Tag: physiotherapy

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stroke-recovery Uncategorized

My “Year + Two Month” Strokeaversary

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.

It could have been that I wasn’t emotionally ready. I was – and I still am – processing the fact that as far as I’ve come, I haven’t yet mended as I’d wished. Paralysed and stuck in my wheelchair a year ago at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital, Antigonish, I told my youngest, Gabe, that by September 2025 we’d be going for another 100 km walk to celebrate my recovery, like we did on the Celtic Shores Trail along the Cape Breton coast in the month before the stroke.

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.

My public talks and interviews are happening again. I was interviewed this fall by Jesse Zink of Montreal Diocesan College in his “Principal Meets Author” Series. Be sure to listen to an upcoming episode of CBC Radio’s “The Cost of Living,” where I’ll be on a segment talking about Advent Calendars! This week I’m also presenting in the Research Chairs Colloquium Series at my university, an honour for me.

So, the one-year strokeaversary slipped by.

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.

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Uncategorized

Nine-month Strokeaversary: Summer, and the Living is Easy(ish)

My Left Hand

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!

Another gift is how I keep seeing my book Someone Else’s Saint in local and national bookstores. In July I’ll be having a signing at the Curious Cat bookshop and an author meet-and-greet in Dartmouth.

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.

Thank you. I know how fortunate I am!

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stroke-recovery

Six-Month Strokeaversary: Signs of Spring

Wow. Hard to believe it’s been six months since a shudder ran down my left arm and I found myself unable to speak for a couple seconds and Sara called an ambulance and ran for the aspirin.

And…the TIA and major stroke and everything that followed.

When I was wheeled into St Martha’s Regional hospital on a stretcher last September I had no idea it would be home for three months. Autumn was just beginning.

Now here we are at the spring equinox, six months later. The day before spring, the ice came off our little inlet, and those annoying fake ladybugs are waking up all around the house.

The solar panels we had installed last fall are finally free of snow and making power (I check them compulsively).

The seedlings we planted last year have survived.

All signs of spring. Another sign: I’ll have to learn how to tie my shoes again, since pull-on winter boot season is nearly over.

Here’s what else is happening…

My Heart Procedure

I had a pre-op appointment in Halifax last month, and Sara and I used our rare visit to the big city to have a date at IKEA (how romantic!). We then bought a car-load of groceries we can’t get in Antigonish at the surprisingly-well-stocked hole-in-the-wall that is Big Ray Convenience and Asian Store in Dartmouth.

During the appointment the surgeon teased us about being professors and grading him – but we said he already got an A+ just for taking me on. The procedure to close my PFO (Patent Foramen Ovale) will take place in a few weeks, in April. It involves inserting a soft metal “umbrella” into my heart through a tube inserted in my groin. (Really looking forward.) Once in place, it expands to close the hole in between the upper chambers of my heart (for explanation see here). Of course I’m nervous. But I’m thankful it’s considered a low-risk procedure, with recovery times of only a couple of days in most cases, and well worth it for the significant reduction in future stroke risk.

Bad Timing for the Someone Else’s Saint Party

Someone Else’s Saint: How A Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia is coming out within the month (mid-April). It won the Pottersfield Prize for Non-Fiction last year before it was published, and the prize was publication! It’s about walking the Whithorn Way in Scotland only to find a strong connection to its saint (Ninian) right here in Antigonish, then inaugurating a new Ninian Way in Nova Scotia. I’d already arranged for a launch at the wonderful Antigonish Heritage Museum. To my delight, 2024 Canadian Traditional Musician of the Year Mary-Beth Carty had agreed to play a couple songs during the evening! But when I got the notice from the hospital about my procedure, of course it turned out to be the day before the launch. Drat. So keep your eyes peeled for an announcement once I find a rescheduled date! Fingers crossed it will still work for Mary-Beth Carty!

