I don't know if I am optimistic by nature but I tend to hope for the best perhaps out of denial that things will get worse. Maybe it is just as my grandmother said and it is having the Irish in me that does the trick. Whatever it is, I seem to like to stay in the bright sunshine of hope but there are days I am in a mood as dark as night. I blame it on the pain that follows me around like a silent shadow waiting to get me. I sometimes wins and I can't outrun it with the timing of the meds. I finally have a bit of a combo that gives me some good relief but I am never a day without my shadow. I am getting accustomed to it now and i feel that happening. When someone asks my pain level I get really irritated all at once realizing they need some measure of pain and then just so aggravated that I am asked a level of pain in the first place. I mean life used to be without pain. NO pain. pain free. There was no language of pain and not a scale for it. So on my journey to get back to normal I want to be painless and so I want to be asked whether or not I am experiencing pain and not what level I am experiencing it. Who ever decided that a certain pain level is acceptable. I notice this when I give a number in PT and they somehow celebrate this when it isn't a 10. So that is an irritating thing and not something I am thankful for so I am off topic as usual.

I am now suddenly very aware that each moment is not to be taken for granted and yet it is the normal everyday things that I am so grateful for especially after being in the hospital hotel. (I say this in jest because someone told me that I was not going to the inpatient PT because that would be like staying at the hotel version. LOL as if one would call and request to be awakened in the morning with a blood draw please). I am most thankful for showers and the nifty shower chair that I wish I had had years ago because it is most handy for wash in hair coloring days with a handy magazine to read. In fact I know that I am not the only one using it in my household just for a leisurely sit in a steamy shower. I am so thankful for my family and all they do for me even though it challenges family dynamics in an unbelievable way. I am thankful for those I meet in the rehab waiting room because they share information or they just share inspiration by being there and smiling at me. I am thankful for the pharmacy tech that always knows me now and gets my goods, helps me manage snags, and makes me feel good when I come in. I am so thankful for everyone who ask if I am walking yet and lets me show off my small progress as if it is tremendous. To me it is. I am grateful for being able to stay in class and to be treated like everyone else. I am thankful of course that I see and read and all that my brain and body continue to do without explanation or reason. I am grateful to be alive although it irritates me when others point that out when I complain of an inconvenience. In my previous life who would think of saying to me that at least I am still alive when something is wrong with this or that. What an idiotic thing to think. I guess I may reply that even beyond the grave this or that will still continue to irritate me. True story when I told a nurse that I was still in so much pain it was intolerable and she replied that at least I wasn't paralyzed. I really did comment that I considered amputation an option if they couldn't get me more pain relief but I chose to eliminate that doc office instead. I wonder if she tells the paralyzed patients at least they aren't in pain. I was beyond furious in my postsensepoststroke fog. I no longer question that such medical folk walk the halls employed. Now I just try and dodge them. I am soo thankful for compassionate and competent medical professionals.

I am thankful for little daily things like those plastic cups with lids and straws I call sippy cups because they make needing a straw less stigmatizing and spill less with my new gracelessness sometimes. I am grateful for those cloth grocery bags that make excellent carryalls on the wheelchair and walker without paying for special ones. I am grateful for all tips that make this life easier. I am waiting tor a magazine devoted to such things and other health topics and not just the one in the waiting room with high priced gadgets although that is a nice one too. I am going to look and see if there is any attention given to stroke needs in magazines for some tips. I already use my voice activated phone thing. I didn't get any OT so I just grab at what is out there. I don't know if OT is worth fussing about but I see them doing crafts so I am jealous. I am so thankful for days I get out of the house and enjoy the weather and sights and smells of the world out there that goes on no matter what. I am so grateful that I am involved anyway I can which makes me then grateful for all the new face creams and make up out on the market so I can put my best face forward with the magic of make up. I am now so pale from not being outdoors nearly enough.

