Tag: writing

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stroke-recovery

Five Month Strokeaversary: “I Got My License!”

“Dad, can I borrow the car tonight? I promise I’ll fill ‘er up.”

After my stroke, I was required by law to take my driver’s tests (written and practical) again, as a “one-armed driver.” I went in to Access Nova Scotia for an oral exam on road rules and safety, a road signs quiz, and a 45-minute road test. My jovial inquisitor was Teresa. At the end of it all, I officially got to keep my driver’s license.

Yayyy!!! I feel SO thankful.

The Driving Exam

It seems fitting that my 90-min driving exam took place almost five months to the day from my stroke back in September. I was supposed to take it a week ago. But I hurt my unaffected right arm last week overworking it (trying to rake snow off our solar panels, I think, or maybe it was that time I carried in all the groceries at once). It took a week for my “driving arm” to recover enough to turn a corner without grimacing.

Was I nervous? Of course! It will be – unbelievably to me – 50 years this June since I passed my first driver’s test in Regina, Saskatchewan (the above grouchy photo was taken a year or two after that time….I’ve since learned to smile!). The very professional and friendly Teresa here in Antigonish was all smiles when we got back to the provincial office. “Look at that,” she said, holding out her clipboard. “I barely wrote a thing. Sometimes I have to fill these sheets! You got just enough points deducted to prove you’re human.” I know one of the two things I got docked for was not signalling when I left a roundabout, but it was because I couldn’t safely take my right hand off the wheel to get all the way over to the turn signal while making that sharp a turnoff.

Appointments, Appointments, Appointments

Since Sara and I live in the country, not having a driver’s license would have meant a major life change. These days I’m teaching two days a week at Saint Francis Xavier University, 17 km down the highway. (Last week’s midterm exam for Bible and Film pictured above!) A normal week also means driving in two mornings for the Nova Scotia Cardio rehab program “Hearts in Motion” at the StFX Amelia Saputo Centre gym, where I and a dozen other heart patients get sessions on exercise and diet and 75 minutes on the treadmills, stationary bikes, and (for me) elliptical machines. I usually bump into one or two of my students, which is nice. Twice a week I also head back to the stroke rehab centre at the hospital, now as an outpatient. There I do 30 minutes of physio and 45 minutes of occupational therapy. Then there are all the appointments for blood tests, stress tests, reassessments, and consults, most here, but some coming up in Halifax.

I remember the old folks always complaining about how busy they were with appointments. Preoccupied juggling multiple part-time jobs and kids, I remember thinking: that’s hardly something to keep a body busy. Boy was I was wrong! I’ve needed to post myself a schedule just to keep all my rendezvous’ straight and out of conflict with my teaching times. I’ve also apparently joined that group of people who have to remember to take multiple pills daily, counting them out carefully every evening.

Me and My Big PFO

A big date for me comes up the end of this month in Halifax: my initial cardiac procedure pre-appointment. In case you missed my earlier mention of this: apparently I have a “PFO,” a hole between the upper chambers of the heart. This hole exists in newborns, but in almost all people closes in very early infancy. In a small percentage of us, that hole never closes. A PFO can allow a clot from the leg to pass directly to the brain rather than being shunted safely to the lungs for “processing.”

No one seems to know for sure if this is what happened to me. But it may have been. Something poetic about the fact I have a hole in my heart.

At my pre-appointment they’ll confirm whether I’m a candidate to have that hole closed with an arthroscopic procedure involving magnetized rubber washers. Of course I’d like that procedure asap. I don’t want another stroke (although I’m grateful for the meds that have finally brought my blood pressure down from the mountaintops)! But I know I’m fortunate to be seen so quickly about this. For now, on the doctor’s advice I’m not flying or taking long drives. A trip to Montreal to see the kids, or speaking at Gathering of Pilgrims 2025 in Vancouver as planned, are out.

Refuse the Plateau!

