another walker and a professor emeritus at StFX, and Andrea Terry, who in addition to leaving me several blueberry-themed gifts, reminded me that it was exactly one year ago that we had so much fun co-curating Philip Szporer’s and Marlene Millar’s art show “1001 Lights”! Many thanks also this week to my friend Dr Meredith Warren in Sheffield, UK, for providing a lecture for “my” class on “The Ancient Hellenistic Novels.”
Speaking of small-town advantages, those who come to visit have to pay to park at the hospital. The whopping sum for a full day or any part thereof is … a twonie. (The first time we realised this, we laughed out loud, comparing it to big city parking costs.) While I was a little disappointed at first not to be going to Halifax for fancy therapy, I feel incredibly fortunate to be right here in Antigonish, where an entire talented physio team has taken me on as a project, and where I can focus on my recovery (and my StFX research) from such a warm and hospitable room. I am sure that much of this good fortune comes from the prayers, meditations, thoughts, and intentions so many of you are keeping up for me. Thank you!
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