Flu and Field Trip

This last month I caught the flu. It really knocked back my energy … and my stroke progress. Fortunately, Sara quarantined in the other end of the house and sanitized like a surgeon and didn’t catch it, and nursed me back to health over the week or so when I was most affected. I recovered in time to lead our team-taught StFX Religious Studies class “Intro to World Religions” on a field trip to Saint Ninian Cathedral, where Father Danny MacLennan seemed delighted to welcome a gaggle of young people, and even took some brave souls down to the crypt “where the bishops are buried.”

Hearts in Motion

Twice a week I drive to town, park at a handicapped spot on campus, and spend an hour at the gym with about ten others, as part of a public health program called “Hearts in Motion.”. The others are there post heart attack or heart surgery, mostly: as far as I can tell, I’m the only stroke survivor (I’m the only participant with partial paralysis…trying to do the “windmill” warm ups with my left arm). I didn’t know what to expect starting out, but going to the gym has been great for me. The first weeks I couldn’t even get on the elliptical machine, much less use it. Now it’s my favourite. I can actually hold the moving hand grips, and release the left one and grasp it again mid-step (sometimes). The program’s physio suggested I try the rowing machine. I was doubtful – I’ve never liked that device. But he was right: the pairing of my left and right arms that’s necessary for “pulling back” the rope and handle seems to be very good for training my affected left arm to stretch and reach. There are only four more sessions, so I may have to get a membership for spring and summer just to keep up on the machines. I’m still incapable of running, even very slowly, on a treadmill. I’d trip and fall. But I’m more and more tempted to try, just briefly…

Left Leg and Foot

I’m fortunate that the Physio and Occupational Therapist outpatient departments at St Martha’s hospital are still keeping me on. They say they keep seeing progress, and tell me I’m unusual (I think in a good way?). At my most recent strength and flexibility test, the physio told me that I’ve recovered close to normal strength in my left leg. “But I still have quite a limp,” I told her. “You can see that.” “That’s your brain,” she replied. “At some point it may get back to automatically lifting your foot and adjusting your gait. But there’s no way of knowing when that might happen…” I’m hoping this is like a pilgrimage path in Scotland that I was on with Ken Wilson and Christine Ramsay. Our guide at the time told us: “Use is the cure.” The other evening some great music came on and Sara and I had a quick dance. At the end of it she was laughing: “that felt like before your stroke,” she said. “You were leading like the old Matthew!” Ahhh….that’s what I’m aiming at.

Left Arm and Hand

My use of my left hand continues to improve….but very, very slowly, from my perspective. My guitar chording continues to get better: now I can play E,D,A, and G with minimal help from my right hand. But it’s slow, and my strength in pressing down the strings sometimes lacks. I gave up entirely on trying to type with it. I’ll have to get back to that.

Janna, my wonderful therapy aid at St. Martha’s, makes me attempt to move clothespins from a steel wire as a strength exercise for my left hand. But what I enjoy most is playing catch with her! I’ve gotten to the point where on a good day I can catch a gently tossed tennis ball with my left hand, against my stomach, several times, and often succeed in tossing it back, although sometimes my hand won’t let the ball go.

The issue with my hand is what is called “tension” or “spasticity.” My fingers will be loose until I squeeze something (say, toothpaste). Then, instead of loosening again, my fingers stay curled – locked! Sometimes the best technique is to ignore the hand briefly, until the fingers relax again on their own. It’s a bit like trying to fool your own brain. The spasticity seems to be diminishing. But it’s a slow process.

Poetry and 2025 Saskatchewan Book Awards

My first submission of my “stroke poetry collection” went nowhere, so I’ll be editing the poetry and trying again. But yesterday I got great news that really lifted my spirits! My memoir The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails is shortlisted in the “Publishing” category for the 2025 Saskatchewan Book Awards! On May 9 there will be a fancy awards ceremony in Regina, with the lieutenant governor in attendance. For now my cardiac doctor is telling me no travel. But I can’t wait for May! I’m trying to get my brother Mark, who lives there, to go in my place JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUST in case there is an award to accept.

