st-marthas – somethinggrand

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.

Patience, patience, patient … now hurry up and go!

After 13.5 long weeks in the stroke unit at St Martha’s Regional hospital, my discharge yesterday seemed to happen all at once.

My overall progress has been overseen by the kind and professional Dr. Mary Gorman, Lead Physician. But this week’s physician on ward was the equally empathetic and soft-spoken Dr. Aaron Bates. In the morning, he stopped by to discuss last-minute tweaks to my meds.

He passed on a warm greeting to Sara, we shook hands, and he left.

Then, in quick succession:

a/ Thursday’s nurse, whom I know less well, immediately appeared to fill out discharge forms. She insisted on asking a long list of prescribed final check questions like: “what year is this?” and “Where are we right now?” despite the fact we’d been chatting in some depth about about provincial and federal healthcare politics only moments before.

b/ Physios Lee and Lena, and occupational therapists Lori and Ria (below) entered as if on cue with a barrage of January out-patient schedules, transit options (a mobility bus for 8 dollars a trip), prescriptions for equipment (a bar for the shower, a walker, and an electric shock device), and homework. (As well as for final hugs.)

c/ The hospital pharmacist sat down with me for a long consult and prescription check. We ditched the diuretic (for swollen ankles) in favour of a tweak in blood pressure meds. I’ll be on “baby aspirin” for the rest of my life.

d/ Like clockwork, “Ed” –an 80-year old more recent stroke survivor with a dry sense of humour– was wheeled over to inspect his future private room. (I’m glad he’ll be able to start getting the rest he’ll need to recover.)

e/ The cleaning staff started lurking around my doorway with mops and rags, asking if I was done packing up. (I clearly wasn’t!)

f/ One-handed speed-packing! I wonder if I’m the only patient at St Martha’s to have stripped their own bed on discharge? Sara was detained trying to get her final grades in by the deadline. So, motivated by the sidelong looks of the cleaning team, I went into one-handed high gear. All the hard work Sara put into making my room the most serene and comfortable place in the hospital was unravelled in minutes. Framed photos of our family and cats, Christmas quilts, twinkly lights, plants, a knitted prayer blanket, extension cords, spices, local teas and honey, books, earphones, a huge Christmas wreath, all my wonderful get-well cards … everything got stuffed into big blue IKEA bags for shlepping to the car. Sara was en route, but I didn’t wait. Everything got wheeled on my walker to the lounge. The cleaners descended like a flock of sanitizing vultures.

Processing…

“The goal of healing is not a papering-over of changes in an effort to preserve or present things as normal. It is to acknowledge and wear your new life – warts, wisdom, and all – with courage.” ~Catherine Woodiwiss

By the time I caught my breath, Sara and I were speeding toward Pomquet. Home! Once over the threshold (she didn’t carry me), she declared, “no more weekend passes — this time you get to stay!” We sat and reminisced about how she ran for aspirin way back on the night of September 16 when I mentioned the funny feeling in my arm. We marvelled at how far away that feels now. We were in the same chairs as back in September, but so much had changed. I guess a person might have predicted what happened next, but I was caught by surprise. I broke down completely and wept. Big, heaving, messy sobs.

Both Sara and I have been 100% focussed on “getting through” and staying positive for each other. We haven’t had a moment to process. The reality is that a major stroke destroyed part of my brain in September. The reality is that I now have a decreased range of mobility and an increased sense of mortality. The reality is that, between a pandemic, and a slow and frankly, sneaky privatization of public services for profit, our healthcare system is weakened. If I’d had a family doctor instead of a pharmacist, whose ability to adjust my blood pressure drugs when it was soaring out of control the last couple of years was extremely limited, things might have been different. The pharmacist urged me to go to emergency if my blood pressure hit 165, but because it happened frequently and I felt okay, I didn’t. I felt I didn’t want to take resources from people in a “real emergency.”

The emotional/grief work of processing the life changes resulting from the stroke is still largely to come. For my part, once I hit bottom and got over the terror of the initial 48 hours when more and more of me was disappearing, there was no time to fret. I understood that all my energy had to go to the things that would bring about maximum recovery. I knew I had to:

a/ work as diligently and proactively as possible with the physio and OT team during the crucial early post-stroke period

b/ do everything I could to present myself to nurses, doctors, physios, and other staff as someone to speak to, not about (the latter is distressingly common). As soon as I could, I got out of my Johnny shirt and jammies, and began getting dressed “normally”. Sara instinctively sensed this concern too, and brought a collection of books to my room first thing. Just like at home.

As those of you who’ve been in hospital for any length of time know, staying focussed and advocating for one’s needs becomes its own full-time job in a hospital. Even a good one like St Martha’s.

