Bob always hated yard work at our old home. He'd run the lawnmower over anything. carelessly, just get it over with so he could do something else. I always wanted him to work with me in the yard, and share it as a hobby. He hated that idea. When we moved here, the setting was so beautiful and we both reallly loved the yard. He bought every tool known to man, to work in HIS yard. I was elated! My dream of us working on our yard together was coming true! The other couples in the
I wanted to share Bob's writing with everyone. I'll start by reminding you of his earlier attempts, that were totally mixed up, although in his head, he thought them out normally, and was surprised himself, to try to read it back to himself. You can see that the when he thinks, the words in his head are like trying to catch minows in a creek. He reaches to grab them, and maybe catches one here and there to show you, what is going on in his head. The fewer he manages to catch, the less he can pre
It's been so long since I've blogged. So much happening, and even Bob's 2nd year stroke survivor anniversary. Due to the plumbing backup/flood in our home, we were happy to just have a low key day and feel content.
Anyway, so his old boss called last week and wondered if we could make it to lunch Wed (today), as a couple of guys that Bob used to work with were up from another state (they transfered to). So, we went and then his boss says, "Well, Bob, I had an alterior reason for inv
NOW FOR GOOD NEWS: There have been some positive things happen that has affected Bob greatly! Remember the chair lift we got, that I had hoped would start him into more action? Well, 3 things happened, that I think has had a great affect on him:
1. The blessed chair lift, which made it possible for him to get up and down at will, = freedom and more mobility creates more mobility
2. Getting to see son & fiancee, was an upper
3. Seeing everyone doing and working made him want to ge
Well, my mom's better(pacemaker installed), and back to torturing me again. I've always loved her, that's never been the problem, but she is soooo cruel. Anyway...
When I would go visit her at the rehab, I'd leave Bob with the phone, as he recently learned how to answer it. I called to check on him and got no answer, so had to go home. I had been there about 4 hours, but the clock in the room was malfunctioning and didn't realize it was time anyway. The second hand moved, and the
It's all hitting the fan here, and I'm struggling to do everything I need to do for us without going completely insane. I can't even blog, my brain is too full of the turmoil here, to the point of being in a stupor and unable to communicate it. But we are ok, it's just the circumstances of having your life thrown into the wind and trying to hold onto something for dear life.
I'm going to do a little catch up on my blog so I can find the info again later. The on-going insurance drama is still up in the air, and it is on the message board.
This happened yesterday:
Something has just happened, I can't believe it - miracle. Out of the blue, I got a call from whirlpool on the water heater (last out here to check their product in May). He said I he heard I was having water heater problems. I explained how we had a water heater that softened both cold & hot wat
I'm cutting and pasting this from the end of a previous post, where it is likely not seen. Gotta stop doing that. Then new news after the paper:
Another thing we have recently started, tracking our food. For years, we have written down what we ate each day, and have actually counted weight watcher points. I got him a little notebook and I have a new one too, as my previous one became the emergency stroke book, when it all hit the fan. Anyway, so everyday we write down what we ate, and so
So much going on here. Bob's going to medicare advantage plan signals the end of the 2.5 years of constant (free) therapy. Time to get back to taking care of the house and other aspects about our lives and health. Taking bids for taking down a HUGE dead tree in the back yard, BEFORE it crashes thru the house. Taking bids for roof/gutter/facia/sophits - big bucks. Hope I can afford something. It has been a revolving door here with tree companies and home improvement companies coming to give bids.
Yesterday I did what others have prompted me to do - took care of myself. Time to put away the Cinderella attitude. When my husband was in the rehab and after he first got home, I always tried to look my best, look like me. I wanted to make him feel better when he saw me, and I wanted others to know I was happy my husband was home and I COULD do it! Somewhere along the line, I quit looking after me. I think it came about because once I was the one doing all his grooming and dressing, my
I've recently gotten into bullet journaling - which has went into an art form, and I'm loving it. I started trying to bullet journal around the middle of Feb, and use a 2 pg daily spread, with everything on it. One of the many things I want to try to get back into is my stroke hubby's therapy, that we are not doing anything, on a regular basis, on (stroked 2012). I got this free print off from a bullet journal group, where the designer wanted to see what people would do with it. There we
Well, as I've mentioned before, every few weeks I have a dream that I see my husband move his hand and do something small, without thinking about it, and without even realizing it. This is encouraging to me, because I've had dreams thru-out my life that were predictive.(word?)
Anyway, so Monday he calls to me, with my REAL name (Sandra, instead of Mom) and I go running to him, alarmed. He said something's happening. I asked if he was sick or felt pain, he said, no, not like that. The
Today I, once again, asked him to try to move his finger/s. Nothing. I slipped my index finger into his hand and asked him to try to squeeze it. He worked with all his arm, AND.... he put pressure on my finger! This is not the reflex that closes it tightly when he doesn't do it, this was really him doing it, and he's managed a few more times today! He can't open it yet, but this is the very beginning, getting the muscles to do anything at all in his hand!