The End of Term Approaches

All of the hospital staff seemed shocked that I planned to go back to work upon discharge. I don’t regret going back to teaching so soon. But now that the term is winding down I’m realising just how much energy it’s taking for me to go to town four days a week for teaching and physio (and, of course, I’ll stop by the grocery store or Canadian Tire often as well). The OT consultant from Halifax couldn’t believe my weekly schedule. “Of course you’re not getting through all your home exercises,” she said. “When would you do them?” Her main advice to me was to take it easier, especially after I developed frozen shoulder in my right arm last month. Sara declared the dishwasher (reaching down to load and reaching up to put dishes away) off limits and slapped a hefty 100-dollar fine on any disobedience!!! (I only made that mistake once.)

So taking it easy is part of my plan for spring. I’ll take inspiration from the Christmas cactus Sara bought me last fall for the hospital. It budded at Christmas. But in the end, no flowers materialised. Only now, after the equinox, at home, are the blooms coming.

I pray that in your life and mine, there will be delicate beauty developing in its own time this spring. In a world where small, powerful men seem so determined to distract us from their greed and incompetence by emphasizing division, brutality, and ugliness, may we be like this Christmas cactus: blooming boldly, especially where and when it is least expected, and most appreciated.

Categories
stroke-recovery

4-month Strokeaversary: Back to the Future

Back to Work

As I got out of the passenger seat with my backpack, and teetered through the snowstorm, slightly off balance, to teach my first class in over four months at Saint Francis Xavier University, Sara rolled down the window and looked proudly yet worriedly on. I went a few steps, then stopped and glanced back. “It’s like being in grade one!” I shouted. She laughed. “That’s what I was thinking!”

That first class, and those in weeks since, have gone well, all things considered, four months after a major stroke. I have over 50 lovely students for RELS 210 Bible and Film. I do find I have to stop speaking sometimes to swallow and to catch my breath, problems I never had before. And I’m exhausted at the end of the 75 minutes. When I go to leave the amphitheatre through the doors located at the top/back, I need to look for which side has a handrail to the right. But I find I can stand for almost the whole lecture. Kudos to the current chair of our department, Dr. Robert Kennedy, for suggesting that for the first part of term at least, I do half of my teaching online to save energy.

I was privileged last week to be invited by Katie Murphy, a member of StFX’s rugby team who’s been in several of my classes, to attend the Academic All-Canadian Awards breakfast as her one guest. Each Academic All-Canadian is a student athlete who maintains an average over 80% while excelling at their sport. They get to invite one favourite prof to the breakfast. Sara had the honour of being invited too, by another scholar-athlete, Myro Zastavnyy, who plays soccer. He got the highest mark in her New Testament class last term. All went fine, but a trip back and forth to a buffet table with breakfast in hand presents challenges I’ve never had to deal with before. Katie was a great help. She quipped, “once a server, always a server,” as she carried her own breakfast and some of mine back to our table.

Back to Mobility

Recently, I took my first solo drive in four months. As the kind clerk from the Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Division assured me: “since your medical has come in all clear, there’s no reason you can’t drive right now. Just be sure to take the test again.” I have to retake both my written and road tests before the end of February, or my license will be suspended.

Off I went. It felt great – and a little scary – to be back motoring out in the big wild world all on my own like that. My first independent excursion since September. I took advantage of my first solo trip to head all the way to town to buy a pair of pull-on winter boots. I can now do up zippers fairly consistently (thanks to my friend Ken Wilson‘s gift of zipper pulls). But tying shoes? I managed to do one lace for Sara’s father’s 90th in Moncton. But it took me over five minutes, tired me right out, and even then it was loose. Pull-on boots for now.

I love two things about the photo of my prayer below from Winston Parks’s big birthday. One is that the Mayor of Moncton, Dawn Arnold, is behind me. Sara has admired her for decades, and tagged her in the facebook invitation. It was a privilege to have her there. The other is that two different members of my family, my son Daniel and my sister-in-law Barbara, when they saw the photo on the right, instantly celebrated the fact that I was holding my remarks in my left hand.

Back to the Hospital (as an outpatient)

Twice a week I drive myself to St. Martha’s Hospital. There I spend a half-hour under Jay’s watchful eye: walking on my heels, walking backwards, side-stepping, and doing high leg-lift marching that reminds me of what we used to do in high-school sports practise.