The book “Stronger After Stroke” that was sent to me by Greg and Ingrid Gust says that a good rule for stroke survivors is to refuse to accept the idea of “a plateau” limiting their recovery. So that’s what I’m doing. And amazingly, I have yet to see a plateau. Every single day, I see slight but noticeable improvements. For instance, I typed this sentence using the three fingers of my left hand….not easy, nor graceful, but a start.

I sometimes feel disappointed for still having a pronounced limp when I walk (my arm and leg spasticity, or tightness, becomes much worse when I’m cold). Then Sara reminds me that I’m also walking through snow, and up and down multiple flights of stairs at the gym and the university (holding the railing). So there’s that.

The physios at the hospital filmed me walking. “This isn’t for us,” they said. “This is for you, so you can see how far you’ve come.” Sara came into our living room last week to find me lying on the floor. I’d been trying to squat the way I used to pre-stroke. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I tipped over,” I said, not moving. “Do you need help getting up?” she asked gently. “No.” Sometimes, flat on your back, you just gotta laugh.

My proudest news is that for the first time I can actually make a couple of chords on my guitar… WITHOUT always using my right hand to “arrange” my left fingers. Before Christmas I couldn’t even keep my left hand on the guitar without it sliding off under its own weight. Now, the feeling of very slowly moving my left fingers into an A or D chord (the easiest) is pure joy. A stroke-specialist in Halifax I met with over Zoom said to keep at the guitar daily. That seems to be the key: my daily routines, using my left hand as much as possible, even though it takes so much more time (you’d chuckle to see me spending three minutes trying to fish a spoon out of the cutlery drawer for my tea – do you remember Tim Conway’s SOOOOO-slow routines from the Carol Burnett show?).

Book Launch!

One of the best parts of being at least partly back in the routine is getting back to my writing. With my colleague Barry from the History Department who also happens to run the Antigonish Heritage Museum where I was first invited to give the talk that ended up ballooning into my new book, we’ve set a date for the launch — fittingly at the museum! “Someone Else’s Saint: How a Scottish Pilgrimage Led to Nova Scotia” launches there on Thursday April 24th, at 7 pm. I’ll tell the story of the book and do a reading or two, some of the local walkers will attend (I hope), and fingers are crossed for some fine local music! Two days later, Sat April 26th, I’ll be in New Brunswick for the Greater Moncton Riverview Dieppe Book Fair from 10 am to 3 pm. The book is already getting some nice attention, with a planned CBC Radio (All in a Weekend) interview. It’s only in pre-sales, but it’s already listed as #15 in Amazon Canada’s “hot-sellers” in its category (see below). But please don’t buy it there … pre-order it through your local bookstore instead! 🇨🇦

Taking Time for Warm Stanfields and for Berry Blossoms

Like everyone else, I’m having a hard time not doom-scrolling and feeling anxious these days because of the news. But my stroke recovery books – and my common sense – tell me that what’s best for my condition is to maintain a hopeful and constructive attitude, and allow my self-discipline and anxiety to be tempered by humour and forgiveness (good advice for us all). So I’m going to be lining up some post-stroke, retirement-adjacent therapy. I’ll try to dial down the work and dial up the creative writing a bit more all the time. And even on my lower sodium, fat and sugar regime, there’s some room for the occasional self-indulgence, such as these 100% Quebec-made “Berry Blossoms.”

As you might be able to tell from this photo of the moon rise over our neighbours’ place, it’s been cold here in Pomquet – and the cold affects me more since my stroke. So it’s also been great to discover that the “Stanfields” long johns of my youth is now a full clothing line, made since before Canada was even a country, just down the road in Truro Nova Scotia. I bought myself a sleeping shirt and Sara a tee-shirt for Valentine’s. These days, I think we can all agree with the logo.

If by chance you’re thinking of saying goodbye to Facebook at some point, please consider subscribing to this blog as a way of staying in touch. Thank you for following me along on this pilgrimage through stroke, and may the support you’ve given me return to you in a thousand ways. Courage and health to you, from our home to yours!

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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.

Categories
stroke-recovery

Sara Stedy: Week 11 Strokeaversary

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.

  1. 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.

    Categories
    Uncategorized

    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.]