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                                                              The birth story take two

I've  been  relatively  quiet on charlotte`s birthday the last few years, at some point I  decided I didn't  want to  make  today about me,  because as far as I'm  concerned the most important  thing that happened  today, is charlotte`s safe arrival into this world, so. This year, her twelfth  year, I'd  like to rewrite my birth story with some time and  hindsight  under my belt, a clearer head and, hopefully less typos.

The birth story take two 

It was cold, dark morning when Matt and i left the house and  headed to the hospital for my scheduled 7 am Induction, my blood pressure  had been through the  roof at my last ob appointment , so midwife and  I decided  we couldn't for this  baby to come  on her own, we decided on a Foley induction,  a procedure that would slowly  dilate my cervix while the pitocin did its  work.

The pitocin kicked in around 8, my contraction s coming fast and hard, at one point, the nurses put me on a wireless monitor, so I could sit in the bathtub, once I was in there the pains were getting  very intense, in the midst of my wailing, Matt came in to tell me his mother and brother were there to see me,  but I told him to send them away, I felt I was in no condition for guests, eventually, i got out of the tub, made sure to poop, because I didn9 want to do it on a doctor once the main event began, I came out of the bathroom and  lay down on the bed, Matt  breathing  me through the contractions, then my midwife came and broke my water,  after that the contractions got more  intense, I started to get a headache, which Matt told me to let the  nurse know  about next  time  she came in, I was laying on the bed, focusing on the pattern on my pillowcase, holding Matt's  hand as he pleaded with me to resist the  urge to  push, the next thing I remember  is Matt standing next to me  asking  me what we should name the bab9yhe was holding  that I do not  remember  giving. Birth to,  that was two days after Charlotte  was born.

What I've been told that transpired after  I  lost consciousness is that, I was rushed off to have an emergcy c-section, then into an MRI,  then into brain surgery, to see what the heck was going on, which was, my brain had started  bleeding, forming a clot, on the right side of my brain, pushing my brain to the left of my skull, paralyzing my left arm and impairing my left leg, ankle and knee. through all of it, Charlottes heart rate stayed strong and steady. She was in the birth canal and had to be pushed out.

My time In The icu are hazy memories,  like a dream you can't  quite remember, but what I do remember but  is my room always being full of friends, family and  so much love and  support, even my addled brain registered it, I remember being amazed at the feat my body had just accomplished and how much I loved that tiny little soul who would get placed on my chest from time to  time.

In the early days of my rehabilitation. I felt sad, angry, sad and, st times times, hopeless, but through  it all charlotte's strong steadiness reminded me  why I was still here, now, twelve years later, I can confidently say  that November  2, 2011 was the best day of my life, it brought Charlotte to me and showed me how much strength and self acceptance  I have that I didn't know  was there. 

So, now, I have to say, no matter what life hands you, keep o  keeping on and remember, hope is the greatest tool you have at your disposal.

Love and light, y'all 

Normal

I've started multiple posts on this subject, but have discarded them because I started to sound like a blow-hard know it all, but I think now is the time to add my two cents;

I've heard and seen a lot of talk lately about wanting things to be normal again, trust me, I am VERRRRY familiar with this desire, I was so desperate for normal when I was in rehab, I was convinced that once I was home everything would click back to normal, HA! Total opposite.

Normal is familiar, comfortable and dependable, but. Here's what I learned about normal; After something like a stroke, pandemic, etc....normal is different and accepting the new reality and deciding to thoroughly enjoy it, is how it starts feeling normal. Once I accepted my new life and body as my life and made the choice to enjoy the shit out of it, my life started to settle into normalcy, I know things are weird and hard right now, but try and keep trying to enjoy it and it'll settle into something familiar, comfortable and dependable. And once we come out of this scary time, I think what's normal is going to look a lot different than we were used to.

Love,
Your seasoned Normal Warrior.

Can't

can't

/kant/

contraction

1. cannot.

Can't is an interesting word, over the last 8 years, I've developed an interesting relationship with this word.

Immediately following the stroke my whole world was about can't. I can't hold my baby, I can't walk or move my left arm, I can't go back to work, can't do this, can't do that.

In fact, I was convinced everything was a can't.

Then acceptance set in. After much thought and slowly working myself back into my job and slowly gaining confidence in my new abilities, I realized that word wasn't helping at all, that words are really powerful and I should be careful which ones I use. So I made a resolution to not use the above word anymore.

After that something magical happened, anytime I was faced with something I was unsure about, I took a deep breath, thought about it and dove right in and you know what? I was able to do the things I thought were a can't.

Now if I think something is a can't I look at it as something I have to try.

Give it a go, I dare you.

A Real Mom

"I just want to be a real mom."

If you were one of the people who visited me in neuro rehab around this time eight years ago, you would have heard that plaintive phrase fall out of my mouth. Most people responded responded with a sympathetic grin and the words, "But you are a real mom."

My response to this attempt at comfort was probably an eye roll followed with me thinking, what the fuck do you know about it.

First let me give some perspective here, by this point eight years ago, I'd been in rehab for about a week, I think(the timeline of everything is not clear to me as my brain wasn't functioning correctly) by this time in rehab, it was starting to dawn on me how severe the effects of the stroke was, I had a hard time talking, moving my half-paralyzed mouth and tongue around words was a struggle, I could barely hold a thought in my head for longer than a minute, I couldn't focus long enough to eat a meal and following the narrative on the simple shows Matt and I watched together before the stroke, like American Dad and Robot Chicken was impossible. I couldn't walk, go to the bathroom without assistance and worst of all, couldn't take care of my new baby. I had to watch other people do that.