I still don’t have the left-foot strength to walk consistently on my toes, nor is my “normal” gait that smooth. But I’m getting better every week. After physio, my new Rehabilitation Assistant, Janna, takes over and guides me through 45 minutes of hand and finger exercises. I’m VERY fortunate to still be receiving this level of care! (Please, for my sake and yours, never vote for a party that has designs to privatise healthcare any more than some provinces already are!)

Back Home

This weekend, for the first time, I ventured across our driveway to spent an hour “working out” (I use that term gently) in our crowded insulated shed. Before Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law cleared space and set up the recumbent bicycle and the treadmill (from Sara’s parents’ recent move to an apartment) for me. It was great to listen to a podcast and just get my legs going. There have been both mice and a resident squirrel inside that space in the last year. We cleaned it thoroughly last summer and employed many mouse-proofing tactics, but while I pedalled I kept my eye out just in case.

I have a full home physio routine which includes wrist exercises, doing leg lifts and arm raises, and giving my left hand the “TENS” treatment of low-level electrical current at least 30 minutes a day. I can now sometimes pick up pennies off a table with my left hand and drop them into a pill bottle, arm extended. Although I still have to use my right hand to guide my left, I can now make clearer chords on my guitar. You should see me wipe a counter! It’s a messy business. A big part of my home-work is using my left hand as much as possible to do daily tasks. I think it’s funny that as spastic as I am, Sara still trusts me to wash the crystal (and so close to the cast iron).

In some ways, it’s my expectations that are now changing. Rather than being surprised (and overjoyed) simply to be able to move my arm and hand again at all, these days more and more I find myself reaching for something, say a bar of soap, with my left hand without thinking. Then I’m surprised (and slightly disappointed) when my arm won’t extend that far, or my arm won’t straighten or fingers won’t open enough to grab it. My left hand looks and acts rather like one of those arcade claw machines, like in the movie Toy Story.

On my new low-sodium regime, I allow myself to buy these salted veggie-stix on one condition: I’m only allowed to eat them with my left hand!

I can finally, sometimes, extend my arm straight forward in a “cheers” motion. But I would never be able to hold a heavy pint of German beer in that position! I’m lifting a three pound weight for bicep curls and doing tricep work with a stretch band. Laughably light loads, but a start!

And now that I’m home, I’m noticing some more subtle stroke effects. My eyesight isn’t quite as good as before the stroke. My taste buds continue to be “off” especially around sugars and bread products (that might be the COVID I caught in hospital). And my hearing is slightly, but noticeably, worse…not so much in terms of volume, but when trying to distinguish “t”s, “d”s and the like. I keep reminding myself of how fortunate I am, and how much more damage the stroke might have done. I can use both arms for a hug. That’s worth a lot! And cooking can be the most fun home therapy of all (photo below from my youngest – Gabe’s – visit with us over Christmas, which was a joy). I’m glad that Sara didn’t mind that all my (few) presents for her were from the hospital gift shop!

Back to Writing

All fall in the hospital, it was hard to concentrate on my research project on Jerome with my fatigue, frequent interruptions, and (most welcome!) intensive rehab regime. It was Sara’s suggestion that I use some of my isolation time to get back into writing smaller things, like poetry. I came up with a small collection, which I’m submitting to a provincial competition this week. I can’t share it here (since it must be “unpublished work”), but please keep your fingers crossed for me.

I also turned around the copy-edited proofs for Someone Elses’ Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia, due out in Spring 2025.

My big question mark is typing. If I can figure out a less sensitive keyboard for practise, I’d like to try typing while including my curly-fingered left hand, just to keep those left muscle memories alive. That’s on the to-do list. I sometimes use dictation, but that isn’t the way I am most comfortable composing and the results end up different!