Well, before I was going to the house 2-3 times a week, but when we got the bid on it at the end of May, I began going everyday, staying around 4 hours. Toward the middle of June, I'd come home to find Bob had managed to stuff his feet in his jogging shoes and get out of bed and to the porch, in his depends and t-shirt, fortunately, no one can really see him out there and the weather was still pleasant. I knew something had to give because he was not sleeping as long as I was working, and I co
Today was Thanksgiving Day in the US, and I'd like to say how thankful I am that I didn't blow us all up! Today was the day I decided to awaken the sleeping Crackin (boiler). With tomorrow comes the highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s, it has to be cold enough to light it, because it requires a draft pipe to feed air to it so you don't aphixiate, and so it needs to be cold enough that the boiler runs hard enough that the draft is eaten up with the immense heat of it, or the draft will freeze yo
Dear Friends, I have taken some steps, thanks for all the advice, keep it coming on the elder lawyer situation!
I will list the things that are helping me improve my stress:
1. Got to old house and was able to get more work done (always helps me feel better)
2. Took lever know off storm door = cat can no longer hang there and tear the screen
3. Made appt to have aircond/furnace man come out
4. Made appt to have foundation looked at
5. Located elder lawyer & he wa
So, a therapist was showing me how to do a heel stretch today, and I made the mistake of not just saying yes, but saying, "it's harder for me to do it like that, because (long explanation about how our bed and bedroom is laid out). To which his idea was to just shove this or that out of the way, which I explained that everything in the house is already shoved out of the way, and there was no place left to shove, as it would only block another thing we'd need later. He kept insisting why did
It's been awhile since I've blogged. I had a bad problem with my hip, in the front where it hooks on to your body, on the side excrutiating painful and low disk, sending sciatica down my leg. So, it's been a lot of me dragging my leg like the mummy and screaming here and there when I drug it wrong. I found some meds that helped, and some days I do better, other days revert back to screaming and dragging... BUT, here's the latest good news!
I will say that when I bought my snapper rider the y
Got phone call today from social security office, and his soc sec disab. has been approved - no soc sec doc to visit, no court to go to, will kick in in about a month! Notwithstanding, it's not EXTRA money, except for those who have no work disability. If you do have it, then the money from work, will reduce by the amount SS gives you. But if you don't apply for it, they will estimate how much SS would pay and doc you for it - so it has to be done! This is the first thing I had to do abou
Bob started being more aware and trying to help do things about a month ago. Like helping pull up his pants. So around the beginning of this week, I noticed he sent down to about 12" from the ground and pulled up his side. I was like WOOO HOOooOoOOoOOo! Do you realize what you just did?!?! You reached all the way down and helped pull up! So, I've added a new exercise to his balance exercises, to help develope this new ability. I put a kleenex box on the groun, end up. Then whi
Yesterday started with me in fine spirits, planning lots of work to get done. Bob had to poop right out of bed, so we went to my bath room off the bedroom, instead of his. I wonder if we'd made it to the other bathroom, would the day have went differently? Afterward, figured I'd get him in the shower, since my bathroom is where we do that, and he was already half naked. Seemed too much water on the floor. I usually only have 3 towels to sop up, but needed a lot more... what's happening...
I have read this book every year for quite a few... I can't remember how many by now. It's not a novel. It's more like a daily read. I tend to be kinda goofy, and it has really been a blessing to me, and helped to center me in crazy times. I have not been able to find it since Bob's stroke and finally gave up and looked on amazon.com for it recently. It's worth mentioning that amazon has a free kindle ap that you can download to your computer and read right on your computer or other dev
I will attempt to catch people up on what's been happening on our end. I had been having a really good roll on organizing last fall, until I got extremely sick on Sept 29, and stayed that way for 6 weeks. My progress stopped, and I was only able to do the minimum for Bob, and crash again.
I sat in front of my computer, wondering how I was going to be able to buy the groceries.. I could barely function! Then I saw this add on the side of the page about Walmart having grocery pic
MON SEPT 4, 2012
I have done the 'mirror' shoulder shrugs with Bob for months, boosting the stroke shoulder while he shrugged the other one. Today after the PT did major pulling and stretching on his tight shoulder muscles and had him shrug, the stroke one actually moved upward a little bit! Now I don't know if it's because he is getting a little more back on that side or if the reason it didn't shrug before was that it was frozen and she had broken it lose! At any rate, WOO HOO! another sma
So Bob has sequencing problems. This makes it hard for him to do just about everything, needing prompting. Some of his speech therapy papers had him drawing different things, and it became evident that he could no longer make a star. The thing about stars is that there is a series of sequences that we follow to get the shape. It only takes 5 seconds, because it's so fast and easy, unless your brain forgot the sequence. I was trying to find old papers where we had tried to practice and pr
