The Sun Did Come Out

Well, I guess Annie is right, the sun rose today and after a good night's sleep and an emergency teary-eyed phone call to my friend last night, I feel a little less in a funk than I did. This morning I decided that no matter what happens with my therapy , my life must go on. I will keep doing my exercisesevery day and I will continue doing my three laps around the back yard until I have a better place to walk because I don't want to give up, I want to be a part of life while I still have air in my lungs. I don't want to miss out on my life because one of my arms doesn't work so well and just because I don't have professional therapists helping me, that's not going to stop me from trying to be the best me I can be

And Again

Tonight, I'm a little embarrased because I decided to throw a little pity party for myself at work.

I don't know what came over me or what my deal is lately, it seems like all of the positive progress I've made lately in accepting my circumstances have dissolved. This morning at therapy I had a conversation with one of my PTs regarding the future of my therapy. Basically, they don't seem to think that my insurance will approve many more visits, plus it seems that the staff at the facility feel that it may be time to let me go, I'm not making quite as much progress as I was in the beginning, so, now I feel like I'm letting a lot of peopl down, myself, my therapists, Matt, Charlotte, etc... So at work I let the fact that I didn't know the answer to a question and the fact that I feel very akward talking to people get to me, I ended up calling myself retarded and generally bemoaning my existence to my co-worker, now I feel silly because who wants to be around that girl? no one.

I'm just ready for all of this to start feeling normal, I'm ready to feel comfortable in my skin again.So I better get down to business in accepting myself for who I am then, right?

oops, I Did It Again!

I fear my last post came off as bitter and resentful and if there are two things I don't want to become, they are bitter and resentful. To be Frank, I've been experiwncing some new feelings lately, jealousy mostly, but be assured, I do my best to quash any jealous thoughts that manage to weasel their way into my head because being jealous of someone else's life is a waste of my time and energy, plus, who's to say that some has it better than me just because yhey have two working arms? They may not, because what it comes down to is that my life is great So sorry, ya'll, I had a moment of weakness

Envy

Since this whole thing has happened I have tried very hard to resist the urge to be envious of others, last night I lost that battle, every so often I see pictures on that magical website we all love, Facebook of a new mom resting comfortably, happily glowing with her new baby and that demon named Envy starts growling from deep within me. I think about new moms and, of course I am happy for them, but there is a part of me that always thinks, "I hope they know how lucky they are as they carry their babies in their two arms and I hope they never take a single hug for granted. I am still angry that I was robbed of all of the things that I wanted to do as a new mom and, unfortunately I have hard time not being jealous of others who have the priveledge of caring for their newborns. This morning at breakfast I was bemoaning my fate and Matt swooped with the save:"Some women die having their babies, some babies die while they are being born, you're lucky that neither of those things happened, so stop feeling sorry for yourself." Duly noted. As I was sitting on the floor, watching Charlotte examine her toys I felt so lucky that I get to observe her as she learns about the world, and I can only hopr that every other parent in thr world feels as lucky as I do when they spend time with their kids.

Dead Ringer

Yesterday I took the next step in my quest to return to work as fully as possible, I was retrained on the cash registers. This was an odd occurance since I was usually the one doing the training, but I certainly needed the refresher and the oversight of the Front End Manger(FEM to help me see the things I might potentially have missed. The thing I realized yesterday is how much a cashier has to think about, rigning customers up was so natural by the time I had to leave work, I barely had to think about it, but after a few hiccups yesterday, I realized that working on the registers is an excellent workout for my cognition. I felt a little dumb when I would forget or overlook something I never would have before as the FEMwatched,an employee that I trained many months ago, but her paitence never made me feel stupid, in fact she was ecstatic to have me back behind the registers, as was I. By the end of the shift I was really getting back into the groove, I felt purposefull and usefull, something I haven't felt in nine months. I was exhausted when I got home from focusing so hard and I determined last night to become a rock star cashier once again.