Back to Gratitude

I’m still SO humbled for the ways I was supported all through my time in hospital by so many of you. Thank you! I get rushes of gratitude when I see the cards or when someone contacts me to check on how I’m doing. The postal strike gave us a kind of unexpected blessing, in that here we are in January and I’m still getting cards that were hibernating during the strike. Special recent thanks to Nadine and Phil for the so-very thoughtful box of individually wrapped and labelled goodies, and to George Greenia, who made it an Advent discipline last fall to mail us a steady stream of fun little cards of support, only to have them stack up with Canada Post and arrive all at once this week! Those of you who know George know that in addition to his kind heart he has a cheeky sense of humour. I’ll leave you with one of his mailings as an example!

I was also touched when our friend Amanda texted Sara the week after I got home, to ask, “When is Matthew’s weekly stroke report coming out? Mom and I look forward to it every Sunday.” What a miracle, to write one’s experiences and hopes into the ether, and have them land in the hearts of others.

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stroke-recovery

Walking & Chewing Gum: Strokeaversary Week 10

This week Lori and Lee from my physio team have been keeping an eye on my left hand. It’s going on two weeks that it’s been swollen. (I promise that’s unrelated to using it to peel and grate 3 cups of carrots for my first carrot cake since the stroke.) With the swelling comes cramping of my wrist & fingers at night. “I want you to try wearing this to sleep,” Lori said, pulling out a brace that looks like a plush toy octopus. “If it hurts, take it off.”

The brace actually helps.

Reflecting on the cramping coalesced some thoughts about my left side. This stroke has caused me to observe my own body as an outsider, to put it mildly.

Here’s what I’ve noticed: at first when I started being able to almost imperceptibly budge my hand, those left-side movements required massive exertion. After we got over crying with relief that my brain connected to that hand at all, Sara and I laughed that just to wiggle my thumb a millimeter made me sweat and turn red. I had to tense my whole core like I was doing sit ups, bend all the fingers of my right hand in support, and even curl my toes. My tongue stuck out like a focused toddler. It seemed that every muscle in my body was involved in those first miraculous thumb movements!

I now think that’s because they all were.

Now that my left side has limbered up considerably, this “sympathetic movement” is still common. If I lift my left arm up, my right toe unconsciously lifts in sync.

Other mystifying aspects of my recovery seem to support this. Why did the ice bath they gave my left hand hurt so badly when my right hand could frolic like a happy Scandinavian amongst the cubes? Why, when I go to use my unaffected hand, does my left hand go into spasm? Why does it take my whole body to shake that egg in music therapy? (See below.) And why, when I yawn, does my left arm sometimes rise from my side like some unbidden ghost?

I’m calling it the “walking and chewing gum” problem. I think the reason everything moves is because, when it comes to creating action on the left side of my body, my brain is shouting at every neuron in the house. My rearranged “command centres” don’t yet know (and maybe the newly-conscripted neurons don’t know either) which of them is now responsible for, say, my third finger. So every neuron gets every order to move and they can’t all do everything at once.

Getting well, then, is not as simple as just strengthening my arm, hand, and leg. It means training a new command chain. I want the extraneous twitches to drop away. I don’t want neighbouring neurons and their muscles to jump to attention every time I scratch an itch. Increased use can also harden those apprentice neurons to things like cold ice baths!

Of course, I know that in the end, I’m fortunate my left side is moving at all! The fact that on Friday Lee had me breaking down the micro-movements in climbing stairs tells me a/ I can climb stairs, and b/ I’m at an “improving” rather than just “doing” stage thanks to brain plasticity.

Firsts!

Speaking of which, here are some of this week’s “firsts”:

1/ a belt. I can wear a belt again, mostly because I can fasten it for the first time since my stroke. Not pretty, but it gets done. Works best with pants slightly too large, which is easier these days. (No glass of wine with dinner in the hospital!)

2/ a wax manicure. Ria helped me dip my hand in molten wax. Then she wrapped it in a plastic bag and then a towel. Afterwards we all agreed that even if it didn’t heal anything, it still felt pretty darned good!

3/ zippers. After attaching a twist tie and paper clip to my winter coat I can do it up, most of the time. I never before realized that those little fabric extensions on zippers are an accessibility feature.

