Anniversary

I just realized today is David's one-year and seven month anniversary of his stroke. It seems like it's been much longer than just over a year and a half ago. It feels like years now!

Neither of us has written lately because it's hard to know what to write, yet this is something that is still very defining. Yes, you move on and have a "new normal," but it remains evident every day that it isn't the old normal.

I think both David and I feel that writing about things that are still issues is perhaps something that sounds ungrateful, and we certainly don't want to give that impression! David was talking with someone tonight - someone else who has had a stroke, and that person had his stroke while a college student at Berkeley. His stroke affected his memory to where he lost 70% of what he had learned in his classes prior to that, had to retake some classes and work really hard to be able to graduate, a thing he was not sure he was going to be able to do. David shared how grateful he is that his stroke only affected him "physically" rather than affecting his memory or personality - or his vision or speech. We have always been grateful for that and remain so.

David continues to maintain what he has gained back physically. He went running with Anthony tonight, about 4 miles, I think. On Easter Sunday he ran 10. He still hopes to reach his goal of running a marathon. He isn't sure he can do it, but from what I've seen I'm pretty confident he will.

I and most other people will never accomplish that, so there are a lot of ways in which he is doing phenomenally well!

There remain a lot of things that are yet missing, though, and depending on the day and the situation that can range from interesting to annoying to frustrating to depressing.

A lot depends on how tired he is. Sometimes he has pain, especially in his foot, which often feels very, very tight across the top. His toes still won't cooperate. They curl under, which causes lots of issues - making his foot always feel crooked in his shoe (you know how annoying it is to get a pebble in your shoe or something, well, imagine having your foot always feel like it's in your shoe crooked). Problems with his toes also cause him to trip when he is barefooted, especially when walking on carpet.

His balance is still affected, as is his sensation on his left side.

He learned a new card game from Anthony last week, and the goal of the game is to be the first to get rid of all your cards. David holds his cards in his left hand and grabs them with his right. He cannot tell when he is done with this game because when he removes the last card from his left hand he cannot tell it is no longer holding cards. He grabs at an empty hand a couple of times before he realizes he is out of cards. That's certainly not the end of the world, but it's weird - sometimes interesting, sometimes annoying.

He's a teacher and does a lot of work on the computer. He's always been rather a hunt and peck typist anyway, but it's extremely difficult for him to use the fingers on his left hand for any typing. He has to watch very carefully or his finger will hit the wrong key or more than one at a time. (That would be absolutely crippling to me! For David it's annoying and inconvenient but not horrible.)

There are still issues with sleep. In fact the combination of his difficulty turning over and my insomnia mean that he is (and has been for a long time now) sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the living room. We're both sad about that, but you gotta do what you gotta do, and that's what we have to do right now so that both of us have a chance at decent sleep. He has fewer positions he can choose from to sleep in. Being on his left side is painful. That too compromises his sleep. He also can't tell if the sheet or covers are bunched up under him on his left side and if so how they are and how to fix it.

If he's tired his balance is very poor. I'm afraid sometimes he's going to tip over when he first gets up off a couch and starts walking across a room.

It's amazing to me that when people do comment about how he's doing they say, "Wow! If I didn't know he'd had a stroke, I would never know. He looks totally fine." I guess I know him and his movements too well. I always see a limp in his walk and in his run, and I always notice a difference in how he "holds" his left hand and arm in comparison to how he had in the past.

We were at the beach a week and a half ago, and he tried to run on the beach. I won't even try to describe the result. He CAN run on pavement, but he CANNOT run on the beach.

Later that week we had a chance to have a little bit of time with my brother Tim who is a physical therapist, and Tim was able to explain really well what was going on and to give David some suggestions for exercises and also to give him some hope - which was an especially good thing at this point. Every so often David needs a little boost again, and it seems to me (watching from the outside) that that provided that boost.

I don't know if anyone is still checking this site, but I thought it was time to get an update up here in case there are friends and family members still checking or if someone else who's had a stroke and is curious about recovery is checking in. I hope what I've written comes across as "just the facts," as I intend it to be.

Oh, I was watching videos earlier of our family from years ago, and I saw David using hand motions when he talked. He always had hand motions that were very similar to his father's very distinctive hand motions, and I didn't realize until today that that too has changed - not entirely but in large part. He doesn't talk with his hands as much and not in the same way, which is kind of a bummer, because that was always a reminder of Dad, as if he was still somehow with us.

There are some positive changes. But when they do come they are coming more and more slowly - so slowly that they are almost impossible to notice. It's nice when something happens to bring our attention to something that has improved.

David had always been an outdoorsy guy and loved doing house and yard projects. Our fence has been falling down for - uh - longer than I'd care to admit, and he had spoken with our neighbors about working on it together summer of 2007. They sounded interested but never pursued it. Last summer David said, "I sure wish the neighbors had taken me up on this last year. I don't feel like doing it now." That's nothing he would ever have said prior to his stroke, but I can hardly blame him. He can't feel his left hand, and his balance isn't good, and he can't always tell where his left hand and leg are - not unless he's looking right at them, so a job like that would certainly take much more focus and would sound daunting rather than inviting. It no longer felt natural or appealing to do something like that. Well, something has changed in him between last year and this year. For the last couple of months he has been talking about how he is going to repair the fences this summer. There must be something - maybe physical, maybe not - maybe just a rising of his spirits - but there is something that has changed for the good in this past year, and it's probably one of those things that would have been too subtle to notice unless we'd had this to highlight it for us.

If you are still reading, would you please pray for David for continued progress. He really is in a good spot and is very grateful, but it sure would be nice to be able to make even more progress and to feel more and more like his old self - to be able to run and work with confidence and the ease he used to have - to be able to sleep like he used to. Those would be wonderful things! Thanks!