Attitude Adjustment

I was in a serious funk yesterday, for whatever reason I was super irritated during therapy and therefore fore did not put as much into it as I could have. I hate it when I allow my pissy moods to waylay my therapy time, since I don't have much left. Yesterday my good friend, Sheila came to visit me this was the first time we've seen each other since the stroke, but she had a big hand in finding me the support and motivation I neededdesperately, so I was thrilled to get a chance to sit with her and let her see the fruits of her efforts, all of the cards I received. On a day like I had yesterday, it was absolutelynecessary to have her there, as she has always been a calming and comforting influence, I needed her energy with me. Talking to her also reminded me how lucky I am, that despite all of this I still have a perfect little baby and a loving, caring husband, so, last night before I went to bed I recommitted myself to being grateful and excited about everyday and it paid off. I got up ready to work my butt off in therapy and excited to see what they had in store for me, and, let me tell you it was a damn good session! Today I was working with Courteny, I work with different PTs almost everytime, each has their own style and each pushes me in different ways, Courteny is one of the tougher PTs, she knows what I'm capable of, more so than I do, so she works at getting as lmuchout of me, plus she's creative! So I'm never doing the same things with her, so it's always exciting to see what she has planned. My therapy is done at a local fitness center, so Courteny took me up into the room where all of the exercise machines are, she put me on a glider type thing that I could hold myself up on, and I could use my left leg, it was the first actual exercise I've been able to do since the stroke and it felt so good! She showed that there are ways that I can get exercise. I felt energized after my five minutes on the glider, next, we went into a seperate room and she had me stand one foot in front of the other on top of a styrofoam cylinder that had been cut in half. I started by holding on to some thing to balance myself, now I know this probably doesn't sound too challenging, but, when the blood clot formed on the front right side of my brain it pushed my brain over, shifting my midline over to the side-Most stroke survivors have issues with balance, but this midline shift makes my balance issues doubled, infact, rwhile I was in the ICU I couldn't even look people straight in the eyesa or sit up straight, one of my earliest memories of rehab is, one of my PTs sitting me down on a mat table and asking me to siy up straight and I totally felt like I was straight up and down like an arrow, but then she slid a mirror in front of me and I was leaning way to the right!Wow, freaky.- So this particular exercise really challenged me, then I thought I'd go a bit further with it and let go of wht I was holding onto and there I stood, not holding onto anything, balancing myself! I even did a little squat there, just to show off! When I got home I was flying high, I am now convinced I amcapable of anything!

Th Beach

Anyone who his aquainted with me knows that I love the water, being in, on or around it, prferrably in, there is a populer story my family likes to tell about the first time I saw the ocean that illustrates my eternal love of water: When I was about two my family and I went to New Hapshire to visit family, so my parents took me to see the atlantic ocean, now, it was March and the Atlantic Ocean isn't even close to being warm in March when you're as far north as New Hampshire, but I insisted on attempting to get into the water, despite my parents best efforts I eventually goy myself into that water fully clothed, my dad always says I was blue by the time they got me out, so one of my biggest concerns while I sat in the ICU was whether I'd be able to swim again, most importantly, swim in Lake Michigan with my daughter. Lake Michigan is by farmy favorite body of water that I've encountered during my life, she is playful, welcoming and calming. The beaches along Lake Michigan's West coast line have been places of solace for me over the years and places where some of my most precious memories have been created, so, I was very concerned about if I'd be able to share these special places with Charlotte. I did ask Matt at one point while I was in the ICU if I'd be able to swim in Lake Michigan with her some day and he responded with a confident "yes". Last Sunday my Sister-Law, Nikki was visiting so we got together with Mat's Aunt an d Uncle who live close to the beach and  I prepared for this momentous occasion. We got to the beach and we started walking towards the water, the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cool, the water was lightly lapping on the beach as it always does, almost welcoming me back and I watched my daughter as she stared out at this large expanse of water. The beach presented some expected challenges, like walking in th sand, never the easiest taks, but a little more difficult with one weak leg, I must say, I think my backyard walks really helped me a lot once I started walking in the sand. I also needed a little help gettin down to the water as thesand went in a shard decline on the way down to the waterside, luckily we've had some really hot weather lately, otherwise the water would have been freezing this time of year, something I was afraid of as the left side of my body is very sensitive to extreme cold, it hurts! So I stood in the water far enough so th waves lapped onto my toes so I could get used to the temperature, then Nikki asked me if I was ready to go in, yes I was, the water was calling to me, all I could think about was how great it would feel if I could run and dive straight in as I normally would and bob and dive, playing in the waves. So we started headin into the deeper water towards my Brother-In-Law, John who had Charlotte Nikki had to hold onto me though because I did not have my leg brace on my left leg my leg was not firmly on th ground so every wave would knock me off balance, an unexpected event, but I didn't let it stop me, I wante to get out as far as I could and float. I have been swimming since I've been old enough to take classes I was also on the swim team in high school, so swimming comes very naturally, my deepest hope was that I would get into the water and Larry would say, "Oh, yeah, I remrmber what to do!"But, alas, the connection between that part of my brain and Larry is completely severed. Once I felt resdy I pudhed myself off of the bottom of the lake and let my body slide sideways in the water, I was not nearly as gracefuk as I normally ammi, but the feeling of floating in that water was divine. at one point I took charlotte in my arm and held her for our first "swim" in the lake together, a dream realized, she sure did think it was funny when I would dunk under the water and pop up, proclaiming, "peek-a-boo!"So while my swimming days mat be a little different than they were, I now know that Charlotte and have many trips to Lake Michigan in our future and I no longer have to worry that I will not be able to shre this special place with her.