4/ first solo excursion. Sara was teaching Wednesday evening, but I really wanted to hear the “Women of the Antigonish Movement,” lecture by Prof. Robin Neustaeter and StFX student Sophie Gallant. So I put on my coat, signed myself out, took the elevator down to the entrance, got security to call me a cab, and off I went to the Antigonish Heritage Museum. I was momentarily stymied when the cab driver never got out to help me with my walker. But I managed to hoist it into the back of the van and back out again all on my own–another first! (No tip for this driver.) Sara came after class to drive me home. She packed the walker, and didn’t even ask for a tip.

5/ that carrot cake. It turned out perfectly, and Sara miraculously made cream cheese icing, with no cream cheese in the house! The physios and nurses got most of it, as a small token of thanks.

6/ “driving” test! This week I also took an initial driving test. Well, it wasn’t really driving, but a little plastic accelerator and brake pedal in the physio room, designed to check my reaction time. There were also some sequential logic tests on paper and an “identify the traffic signs” quiz. I passed them all without problem. This means I’m now recommended to retake the provincial driver’s exam as a one-handed driver.

7/ most importantly: for the first time this week, I can consistently raise my left index finger, and spread my left-hand fingers so I can pick up and let go some objects. I can also swing my left arm into the air and hold it there (see below). In the long arc of my recovery these are massive developments. Yet I actually used my fingers a few times before even realising it, maybe because I’ve been “visualizing” doing it all week!

Home for the weekend.

I’m also finding it somewhat easier to manoeuvre around the yard with a cane. This weekend, we planted garlic. Or rather, Sara did, under my “Green Acres” style tutelage. But I did manage to shovel a little earth, mostly just to try. A gaggle of marauding Guinea Fowls watched us. They started visiting recently, and Sara’s in love and wants to adopt them or get some of our own.

Surprise visitor.

One visitor this week was local artist and activist Sara avMaat. She had just launched her latest ‘zine project, Rat Tales, at the StFX Art Gallery. It’s a tale of two “philosophically minded” mine-sweeping rats named Wesley and Trevor, based on real-life African giant pouched rats who do this work. Since I missed the launch, Sara dropped off a signed copy! I used her previous comic, Hope Unleashed, as a textbook when I taught “Religions and The Environmental Crisis.”

Back to the “office.”

The fact that Sara and I sometimes slip up and say that I go “back to work” or even “back to the hotel” after a weekend pass is a sure sign of how at home, productive, and rested I feel in my private hospital room. Sweet Pea seems to have internalized my schedule too. Today when it was time to go back she let us know she wanted me to stay….

There are so many interesting carers at St. Martha’s I’d love to tell you about all of them. Today, Dionne comes to mind. Dionne is a thoughtful, experienced, and smart LPN who has lived in Greece and Germany – prompting us to converse about German pastries and Greek spanikopita and olives. Thursday evening she dropped by the room and said: “I need to write some kind of inspirational verse on the white board. What have you got?” I said, “Never ask a writer a question like that,” to which she replied, “That’s exactly why I’m asking you.”

When Sara dropped by after class, she quipped, “How about: ‘Well, at least you’re not dead’?” and Dionne laughed. Eventually I came up with something to share. I never paid much attention to it after that until Friday afternoon, as I was preparing to come home for the weekend. Then, one of the elderly patients was shuffling by my room with her walker. She exclaimed, “oh, look at that!” and then read the saying out loud. I’ll end with it here, since it encapsulates how I feel about all your support:

“Many hands make light work – and many hearts make good healing”

Please keep praying, meditating, and raising thoughts, especially for my hand and my shoulder … and my neurons … as I go into the final stretch of my hospital stay: I’ve been told my discharge is scheduled for December 18th! Sweet Pea will be pleased.

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Strokeaversary week 10: Handcamp Antigonish

Here’s a slice of hospital life from Nova Scotia:

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!

P.S. I was surprised and very, very thankful to get the news this week that Prophets of Love: the Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul is one of three non-fiction works short-listed for the 2024 Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards! What a gift to my spirit to receiving an honour for past writing at a time when I’m typing with one hand!