I am thankful for the love and caring I now see in real time because of this stroke. For all the irritating things there is the time when love shines through even from strangers who want to be helpful and who notice things.I am thankful for those who can never understand what I am going through so they just relate to me as if I am the old me anyway and I appreciate those who get it even more than I do and can help me navigate this trip.

I am grateful for prescription antifungal shampoo which is an explanation and an end to the diagnosis of stress scratching. I am so thankful it smells so good and isn't so bad with a nice leave in conditioner. very thankful for that. I am grateful for cancer free but what is this you cut out of my scalp? I am grateful for nurses that sing to me.

I am so grateful to have family to eat a meal with and if I needed to get around people I would do it because it is with people we find something to lean against or to push against in this journey. I am grateful for my family recipes which I find it irritating that I may not be doing the cooking this time or ever but my kids will do it. I won't be traveling since being in any public transportation is way too busy for me and driving in a car continues to make me ill so I am staying home with only short drives. I am going to decorate asap for christmas because I love lights. I am grateful for the neighbors who also decorate and share this love of lights no matter what winter holiday they celebrate. I have out my orange lights from halloween saying they are just fall color lights now LOL. I am so grateful for help getting this done too. For all the things I used to do and would miss in my life if someone wasn't helping me.

I am grateful for the tinest things now like these new hair ties that are elastic ribbon that help me to the new phone things that are on this phone that are so wonderful and who would guess when I was a teen that the world would be so high tech and gadget happy. I have the latest phone then it is obsolete so fast. And all kinds of things to look at email on now. I am grateful for so many material things that I am blessed to have that did not exist until after I had kids. I am grateful I know that world. I try hard to say stuff about it but it falls on ears that can't imagine like me wondering about the milkman experience. I think that is a shame that fresh milk is not available like that. We have water delivered now. Anyway I am grateful to appreciate the changes and to have the benefits of microwaves and I think about it now because I had to replace stuff and I can't imagine not having it.

I am grateful just to still be home and going on no matter that it is hard and even if I do get so sick of it that I say I wish for death tonight. In the morning I am always happy to see the light and make the coffee. I am grateful for the times during the day that I stop and remember some happy memory that makes me smile or cry. I do alot of memory time. I am grateful I have them still there to go over and touch and roam through. I spend time in the past during the day now when I was busy in the present before. I am grateful for the time and chance to spend time and those little ones run around again as if it was real. I guess maybe that is a stroke thing maybe with this intense emotion and reminiscence. My brain delivers some good things.

My kids say they never thought I would be on so many drugs and be like this strange happy creature saying everything is beautiful and everyone is wonderful on these heavy meds they have me on.I fussed but when it takes the pain and the nerve stuff like I have then I am so grateful to live well any way it takes. I am grateful for cheating some chocolate even when I am on insulin and thank the suppliers of this sneaky wonderful stuff. I hate what sugarfree stuff does to my stomach. I will sneak a piece of pumpkin pie of course because life is meaningless without it that is how much I love pumpkin pie. I could just take a fork and eat a whole one and forget the real meal. Ok not really I would like the rest of the real meal too. I can't give up pumpkin pie the real thing. I get at a bakery so I don't want to cook one either LOL.

I have a list of things I am so grateful for from little to big things and they go on and on and when I am done thinking about it then I see that I do have a list of blessings after all even though most of the time I am in such a heap of loss. What do I fuss over really or think of as lost? Do I need those things in my daily life to be happy really? Are the things that I consider ME or part of who I see as a worthy me even that important? Do I want to finish dreams or start new ones and is the process just as good as a product? Am I only changed now and could I even say I am better in some ways than before? I never consider that one for real but what if?

