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, I did it. I hope I bought a good one, and didn't get conned by fancy talk. I know the e-stem (electrical stimulation of muscles) worked great on his leg in rehab, but they ignored his arm. I just bought one and hope and pray it will bring his arm to life. It also is a tens machine, which apparently means, when on the tens setting it interrupts pain signals and therefore helps pain.
http://www.lgmedsupply.com/l8eltemustco.html
Well, onto the next dilema. Husband's work insurance finished on Sept 5. We have not received any offer for cobra or other insurance from them yet, so this leads us to a strange perdicament.
No one will accept you without insurance, even if they do say they will pay it backward. This brings up another interesting problem. Retirees leave there with their insurance ready to go the next day, but the disabled who actually need ongoing care RIGHT NOW, are left in a purgatory of types. If I tak
Well, my life has been a blur of trying to get insurance and such going. Phone calls from hell, that eat the whole day. I was telling the girl that called to tell me the LTD had been approved that we had taken his pension early, at a lower amount, just so we could afford to pay our retired/disabled insurance rates. To which she informed me that I needed to send her a copy of that, because our LTD would be diminished by that amount. So... we took our pension early, at a lower rate, just
Most probably a neurologist will want to take new mri/cat scans of hubby's brain. Since one of the insurances I'm looking at is high deductible, does any one know just what an MRI and a catscan cost, so I could figure out what 20% of that would be.
Last night it all hit the fan, just after I got into the chat room. I started getting phone calls and had to start getting Bob ready for an early bed, get the pets ready for the night, and tear out of here. My mom was supposed to get a pacemaker Thursday morning, but Tuesday night began to have such irratic episodes that she called 911. When I got there her blood pressure was 240/110. Then a few hours after getting nitro, we saw the top number say 157 and thought it was good, but looked
The other day, I was at Walmart and looking for a pair of jeans. I like ones with elastic waist. These were JMS (just my size) (2X - 18/20 petite) pull on stretch jeans. These have a slim ankle and stitching around the ankle. I got them home and was thrilled with how they fit and felt. I don't understand how I fit petite, because I always wore average, but they fit great. I soon began to think about how Bob wants to wear jeans so bad.... but.... they are such a pain, so hard to get on, to pu
The last few days have been a whirlwind. The real estate person I talked to initially, gave me another call and I had told her before, I needed her to come over and look at things and give me some ideas on how much she thought to list it for. She knows our situation, so didn't really bother to give me ideas on things to do to make it more valuable, which would require more time and energy from me. Well she came and looked and I thought it was going to be just that, but somehow I got a 'wha
This came up in another post, and originally I put it there, but figure it might not get seen there after people already looked at that post, so am transferring it here. It concerns journaling and his aphasia.
I wish he could journal. I have him write a little each day, but even he doesn't know what it means when he gets done. He knows while he is writing, I think, but when he gets done and looks at it, he says this is all jibberish. There are litterally, not 2 words together that make sen
I promised better news today, so I'll keep my word. Hate to just blog when my head is spinning around like in the movie The Exorcist.
1. When I went to get the insurance papers looked over by the senior service lady who helps with paperwork, I was telling her how we were going to tell his doctor that he needed one of those lift chairs, so he could stand at will. That would make him stronger to where maybe he could start crippling around the house. The way it is, he has to wait for me
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
Oh my! I can't believe it was this simple! You know when you are eating a wrap or a burrito how you have to hold the back end with one hand to keep everything from falling out, while holding the front with the other hand? You can't do that when you only have one working hand! Today I puzzled over the problem, as I miss the flatouts (brand of wrap) I used to make. I made 2 up and stood there wondering how in the world he would be able to hold it together to eat it. Then I had a lightbulb moment!
Thru the magic of the internet, the images from Debbies "VIRTUAL" Retirement Day are ready!
Debbie's last day of work:
She was so excited when she walked into our surprise retirement party:
We might have eaten too much:
Perhaps there was a LITTLE too much wine:
Maybe the party games did go a little too far:
Bruce enthusiastically celebrating Debbie's retirement. Please don't try this at home, when you're sober.
The next day was a slow easy day, to m
I've been thinking about writing about this, and it has recently come up again. So, I almost thought not to write, as it might be redundant... but no, I need to blog it for my own record.
When Bob first stroked, I called my girlfriend, since 2nd grade. I told her what had happened, relaying my horror and loss of what our lives would have been. She matter of factly said, "eh, people don't realize being handicapped is not about living with loss, it's just living differently". If anyone
I am officially crazy now and the entire fleet has turned out to give me an honorary medal into the navy, since I have surpassed the requirements to be able to 'curse like a sailor'. No, it's not Bob who I'm cursing at, it's me, it's everytime I nearly break my toes off AGAIN, it's the cat that has torn a hole in the screen door, and the stray cat that sprayed same door, which seeped into the cracks of the metal door (did I mention this stray is not a fixed cat, so has full tomcat odor?) and I c
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
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!
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
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
Son & fiancee were here week before last. They did an enormous amount of clearing out, and drug things to our storage locker or here. Put sealer/stain block on the 2 bedroom walls in question, then painted them. I did the trim, still have some to go. I went everyday and worked there a couple of hours, but they were there for all day long, till evening - clearing, cleaning, putting up curtains, whatever. I could never have gotten all that done, not in another 2 years. There is still som
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
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
I got this small lightweight hand 'splint' (rolyan) and it has been a huge help in keeping his hand loose. It is so light and easy to wear that he does, all day & night. His hand has responded very well to it, and the new OT loves it!
So, Bob is finally strong enough, and stays awake long enough, that we can make the trip to a further rehab, which has OT, unlike the last 2. He had his eval on May 21 and 1st OT on May 28. Since she is a real OT, she is not afraid to stretch h
Tonight I had to make a run to Walmart. Bob actually requested Poptarts and finally got it across that he wanted more of those banana muffins I had found on discount. Probably just makes us fat, but we don't eat them all day, and it really perked him up. We usually eat something like that when he gets up in the middle of the night. Then we don't have to worry about breakfast when the meals on wheels come so very early, around 10:45am with lunch! Also saw a box of Whoppers as I was leavin
Well, some of you might remember that when Bob was in the big hospital, getting test after test, not one time, did anyone come to me and say, "we have the results of his latest test, and what we find is..." - Never. I didn't ever know more about what his MRIs & catscans had shown, then the original information that he had a blocked caratid artery and the stroke team was standing by to do emergency brain surgery on him, if I gave permission. His 'doctor' from that hospital, never had anyt
