Ch. 3 | Recovery Begins

Well, I finally got settled at MJ – here is a pic of me about 2 weeks in – I’m utterly exhausted from therapy. This pic was taken mid afternoon, post therapy and I was definitely headed for a nap. 

 

If you closely at this picture you will notice the water bottle and call buttons are both virtually in my hands, so I barely have to move to pick them up. In addition to opting to stay in the chair for my rest.  Yes, I didn’t even want to move to the bed, exhausted for sure. 

 

It is very difficult to explain the exhaustion I felt after the stroke, even after playing collegiate soccer, nothing prepared me for this level of fatigue.

 

Every night around 6 pm I received a schedule of the next days events. I was up every day at 7, got dressed, breakfast, morning therapy, afternoon therapy, and dinner – and boy was I wiped out, I could hardly make it to 7:00 pm even with an afternoon nap. I learned that the body was not only trying to recover but the brain is working constantly to try and rebuild new neurological pathways to the area of the body affected by the stroke, they call this process Nuero-plasticity.

At this point, I was still suffering from partial paralysis (my left side) I had double vision in my left eye, a fair amount of nerve pain, and I was totally off balance. Suffering from left neglect so there was lots of emphasis is on finding my center- balance. Also, there was no shortage of medication and their wonderful side affects. – I left the hospital taking over 20 pills daily. 

As I started therapy I was fitted for an AFO brace that helped to stabilize my leg and provide me with some much needed balance. Yes, another new acronym I had a lot of fun with…reminded me of a UFO – I always liked StarTrek – beam me up scotty… take me somewhere, anywhere, but here.  

Anyway – that’s it for now, next time I’ll revisit my therapy and how I started to walk.