One goal I have this year is one I always say but then I don't because I get busy but this year I am going to do some charity work for real in person and not just giving money but getting involved in person. I have not found a place yet but I am going to do something.I am going to google it. My days are measured by time in pain and time relieved of pain and that has changed who I am in so many ways. Find a level system of that. On every emotional continuum I am roaming all day because of pain. I see days and things differently now. I want to give something back. I call it my Scrooge indulgence as I realize I am so preoccupied with myself all the time and there are others out there with yes something worse.

yes this is the holiday time I almost missed and I am optimistic I am going to be here for them so I want to make the most of them but I am so limited in my new vestibularly challenged world from this prison of my body. I am grateful for my memories that take me back to happier times and places I have gone and I may not have a big impressive vault of things or places but they are mine and as the little prince would say that it is mine makes it beautiful and that is enough. I am thankful for what life I have lived even for the things I get to regret. I am thankful for the moments and memories I get to make only I wish I had more control over them and could design some nice ones but as usual I just get to take the moments as they come and there they are. I am grateful to get to be in the middle of carrying on some traditions.

I need to put up some list of these personal things I am grateful for because honestly when someone starts with the grateful thing I am irritated. Not that I am not grateful as you can see but it just is some gut reaction that it is going to be fake and cliche. I want to say I am thankful for a good haircut when everyone else is going mushy and saying thankful for this person or that and I am thankful for the deep important things of course but I get irritated that some of the things that irritate me in real life like those little stressors that really get to me, you know the things like running out of ink in the printer on the last page, well I am thankful for when those things don't happen so I sound shallow here don't I / LOL! I mean who isn't grateful for a loved one but it is those little things that ruin me. Like now when I can't just go out when I want to and so thank god for online shopping. Maybe a new nail polish color isn't going to change my world or give me my life back but hey I take a joy where I can so I am grateful for when someone takes me out and lets me browse around for some little thing like that. Especially now I am dependent. I am so angry sometimes about what I can't do or what is lost because those things were like some rights and entitlements as a person I took for granted. In the hospital I said I don't think I can live handicapped and the nurse pointed out that others are born that way and others live that way. I said it because I am scared of having to learn how to do it and how to give up the things that not being disabled are just there constantly. Now 6 months into this I am so disappointed that I am not just back to before but I am adjusting just like others said I would. I continue to push it though but part of me is not so horrified to be in a wheelchair. As long as I can get on with some of the normal things. That is what is important.

I am grateful for the improvements in my condition and little things that I can do for myself or others now. I can walk behind my wheelchair now and I can walk holding someone's arm without wobbling over. I can walk around the house and carry some small things so I am so grateful to not have to ask for things now. These things sort of happened overnight just look I can do this now why didn't I try it sooner feeling. I am not getting a walker yet because of spinning but I am getting stronger as long as pain is well managed. I want one of those nifty three wheeled walkers which look cooler than mine. I saw one with a plaid carryall bag attached and it looked as trendy as a walker can. I was told that it took a steady walk to graduate to that. My therapist wants to set some new goals this week. I said I still have the old ones which are walk normal and drive. I want to be back where I was the day before the stroke and I have not let that go and I need to stop thinking that this is a flu that will disappear and heal without a trace. But that is my real goal. I want to eliminate all traces all of it from the pain to the grotesque walk and all the limitations and the need for these medications. I will need to keep the blood pressure meds and aren't they a sorted mess of drugs anyway. But my goals are not so intense as before when I had so much hope in the beginning or was it denial that it would last. Hope has a way of slipping away fading slowly just subtle changes hardly noticed then it is turning into acceptance and ajdustance, which isn't a word but should be, and other postitively spun words that represent no longer hoping really and just being in reality in the moment whatever it is and not caring for the moment which can be a comfortable place or maybe a horrible place depending on my mood. Is it smarter to be in one place or another well the right answer is the one that fits or works and with me that is constantly changing. Hope is a kaleidoscope. I change my mind what is the most important thing. Some days I am content to not have that life now and to just be pain free for a while. Other days I study for exams or write the paper and go to class sitting in there with the young and demanding some more time in the land of the living. How did I get this new part of myself integrated into the old one already?