Fall 2008

Well, we're closing in on the one-year mark since David's stroke.

It's hard to know what to report. Life is very different for us all, especially for David, than it was one year ago. It's hard to tell what percentage of that is due to his stroke and ongoing symptoms and therapy work - and what percentage is that there have been other changes in all our lives.

ANTHONY is a junior in high school, the year they keep telling him is the hardest and busiest, which he is finding to be true. He's got multiple AP and pre-AP classes as well as his normal fall season activities.

JACOB is a freshman in high school, which is a big step up. He moved from a middle school of about 180 out in the country to a high school in town with 2600 students.

CALEB is in his first year of middle school. He is experiencing moving from teacher to teacher for the first time - taking algebra and all those more demanding junior high classes.

HEIDI is finishing a Master's Thesis and carrying out her research this semester - the culmination of 3 years of work.

Fall is busy anyway with cross country and soccer, so all of us have the usual busyness, but all of us also have additional adjustments and responsibilities.

Looking back over that list, I realize the fact that all that is even possible for us - given the reason for this blog - is a miracle!

BACK TO DAVID: In my last post - which was a while back now - I said I was going to give another update soon. I have found that hard to do. Things seem to shift a lot for David both physically and emotionally. I have some guesses as to why but am not entirely sure. Sometimes he feels that he is regressing physically. Sometimes he feels he is remaining in the same spot. Sometimes he feels he is making progress.

Let's see, I had put some reminders to myself in the last post. At that time we had just gone to back-to-school night at the boys' high school. There are large stairwells, and, although David can go up and down stairs quite well he found it very disconcerting to do so with lots of people around. His perception is off to where it makes it impossible for him to go up or down stairs while other people are on them - unless he is right on the side holding a railing. The other reminders all had to do with sleep, which I'll address a bit further down.

It is amazing how his spirits lift when the therapists are able to notice and point out even a little bit of progress - for instance that his foot is able to turn in half an inch further than before. Some days he will notice something he had not noticed before. Yesterday after I washed my hair he touched it with his left hand and said, "I can feel that your hair is wet. Actually, I think it's that I can feel the coolness of it rather than the wetness."

His sides remain so different in sensation that it is hard for him to sleep. He can't roll over easily. He cannot sleep on his left side because it hurts. It also just feels strange to be in bed as his left arm just feels like a wadded up towel next to him. It's also hard for him to sleep on his back because his sleep apnea is worse now that he cannot do the intense aerobic exercise he used to do. There are lots of little/not-so-little things like that. Those things are certainly relatively small when compared with where we would be had he not regained his ability to walk, but it does leave him always sleep deprived.

He is overly tired all the time, and it's hard to tell if that is due to his sleep deprivation, the busyness of our family right now, or due to the fact that he has to yet think about every step he takes. It's hard to sort it all out. But the constant tiredness makes it hard for him to feel joyful and to feel he is "living" rather than "getting by." It also makes his work hard for him, which had never been the case before either - at least not in the same way.

In all the time I've known him, I've known David to be always totally even keel on the upbeat side of things - definitely a "glass-is-half-FULL kind of guy" - no matter what is going on good or bad - even in the first few months after his stroke. One of the first things he said in ER once we realized what was going on and his left side was paralyzed is, "Well, I can talk, and I can use my right side. I have everything I need."

That comment was classic David.

His emotions had never fluctuated a whole lot in the past. Now I find them to fluctuate quite a bit. I had never really seen him "down" before - not even while hospitalized after his stroke or in the first few months of recovery.

I continue to feel we are at a strange spot - a transition spot. We have no way of knowing if there will be more progress or not. I think there is probably a struggle going on within David between acceptance and continuing to work hard to move forward (even though he doesn't see much if any progress) - and trying to make these choices in the midst of so much family busyness, which doesn't leave a lot of time for reflection. In time I think this will settle in to a more comfortable spot one way or the other, but it remains an "awkward phase" right now (for lack of a better term).

I've been told that it is often the case after a major illness (or accident) that a person goes through a time of depression. Maybe David is being impacted by a form of depression. It's just very hard to tell cause and effect right now, so we just keep putting one foot in front of the other and wait to see what the future holds.

All of what I've written above is just an overview of where we are right now - good and bad - big scale and small scale - daily life. Either David or I will probably update this on the anniversary of his stroke. (Nov. 2 - a date we'll always remember!)