This device is called a “Sara Stedy.” It’s a cross between a wheelchair and a strap-in walker. Just after my stroke 11 weeks ago, I couldn’t stand. I was a “two-person transfer.” Two nurses would use a Sara Stedy to get me up from bed so they could wheel me to the toilet. I remember how safe I felt as they carried me.
Bounce Forward
Now I’m stopping to take my own photos of Sara Stedys as I pass them with my walker on the way to the physio gym. This week, trying to find me new challenges, the physios took me to the hospital’s concrete stairwells and I went up and down with supervision. When I’m home for weekends, I often don’t bother with the walker or cane.
There were some more firsts this week – mostly subtle changes. I’m a bit surer on my feet. Using my right hand to place my fingers, my left hand stayed put long enough to make an E and a G chord on my nylon-string guitar. At home, I ventured out by myself for the first time to take some photos. Instead of ignoring my left hand, I now find myself reaching with it to flip a switch or turn on a tap. (Often I can’t do the task … but it’s worth noting that my brain is starting to think I might be able to!) I had my first full acupuncture session with a local specialist. Lori and Lee and my physio team made this “shoulder and arm” week. By the end of it I could lift my left arm in the air without help, while lying on my back. Karen, one of my supportive nurses, surprised me by saying “shake” with her left hand and I (sort of) did it.
I looked back at my journal from right after the first, smaller, stroke. I’m struck by how brief the notes are (probably because Sara was jotting them, exhausted). I notice what they don’t say: how my condition kept deteriorating, how deeply frightened I was that in my downward spiral, I’d soon wake unable to speak, or with a personality change, or in a coma.
In less than two weeks, I’ll be released back into the wild and into the care of my own Sara Stedy. I feel safe with her, too.
I know this doesn’t mean I’m “recovered.” A familiar refrain across stroke memoirs is that one does not go back to one’s “old self.”
“In the first days after the stroke, I had naively imagined that I would bounce back to being the person I had been in a few months. Meyerson’s book [Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke by Debra E. Meyerson and Danny Zuckerman] helped me realize that in life one can’t bounce back; one has to bounce forward.”
~Mukul Pandya, Stroke Onward
Reading the journal now, my overwhelming feeling is gratitude. My stroke wasn’t worse. I have a public health care system. I am surrounded with resources: personal, familial, emotional, financial, and community (folks like you) that collaborate to support my recovery.
Human Resources
I’m usually the pilgrim on the move, but for now I’m the stationary destination! Some of this week’s pilgrims included my colleague Gerjan (right, with Carly and their son Theo), who despite his heavy teaching load and precarious position, has visited me several times.
Or Tom Curry (above), the hospital’s music therapist and a local performer. I’m not sure our ward is even his responsibility. But after he heard I asked about music, Tom faithfully drops by. He asks what music I know and like, tests what I can shake the percussion egg to, and keeps encouraging me. “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Out on the Mira” “Hit the Road, Jack.” He knows them all.
Or John. John is a north star for the entire ward. Unflappable. Always cheerful. Extremely hard-working… Checking by name on every patient, just in case anyone needs help. As Sara was taking me home this weekend, John was dashing past for an emergency, but took the time to call over his shoulder, “Hey, Sara! Can you believe this guy? Look at him go! So proud of you, Matt, so proud of you.” Once John asked if he could do anything for me, and I asked for help with a shower. “Sure, Matt,” he said, and dropped everything to assist. It wasn’t until halfway through the shower that he admitted, “this isn’t normally part of my role.” Above and beyond.
Like Phyllis. Phyllis didn’t want to take a photo. “The School of Nursing doesn’t like it.” She’s an LPN with a sunshiny face who always says hi as though to a dear old friend, lifting the mood of everyone she treats. A month ago she spent her lunch break trimming my toenails. She wasn’t my nurse this week. But she dropped by, surprising me Friday just before my weekend pass. “How are your feet?” she asked, then proceeded to kneel to take a look (my ankles are swelling from the meds). “Oh, the skin is dry! Would you mind if I put some cream on them?”
Would I mind?? What a gift! As she was walking out for her next patient she called out: “I just love feet.” And me? I just love Phyllis.
Then there’s fellow writer, academic, and walker Ken Wilson who’s been faithfully sending newsy emails nearly daily since the moment Sara announced the stroke on social media, saying it would cheer me to hear from “the outside world.” This is despite Ken’s own mad teaching, writing/editing, and grading crunch! A few days after he read last week’s blog about my trouble with zippers, these showed up on our doorstep. Thank you, Ken!
Reaping Past Writing’s Rewards
Finally, it was a week of incredible affirmation in my life as an author and academic. This feels especially gratifying during a period when I’m struggling to type with one hand.
- Rubbing Shortlisted Shoulders with Naomi Klein
I found out I didn’t win the Vine $10,000 non-fiction prize for Prophets of Love: the Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul. But the book was one of just three short-listed out of 60, and the winner was Naomi Klein, for Doppelganger. Pretty amazing company!
It’s not 10 grand, but it’s certainly a prize to be considered in such company, and I will definitely encourage McGill-Queen’s to use the jury’s blurb in their marketing from now on!
2. Rave Review in Miramichi Reader
I was also floored when a Google alert informed me that The Good Walk received a spectacularly positive review by Michel Bryson in The Miramichi Reader.
3. Winnipeg Free Press Most Notable Books 2024
As if that wasn’t enough, The Good Walk also made the year-end list in The Winnipeg Free Press’s list of 2024’s most notable non-fiction. What a gift!
4. The Author Journey Weekly Livestream
I hesitated to say yes to appear this coming Tuesday with Anne Louise O’Connell on her weekly live videocast, “The Author Journey” to talk about my writing process. My speech still slurs when I’m tired. But Sara said, “that will all just be part of your story.” It’d be great to have you cheering me on there if you’re interested! Tuesday, Dec 10 2024, 4pm Atlantic (3pm Eastern) on their YouTube channel.
5. Copyedits and Cover Reveal: “Someone Else’s Saint”
To top off this flurry of reminders that writing done in the past is still at work in the present, Pottersfield Press just sent me the copyedits of Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia (coming out April 2025). I had submitted it the night I first arrived in the emergency room, following the first (smaller) stroke. Sara teases me that I may be one of a very small number of people on the planet whose first task upon arriving at the hospital by ambulance is to submit a book manuscript.
I suppose this is as good a time as any for a “cover reveal”!
For what it’s worth, this is the story of the Nova Scotia Ninian Way pilgrimage that immediately preceded the stroke! Saint Ninian may have a sense of humour.
somethinggrand 