My daydreams of softly singing to my baby girl while breastfeeding her had been crushed and I was fucking pissed.

At that point I really thought I was going to be confined to a wheelchair anytime I wanted to go anywhere, I imagined being wheeled into school programs and Charlotte getting made fun of because her mom was weird. I imagined Charlotte being confused about who her mom was because so many other people were caring for her, I even thought she'd hate me because I couldn't run around and play with her.

Well.

Let's fast forward to now. Suddenly, without me realizing it, that new normal everyone kept promising me I'd find showed up. It's eight years later and every weekday I get up at 6:20 am, get myself dressed( a HUGE accomplishment, when I began doing it myself), attempt to wake Charlotte up and drag what she wants for breakfast out of her, then I let the dog out, feed him and proceed to throw together breakfast for both Charlotte and I, once we're done eating the task of getting Charlotte ready for school commences, a difficult task, 'cuz staying home is way more interesting. Some days, hopefully, I've convinced Charlotte that she does have to go to school and I manage to get her on the bus on time. I have no idea how this happens some days.

Then I go about my day, cleaning the kitchen, folding laundry, making dinner and generally enjoying being alive and in between all of those days I sometimes stop and think to myself.

Wow. I AM a real Mom.

It ain't me, babe

Lately I feel I've been getting an awful lot of credit for what I've accomplished thus far on my post-stroke journey, this makes me feel uncomfortable, so I want to clear some things up for the sake of my conscience.

First of all, pre-stroke Liz would have luxuriated in all of this praise and validation she gets on a regular basis, but this new, post-stroke Liz is verrry uncomfortable with all of that.

Why?

Well, let me tell you, I don't think I've done anything at all. All I've done is get out of bed in the morning, put one foot in front of the other and tried to be a better version of myself than I was the day before. The reason that I don't feel I've done anything to deserve any of this validation is because, in my opinion,it is all of the people who are around me all of the time that deserve the praise. Without Matt constantly pushing me to be better at, well, everything. I wouldn't even think to try to be good at everything. Without Charlotte's brilliant smile, kind heart and warm hugs, I wouldn't care about setting a good example for how a strong woman should behave when life deals you a shitty hand and, of course, without my co-op standing by ,me, believing in me and allowing me to find a place within the ranks of the workers all the while allowing me a safe place where I could find myself again, I would still be sitting on the couch playing the smallest violin in the world for myself.

So, what I'm saying, it's true what they say, it really takes a village, because without mine, I'd be sucking at life and, according to a lot of people, I'm not.

Even though hearing that makes me uncomfortable. So, thank you all, of you.

Reel Me In

Something happened today that left me reeling for the entire day; Our day started off as normal, Charlotte crawled into bed with us at 7am and promptly passed out on Matt, my alarm went off, I got dressed and Charlotte and I had breakfast, Charlotte got dressed and watched cartoons til it was time to leave to take me to work at the co-op. When we got to the co-op, Matt and Charlotte ran into the store ahead of me, as usual, I went straight to the back, attempted to find an empty locker to shove my giant coat and purse into, got my name tag and, clocked in and counted my cash drawer and began walking to the front of the store, as I was heading up front, Matt walked past me and said,
"your old therapist is here, I think she's looking for you." I immediately began going through my mental Rolodex of every therapist this could be and immediately settled on one option: Erica! Erica was my primary OT in rehab, the therapist I worked with most frequently. Erica was in charge of attempting to breathe life back back into my damn left arm, of teaching me how to live in a post stroke world and body. Erica spent many hours listening to me bemoan my existence and worry over whether Charlotte was going to like me or not. It was Erica who first told me I was not capable of returning to my position as Front End Manager at the co-op, a bitter pill to swallow.


It's been four years since I've seen her.

And seeing her after all that time really drove home how far I've come.

When I was working with her in rehab, I could hardly focus on a single simple task for longer than one minute. But, today I worked a cash register during a very busy lunch rush at work, I stayed focused on my tasks and even multi-tasked throughout the day, an impossible feat during my days in rehab; The last time I saw Erica, I felt that my life was crumbling apart in front of my eyes and that there was no way I could live my life this way. But today as the clear winter sunshine streamed through all of the co-op's windows I felt so happy to be alive and working, lucky to be having such a great day, one- armed or not.

So, I guess the point of all of this is, if anyone out there is reading this while in rehab or at the beginning of your post-stroke journey, I am here to assure you that, although it seems impossible right now, there is life after stroke and It does get better. Do not give up on life, or it will give up on you.

the big 4-0....Plus 2

Let me start simply, earlier this week I picked up a shift for a co-worker, no big deal, right?
Well, in doing this, I tuned my four day qwork week into a five day, but not a five day week like my last one, it was broken up into groups of days I had to work in a row, so I didn't think about it much.

as I was talllying up my hours for the week tonight at the end of my shift today, the number kept mounting. Until I finished.

I looked at the sheet after I had written my total hours for the week.
"holy shit." I whispered to myself.

42 hours.

I worked 42 hours and didn't even realize it.

I have been tired this week, but I attributed that to staying up too lat and having an almost four year old child who's really excited about getting up too early in the morning, you know, the same reason regular people get tired.

The more I thought about my work week all I could think about was this self-pitying and whiny post from three years ago and hoe different things are now.

Then it sunk in; I have officially taken my life back, the stroke hasn't taken anything from me .

And, in the words of my incomparable co-worker, Brett, I made this week my bitch.

boo-ya, stroke, take that!