• entries
    41
  • comments
    140
  • views
    26,134

About this blog

knowing what to forget is just as important as knowing what to remember

Entries in this blog

Looking Back Pre-Stroke & Giving Back

.   This past week I've written a couple of blogs entries. The first is about caregivers looking back to pre-stroke days and the second one is about giving back what we've been given. Plus the dog has really been on a writing streak. "He's" written several entries since my last trip to Strokenet's blog community including one on how he acts as a service dog to my wheelchair bound husband. The little snot has more subscribers than I do. I'm half jealous.   CRAZY GLUE ON MY SHOES --- Some t
jriva

jriva

6

Immortality

.   When do we, as caregivers, face our care recipient's mortalities? Are we all immortal? Click here to read this topic at my other blog.   Jean   .
jriva

jriva

2

Fall on the Planet Aphasia

.   Our lives are changing with the season. I'm seven weeks out from my total knee replacement, doing very well and I just finished therapy today. And just in the nick of time because next week Don starts both speech therapy and aquatic therapy. To read the details in the September 12th entry click here!   Jean Riva   .
jriva

jriva

7

Disabled Heart....

It's easy for me to forget that my husband is disabled. Despite the wheelchair and his language disorders, in many ways Don is the same man I've known since 1970----good-natured, compassionate, kind, smart, and out-going. It's the out-going part that gets him in trouble once in a great while. Click here to read the rest of what happened today.   Jean
jriva

jriva

6

Catching the Caregiver Back Pain Train

.   I'm just returning from a two week pity party. You know the kind where you don't think you can handle one more metaphorical---or real, for that matter---hangnail. Giving myself a sharp "get over yourself, everyone has problems" usually keeps pity parties off my property---I'm generally an upbeat kind of person---but not this time. This time, four out-of-place vertebrae were playing sadistic games with the nerves running down my leg and they threw open the front door inviting the pity part
jriva

jriva

5

Back but Probably Forgotten

It must be old home week around here. It looks like I'm not the only long-lost member catching up their blog. We've had a busy fall since I last updated my blog over at Bloggers. My newest entry is about our woos in spending eleven months dealing with Medicare over Don's wheelchair replacement and about us potentially becoming one of the latest victims of the Wall Street crisis. Read "Old and Obsolete" here.   For pet lovers, our dogs have been prolific in sharing their unique views in their
jriva

jriva

8

Are you Reliant?

If you want to feel old really fast get a new digital camera. At least the one I just got is making me feel that way. It came with not one but TWO user guides and some of the pages have such small print that I have to use a magnifying glass just to read them. Worse than that, the camera has a mode dial with tiny icons on it and without my handy-dandy magnifying glass I'd never know those little suckers are suppose to represent things like: portraits, night shots, indoors, landscapes, movies and
jriva

jriva

6

Aquatic Therapy with a Great PT!

.   Aquatic therapy went well today and had the twist of three students from the high school there to observe. So the PT did a lot of explaining about what it entails to get someone like Don walking again and how the brain has the ability to...... Click here to read the rest of the blog entry.   Jean
jriva

jriva

0

Aquatic Therapy

.   This first session in the 92 degrees water was so exciting. It was the first time since Don's stroke 7
jriva

jriva

4

And a GREAT Day Was Had by All!!!

.   The disability deer hunt is over and a great day was had by all, including me. If you want to read all about the experience my husband and the other twenty-seven wheelchair bound guys had click here!   Jean
jriva

jriva

2

AFO - New Kind on Order

.   This afternoon Don got casted for a new AFO. When we told Don's PT this morning where we were going to get the AFO made he got puffed-up impressed and told us that the man who owns the place is known world-wide for............. Click here to read about how this new AFO differs from others on the market and about Don accomplishment in PT.   Jean   .
jriva

jriva

5

1st Speech & Aquatic Therapy Sessions

. 1st Speech & Aquatic Therapy Sessions   Speech: I've always kidded that Don is a guinea pig for the student speech pathologists at the college where he goes for speech therapy. This semester that will be more fact than fiction---or maybe I should change that to, "He'll be a lab rat for the whole department." It was disappointing to find out that Don will.....   Click Here! to read the rest of this entry. See the September 20th entry titled, "Disappointing Week."   Jean   .
jriva

jriva

1