Well, no-one ever said life as a strokie was going to be easy. In fact, of course, it's bloody hard at times. But, as a close friend of mine is fond of saying and as strokies have to tell ourselves all the time, it's a darned sight better than the alternative.
This week, I've had perhaps my plainest view of this.
Last Wednesday, my diary included a visit from my private physio in the morning (he didn't turn up, but that's irrelevant to this story), a one-hour lunchtime appointment with a yoga teacher I know who wanted some business advice, a lengthy visit to my GP in the afternoon and Week 2 of my counselling skills course at college for three hours in the evening.
In my heart, I kind of knew it was too much for my strokie body to handle; throw in an unexpected 30-minute phone call in mid-afternoon and a panic over getting to college on time because of traffic congestion and the result should have been inevitable. I was yawning all the way through my class (sorry, ladies!) and was dead on my feet by the time I got home.
For the first time in my business networking career, I had to cancel my attendance at a Thursday morning meeting. Not only was I in no fit state to get up at 6am, but I spent most of Thursday and Friday lying on the sofa doing absolutely nothing. Have I mentioned that I have struggled with the concept, regularly talked of by my medics, that sometimes my body and brain will tell me that they've had enough and I need to do nothing? Well, that was it. You might call it, to use a term beloved of long-distance athletes, hitting the wall. I'd hit the wall.
During those two days, I had some conversations with friends in the strokie community about how to avoid this happening again. They all told me I need to manage my fatigue better, build regular breaks into my day, stop worrying about the future and give my brain time to heal. It all makes perfect sense. It all requires major changes in attitude which I know need to be done. The difficult bit is making myself do them.
By the weekend, I seemed to have recovered; Saturday passed in the usual blur - breakfast in Wetherspoons, football, church, a pint with Mrs W, a chinese takeaway, Match Of the Day and bed. Sunday promised to be calmer - a leisurely breakfast, two hours reading the Sunday Times in the supermarket cafe while Mrs W shopped, the two of us taking the dog for a walk round the block, a rest before dinner, Sunday roast and an evening spent reading the papers while Herself watched her terrible choice of TV programmes. But Wetherspoons was hosting a boisterous children's party, every rowdy six-year-old in Tamworth seemed to be in Asda.....by 5pm, I was poleaxed again.
I got through the evening, went to bed early - and woke on Monday morning paying the price for a busy weekend, with the effects of a dose of man-flu thrown in. It's been a fair few months, since just after I came out of hospital in January 2013, since I couldn't move off the sofa. Now I'd been stuck there twice in five days and I didn't like it.
It's not been the best of weeks, then. But it ended in extraordinarily positive fashion. A good night's sleep got rid of Monday's woes and I awoke on Tuesday, primed and ready to go to Derby for another session with Emily Smedley, the therapist I mentioned here last time.
"She's got her work cut out after this week," I thought, as I boarded the train. Yet my hour on her couch was extraordinary. She poked and prodded me even harder than she had first time around, but this time I made the mistake of pointing out specific problems. I was worried about my knee, I said. So, she worked on my legs, my back, my feet - everything that could help me feel better and healthier from the waist down.
I yelped and howled in pain at times - but what is it they say about if it's not hurting, it's not working? By the end of our session, I was almost able to do that yoga pose where you put your foot behind your head.
Then I walked (I'm not quite up to striding yet) up and down the corridor outside her treatment room several times, standing ramrod straight, not veering from side to side and without my sticks. I am doing all this because I want to do at least one 5km run for charity this summer. There have been times this week when that has looked a million miles away. But in the roller-coaster world of stroke-rehabilitation, there is no such word as 'can't'.
Tuesday 27 January 2015
Monday 19 January 2015
Small steps - or big steps?
Stroke rehabilitation is mainly about taking small steps; indeed, one person who frequents a stroke-survivor Facebook group I use wrote a book about their experience and called it 'Small Steps."
Sometimes, though, a small step can feel like a big one - being able to move a finger for the first time; being able to use a knife and fork, to actually take a step (I recall the first time I walked on sticks from my bed in hospital 20 yards down the corridor to the physio's room - it felt like doing the London Marathon)
And sometimes, very rarely, you do something which feels like a giant step. I've done one of those this week.
I was going to use this post to mention the first week of my counselling skills course. But what happened last Tuesday was so important to my recovery that this post will be twice as long as usual - and classroom affairs will have to wait.
Earlier this month, I went as usual to a business networking meeting in Lichfield; As I always do, I made a concerted effort to speak to people in the room I had never met before. It makes them feel welcome and it is good networking practice - you never know what they have to offer you, or you have to offer them.
On this occasion, the only newcomer was a lady who looked as if she had cycled to the meeting (she hadn't) and who was drinking an interesting green concoction. We started up a conversation (having walking sticks IS a great conversation-starter) had a one-to-one chat during the meeting and agreed to get together again afterwards.