Another thing I did was to memorize and remember the names of all the staff who worked with me. This was not only important for point b above, and for my mental discipline — it was in search of the increased health and wellbeing that comes from forming relationships and connection.

Carers

“Safety is not the absence of threat … it is the presence of connection.” ~Gabor Maté

It worked. I soon came to feel like part of a wonderful team. Many of them are pictured below, but many others I’ll have to remember only in my heart, not my camera. The staff goodbyes actually went on for a few days. I presented each of my four physios with an acrostic poem of their name. There may or may not have been some tears. I gave the nursing and physio teams boxes of handsome ball-point pens. (Sara’s brilliant idea; good pens are coveted currency for hospital staff!)

I lost track of how many nurses and aides stopped by in my last two days in hospital to wish me well. Each of these folks became special to me. I learned to identify their voices at a distance, even tell who they were from the sound of their footsteps in the hall (as I’ve learned to walk again I’ve been paying a lot of attention to gait and stride).

Old Friends

“encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.” ~Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Through this journey, I have never felt alone. I’ve been encouraged and built up by all of your cards, letters, emails, flowers, prayers, candles, gifts, and visits.

Just a couple of days before discharge, my very last visitors were LCBI high school friend Brenda and her husband Alan. They drove up from their Nova Scotia farm to wish me well. What a pleasure it was to catch up! They were early Santas, leaving a gift bag of exquisite dried flowers, honey, craft beer, and more, all from their own Meander Farm and Brewery (a must-see on any visit to NS). What’s more, they ALSO brought Norwegian Christmas treats of lefse and krumkake (tastes of my childhood) from their neighbour and friend Deb, another LCBI friend and classmate who ended up in Nova Scotia. Wow!

Family

“Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.” ~Sam Levenson

As if that wasn’t enough good fortune, my brother Mark and sister-in-law Barbara flew out from Regina, Saskatchewan for the whole week prior to my transition. Their goal was to take some of the ferrying, appointment-ing, cooking, and visiting load off of Sara during her end-of-term exams and grading crunch. They also rolled up their sleeves and took on the chores I’d intended for the fall and either half-finished or never got to. They helped me with some preparatory tasks, like getting a handicapped parking tag, picking up a shower seat from the Red Cross, and helping put non-slip stickers in the bathtub. I was completely spoiled. I’m fortunate to have siblings I so enjoy spending time with (even when they’re not cleaning air exchange filters and organizing the garage).

It takes a village

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” ~Ryunosuke Satoro

So: after 14 weeks in hospital, I’m posting this blog from home! I don’t know if I will continue stroke-update blog posts (at least not weekly). I’ll ease back into to blogging about pilgrimage, decolonization, or writing. But my personal strokeaversaries will go on. For example, this week the biggest change I’ve noticed is that without thinking, I find myself reaching out with my left hand to do things more and more. Even when it’s slow, I’m flipping more light switches with my left hand, and opening more doors, trying to avoid the pitfalls of “learned non-use.” Today a first was managing to undo my seat belt with my left hand. This practice of reflecting weekly so I could share updates with loved ones has been good for seeing the big picture and celebrating each success. My friends Greg and Ingrid Gust just sent me the book Stronger after Stroke: Your Roadmap to Recovery. I take hope from this line: “stroke survivors can continue to make progress years, even decades, after their stroke.”

In coming weeks I’ll remember what the physio Lee said to me: “it was good working with you. You’re a survivor.” Or Makenna, yesterday, who held me up that first day as my leg stopped working, and wiped my bum when I couldn’t: “You never stopped trying, and that made all the difference. Some folks give up. You never gave up.” What Lee and Makenna may NOT know is that I had so many of you praying, lighting candles, meditating, walking, and sending me thoughts and cards reinforcing that message: “don’t give up. You can do it” that I really felt that all my efforts simply floated atop a river of love and support.

“I’ll be home for Christmas”

“Christmas reminds us to be grateful for the gift of life and to express our gratitude through acts of kindness…” ~Deepak Chopra

So: thank you. I’m home for Christmas. Here with Sara and Sweet Pea. My youngest, Gabe, will arrive Christmas Eve. We’ll all go make a festive dinner for Sara’s family. There wasn’t time for many presents this year. Nobody minds. We know how fortunate we are.

I’ll keep working toward recovery, bouncing forward toward whatever my new normal turns out to be. If I haven’t had the chance to thank you personally, please know what a tangible difference you’ve made to my recovery. There’s a lot of emphasis these days on individual effort, “bootstraps,” and success – my recovery is a reminder that instead, what’s really important is cooperation and relationality. Each of us can do incredible things only when we’re rich with relational support.

From Pomquet, Mi’kmaki, Merry Christmas — or whatever reminder of light in the face of winter, love in the face of hatred, and salvation in the face of impossible odds that you and yours may celebrate.