A Serious Wakeup Call

 The end of every story is bittersweet.   I think I expected some triumphant return to my life, but the truth is it was all very anticlimactic. After nine months of therapy--one month of being on hold--one short return to the clinic and two months of waiting--the truth is I settled into a a comfortable hole. I had never been that bad.  Truthfully, I wanted to throw my walker away on the first day of being home.  When I was home I didn't use it much and when I took in to the clinic, I felt like I could do more.

You can learn so much from the Golden Girls. There is a lot to learning about a brain injury.  From my time at the Center, I have learned much about my fellow patients in many new ways that help me know them more intimately. Every day that I go to the center I meet a patients who teach me something important about myself and brain injury. The person who taught me the most was Mike Greg.  Mike Greg who taught me patience and kindness.   Mike taught me a lot about stroke patients.  He taught me about filters and patients who lose the ability to filter the things they say.   There were many times I understood better but it was not until my mandatory four week vacation that I began to watch or rather binge the Golden Girls, and I noticed that Sophia, (played by Estelle Getty,) the oldest golden girl, mentioned in the pilot had a stroke.   It was only mentioned occasionally at first and only in the pilot. Now, I watched the series for many years, but...

Starting this entry is very hard.  To quote Allison Curbo there are several people here at the center who deserve a level of praise. As I have been at the Center for Neuro Skills since April I have done testing under numerous therapists and each of them have helped me in ways that were unimaginable. Two such therapists are Bruce and Gerald.  Each day I have come to the Clinic was incomplete without a sighting of one or either the other. Today is no different. As I walk around the clinic for my daily routine I can hear Bruce's voice booming from somewhere inside the Center,  His voice is infectious and it fills me and many patients with a sense of joy. Just yesterday I was doing health club and Gerald commented on my beard saying he wanted to see me with a trimmed beard and haircut.  It was a kind comment--the sort given by men who admire each other. In ways there are many reasons I return to the clinic and give my all in the trek to get better.  Two of the best ...

 It has been four weeks since I came back to the blog. At present I am sitting back at the Center for Neuro Skills and trying to make a new understanding of what I now need to do. My insurance denied my payment for four weeks on the grounds that I was simply doing what they  deemed was "maintenance therapy."  I was  not ready to return to work, and I could not even drive. In truth I tried not to harbor resentment for my stupid insurance company.  Staying out of my wife's way was also very important, but for four weeks I tried to busy myself and assist her.  In many ways I tried to do excercise--which I had become accustom too. The big thing I tried to do was not make a mess,  When she came home with the groceries I did my best to put them away for her. It was a conscious attempt to prove my worth and ability to practice mindfulness.  I know my wife was thankful. Between this time Margaret went back to work.  And while she went back to work I ...

There are many things that happen on the road to recovery. It is one in the morning, and I have left my wife in our bed as I search the keys trying to make sense of this grief that has overwhelmed me. There are very few moments that I  have been so sad at losing a person--even now I find it hard to compose the words that I hope will come out of my soul and be a touching tribute to this man, my friend. Mike Greg was my friend.  Before he left the Center he planned to return to work.  His job said he could return to work, and I was ecstatic for him.   Val in occupational therapy had told him normally she would usually be the person that would okay his discharge--that because he had been okay to return to work--she normally would make sure he was ready--I apologize, I do not have the words to write this post. I was so happy for Mike.  He was highly functional, and he had an infectious smile and personality.  We all looked on him as a sort of big brother--...

When I think back to the day I had my stroke I remember how my life was. Being at the clinic has been a serious wake up call considering the fact when I woke up I realize there  were several things I used to be very lax about.  The first was my health.   When I got up from the couch I used to groan.   The truth is my mother-in-law thought I was frail. It took a stroke for me to realize that I cared what she thought about me. I was very badly out of shape, and I ignored my blood sugar and my blood pressure which were both very high. It took a serious brain injury for me to realize I was killing myself--slowly and steadily.  To start with I had high blood pressure--I want to say I had hypertension but since my blood pressure was high enough to cause my stroke--as much as I want to call my blood pressure hypertension-- this is what caused my stroke.   I was also negligent with my medication.   Add all of this together--this is what cau...