In fact, she's a therapist from Derby called Emily Smedley. I was so interested (if a little nonplussed) by what she said that I agreed to travel from Tamworth for an initial consultation with her. We were together for about an hour, during which she poked and prodded (sometimes slightly painfully) around my legs and feet, all the time talking about the importance of restarting the neural pathways in the body.
Now as I said in my last post, I've learnt a lot during the past year about the neural pathways in the brain and how they reconfigure after a stroke, but I knew nothing about how they work in the rest of the body. So it was all a bit 'over my head' as I listened to her talking while she did her work (her worst?).
But at the end of our session, I did know that my legs felt somehow different; more connected to the rest of my body than they had since that awful day in December 2013. Not only did I feel more able to walk without support, but I could do so while holding my head up (I am notorious for staring at the floor while I walk - always have been) and while walking straight. I have been able to get about sans sticks for a while, but only indoors where I could grab on to something if I became unsteady; outdoors, I have been too nervous. But now, I felt that I could.
When I got back to Tamworth, I tried to walk without my sticks. And not only did I find that I could, but that I could sustain it. Gathering confidence, I picked up my sticks, put them under my arm and walked from Tamworth railway station to Warrillow Towers (which Mrs W tells me is an eight-minute walk at normal speed) without using them, or without feeling unsteady.
I did that walk again on Wednesday morning and almost (almost!!!) broke out into a run as I went to catch a train that afternoon. I refuse to get carried away (sorry) and I've arranged to meet Emily again next week for more poking and prodding. She feels as if we've only just started. I feel as if a big hurdle has been overcome (sorry again!).
Emily Smedley can be contacted via breathebalancebeactivated.com and on 07813 798643.
Sometimes, though, a small step can feel like a big one - being able to move a finger for the first time; being able to use a knife and fork, to actually take a step (I recall the first time I walked on sticks from my bed in hospital 20 yards down the corridor to the physio's room - it felt like doing the London Marathon)
And sometimes, very rarely, you do something which feels like a giant step. I've done one of those this week.
I was going to use this post to mention the first week of my counselling skills course. But what happened last Tuesday was so important to my recovery that this post will be twice as long as usual - and classroom affairs will have to wait.
Earlier this month, I went as usual to a business networking meeting in Lichfield; As I always do, I made a concerted effort to speak to people in the room I had never met before. It makes them feel welcome and it is good networking practice - you never know what they have to offer you, or you have to offer them.
On this occasion, the only newcomer was a lady who looked as if she had cycled to the meeting (she hadn't) and who was drinking an interesting green concoction. We started up a conversation (having walking sticks IS a great conversation-starter) had a one-to-one chat during the meeting and agreed to get together again afterwards.
In fact, she's a therapist from Derby called Emily Smedley. I was so interested (if a little nonplussed) by what she said that I agreed to travel from Tamworth for an initial consultation with her. We were together for about an hour, during which she poked and prodded (sometimes slightly painfully) around my legs and feet, all the time talking about the importance of restarting the neural pathways in the body.
Now as I said in my last post, I've learnt a lot during the past year about the neural pathways in the brain and how they reconfigure after a stroke, but I knew nothing about how they work in the rest of the body. So it was all a bit 'over my head' as I listened to her talking while she did her work (her worst?).
But at the end of our session, I did know that my legs felt somehow different; more connected to the rest of my body than they had since that awful day in December 2013. Not only did I feel more able to walk without support, but I could do so while holding my head up (I am notorious for staring at the floor while I walk - always have been) and while walking straight. I have been able to get about sans sticks for a while, but only indoors where I could grab on to something if I became unsteady; outdoors, I have been too nervous. But now, I felt that I could.
When I got back to Tamworth, I tried to walk without my sticks. And not only did I find that I could, but that I could sustain it. Gathering confidence, I picked up my sticks, put them under my arm and walked from Tamworth railway station to Warrillow Towers (which Mrs W tells me is an eight-minute walk at normal speed) without using them, or without feeling unsteady.
I did that walk again on Wednesday morning and almost (almost!!!) broke out into a run as I went to catch a train that afternoon. I refuse to get carried away (sorry) and I've arranged to meet Emily again next week for more poking and prodding. She feels as if we've only just started. I feel as if a big hurdle has been overcome (sorry again!).
Emily Smedley can be contacted via breathebalancebeactivated.com and on 07813 798643.
Monday 12 January 2015
Are you living or just surviving?
'We're merely surviving. Very few people actually live; don't just survive, be one of the people that actually live."
It's not an original quotation, I believe it's from Oscar Wilde, but a teenage friend of mine posted it this week on a website for strokies.
Of course, she's right (as was Oscar). Most of us drift through life, commuting to work, dealing with our daily family crises; it takes something like a stroke to make us realise how swiftly life can be snatched from us and how important it is to live, not just survive.