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A Room of One’s Own: strokeaversary week 9

I remember walking from Melrose Scotland, to Holy Island, England, in 2013. After some extremely hot and tiring days, the path took me up a 300-metre ascent to a rocky outcrop. (There was also the small matter of a pasture with bulls, which can happen when you have the “Right of Responsible Access” to pastureland–but that’s another story.) At the top I stopped to catch my breath. Turning to see the view, I realised that there on the distant horizon two valleys over, I could make out the ruins of the Roman fort where I’d stopped on my first morning of pilgrimage, two days before.

That’s how this week feels. The pilgrimage through my stroke is hardly over. But this week I’m seeing how far I’ve come. The parallel bars (below) that not so long ago represented the greatest distance I could possibly shuffle are now where I try balancing while standing on my left leg without support. I have more strength in that leg every day. Without use of my left hand and arm to steady myself, my balance is off. But the distance? No problem.

Although the physios aren’t recommending I do this at home, Lee is making me practise climbing stairs one per foot, like you probably walk them, instead of like a toddler does. This week she had me kicking a soccer ball back and forth with her (I had to hold on to a railing for support, but my left leg did quite well.) For the first time since my stroke I did up the button on a pair of jeans on my own. And I might only be able to “bench press” a featherweight aluminum cane. But the simple fact my left arm can even hang on is a major win. And for the first time this week, I could sometimes push my arm straight ahead on a table. “Cheers” is getting closer!

I’m thankful that the newly-conscripted neurons in my brain that agreed to take over the management of my arm and hand are beginning to sort out their new roles. But I have to be patient: I was so anxious to force my wrist to flex in my room that my hand swelled up like a balloon. I suffered painful cramps until it recovered. Sara suggested, since I am so eager to use all my time working on recovery, that I do it in other ways than “extreme boot camp” (as she put it) and instead take some time each day to be consciously grateful to my brain and my awakening left side. It’s great advice, so I’ve added that to my routine.

Lee, who works mainly with my legs, says she’s amazed at my progress. She hasn’t seen this video of me bringing my own tea to the couch at home on my “weekend pass” today, without cane or walker. I’m not sure what she’d think!

When I was watching this video and bemoaning the lack of fluidity in my step Sara reminded me that just six weeks ago it required two people to hoist me out of bed and get me to the washroom. Looking back brings perspective.

There’s no news yet about “Handcamp”…. they’re waiting on word of whether I’m eligible. But I’m booked in Halifax at the end of the month for a preliminary cardio assessment, a first step to the procedure to close the hole in my heart that may have let a clot pass to the brain.

Having a room to myself is making a world of difference. The previous week, with little rest day or night, I was looking “increasingly frazzled and worn,” in the words of one nurse. Now I sleep well most nights. During the day there’s peace, so I can read, listen to CBC, write (working on some poetry), or do my physio. I also feel more comfortable video-chatting with the kids, and I attended my own class by Zoom this week when Elizabeth Castelli graciously came to talk to them about early Christian ascetic women patrons. Now Sara can even bring her meal and share the whole evening, as her schedule allows. From a place of stress, my hospital room has become an oasis for healing.

I’m thankful to the physio team – Lori, Lee, Ria, Lina, and Abby – who are so patient with me day after day. They were the ones who pushed for a room where I would get the rest my brain needs to recover. The staff know that my dogged motivation comes from being supported by so many of you. One of the orderlies looked at my shelf of cards and said “well, aren’t YOU well-loved!” That comment gave me a physical rush of warmth and comfort.

Several of you recommended recently that I read Daniel Levitin’s just-published “I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine.” Coincidentally, Levitin and I had an email exchange last spring, when he asked me something about Prophets of Love: The Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen and the Apostle Paul. We exchanged books by mail. So I’m reading Secret Chord now, and feeling the recuperative power of music every day (see below). I should tell Levitin I’ve had a stroke, and how applicable his research is for me.

That healing power of music is definitely helping release some of the frozenness of my left side. I’ll sign off this week’s update with the clip below, more evidence of how far I’ve travelled with this stroke. I love to dance… and in my own room, now I can. Or better, we can. If you know me, you know this has GOT to be good for my recovery!

[Click here for my podcast about that walk from Melrose, Scotland, to Holy Island.]