How do we do that? Lots of strokies decide that they are going to get out of their comfort zone; do something they have always shied away from previously. I'm going to be one of them. As a start, this week, I begin a course of introductory training in counselling skills. It's not something I would have contemplated before December 16 2013 but I now feel my experience of life is something I want to share with others who may need it.
My neuropsychologist thinks I can cope with the demands of the course and that I'll be good at it, as long as I remember how to deal with the thing that plagues every strokie - mental fatigue. Tiredness is the brain's way of telling us that it needs rest; ignoring tiredness only makes fatigue worse. So I'm having to break the habit of a working lifetime and accept that when I'm tired, I need to rest. Only then will I be able to live at what is now my full capacity and not just survive.
On a different tack, I've been thinking this week about the different words we use to describe what people go through when they have a stroke. That word itself, 'stroke' somehow sounds mild, doesn't it? Yet, believe me: having a stroke is like having an atomic bomb go off in your head. It's brain damage. I have to tell people that there are parts of my brain which died that afternoon and aren't coming back.
The brain is brilliant at reconfiguring itself by building new neural pathways (I recommend The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge to anyone who wants to know more about brain injury) but the fact is that a stroke is a life-changing event which can strike and kill at any time. That's why those of us who have been through it really know the difference between living and just surviving.
It's not an original quotation, I believe it's from Oscar Wilde, but a teenage friend of mine posted it this week on a website for strokies.
Of course, she's right (as was Oscar). Most of us drift through life, commuting to work, dealing with our daily family crises; it takes something like a stroke to make us realise how swiftly life can be snatched from us and how important it is to live, not just survive.
How do we do that? Lots of strokies decide that they are going to get out of their comfort zone; do something they have always shied away from previously. I'm going to be one of them. As a start, this week, I begin a course of introductory training in counselling skills. It's not something I would have contemplated before December 16 2013 but I now feel my experience of life is something I want to share with others who may need it.
My neuropsychologist thinks I can cope with the demands of the course and that I'll be good at it, as long as I remember how to deal with the thing that plagues every strokie - mental fatigue. Tiredness is the brain's way of telling us that it needs rest; ignoring tiredness only makes fatigue worse. So I'm having to break the habit of a working lifetime and accept that when I'm tired, I need to rest. Only then will I be able to live at what is now my full capacity and not just survive.
On a different tack, I've been thinking this week about the different words we use to describe what people go through when they have a stroke. That word itself, 'stroke' somehow sounds mild, doesn't it? Yet, believe me: having a stroke is like having an atomic bomb go off in your head. It's brain damage. I have to tell people that there are parts of my brain which died that afternoon and aren't coming back.
The brain is brilliant at reconfiguring itself by building new neural pathways (I recommend The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge to anyone who wants to know more about brain injury) but the fact is that a stroke is a life-changing event which can strike and kill at any time. That's why those of us who have been through it really know the difference between living and just surviving.
Monday 5 January 2015
It can't be anything but a happy new year
Christmas and New Year 2014-15 at Warrillow Towers was definitely better than Christmas 2013, I'll say that. A proper Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home with the family, followed by a quiet New Year's Eve at home and traditional January 1 beer and football; not a hospital bed in sight, unlike last year.
Mrs W and I have made New Year's resolutions (and not yet broken them) and 2015 is about to begin in earnest. I said in my last pre-Christmas post that my life would be taking a new direction this year, going along previously-undreamt pathways. The first of those comes on Wednesday January 14, when I begin a ten-week introductory college course on learning counselling skills.
It's something which wouldn't have occurred to me pre-stroke, but I've always been good at helping people, my journalism training makes me a good listener and the experience of stroke-rehabilitation has really made me think about my future direction.
It'll be tough and I've yet to find out if my post-stroke brain can handle the academic demands, but there's only one way to find out. And all stroke-survivors will tell you about the importance of looking forwards, not backwards; glass half-full (at least), not half-empty.
That's how I'm approaching 2015. With my Warrior costume on, going forwards as positively as I can and looking forward to dealing with the barriers which life will put in my way. I won't be trying to deal with life post-stroke - I WILL be dealing with it. What other way can there be?
Mrs W and I have made New Year's resolutions (and not yet broken them) and 2015 is about to begin in earnest. I said in my last pre-Christmas post that my life would be taking a new direction this year, going along previously-undreamt pathways. The first of those comes on Wednesday January 14, when I begin a ten-week introductory college course on learning counselling skills.
It's something which wouldn't have occurred to me pre-stroke, but I've always been good at helping people, my journalism training makes me a good listener and the experience of stroke-rehabilitation has really made me think about my future direction.
It'll be tough and I've yet to find out if my post-stroke brain can handle the academic demands, but there's only one way to find out. And all stroke-survivors will tell you about the importance of looking forwards, not backwards; glass half-full (at least), not half-empty.
That's how I'm approaching 2015. With my Warrior costume on, going forwards as positively as I can and looking forward to dealing with the barriers which life will put in my way. I won't be trying to deal with life post-stroke - I WILL be dealing with it. What other way can there be?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)