Deigh

Stroke Survivor - male
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Blog Comments posted by Deigh

  1. Just had a read of some of your blogs and am impressed! The desire to play a musical instrument must be inherent in everyone but not everyone perseveres with trying to learn one. I also read of your attempts to get to grips with amateur radio and your lack of success. I was an enthusiast for many years and had a station in Ceylon when I was there in the RAF. I'm guessing but I think you may have been mainly on RT where I was a morse enthusiast and just loved high speed challenging communication. Apart from that it was just swopping the same old chat with the same people. The other reason was that I was a  lonely single lad of 20  (even though sharing a billet with 30 others) and that communication took me away from all their rather coarse values and activities..

    I am progressing well with the uke even though I don't practice much, my 70 years of guitar playing has left me with a lot of musical skills which the other club members do not have and this gives me more than a head start. I have a Yamaha keyboard at home and I get a half an hour daily playing that  as well as the guitar. There is no way I could consider playing out of home though, just the thought of the effort required to carry equipment and setting up elsewhere leaves me exhausted.

    Can you read music?

    Deigh

     

     

  2. Sue,  About fifteen years ago my wife and I had a series of financial disasters which resulted in a loss of our house and business. All we had left was our campervan, a twenty year old 6 metre Japanese bus which I had converted into a mobile home. We lived in it totally for six years and it was the best time of our lives. We would make trips to the trout fishing centre of the NZ and I would spend as much time as I could in a rubber ducky trying to catch fish. Then we would return to Auckland, park on our son's driveway and spend a while doing repairs and saving up enough to fill the tank.....then away again....

     

    Nowadays I dream regularly of winning some cash on lotto and buying a camper again! I think I have my stroke problems under control enough to handle the plan again as long as I take it very easily.

     

    Deigh

  3. I don't know whether or not to tell you this but If the situation was reversed I'd have liked you to tell me!

     

    Five years ago, before the stroke hit me I found a lump in my cheek, (I presume this is similar to your experience). My Doctor looked at spots on my chest and decided that one did not look good. In a minor operation he took it out, sending the bits  away for examination. This showed that there were some problems there and I was sent for a deeper dig in hospital. They were happy that this cleared the problem but my lump did not decrease and I was sent for major scans. Eventually the problem was pinpointed to my spleen and a decision to remove it was made.

     

    The operation was a success and I was cleared of the cancer threat. I was recovering nicely when after three months the stroke hit and I believe it was because the hospital doctor took me off blood thinning tablets and failed to put me back on them when the op was over.

     

    The loss of a spleen has never been a major problem except that I have to take care to avoid infections. 

     

    Deigh

     

  4. Greetings from New Zealand and congrats to Mum-in-law for getting green card. It will be very interesting to find how she handles the winter weather! Tell her that NZ is unchanged despite new government except that we are having extremes of weather. Papakura has not changed much at all!

    Deigh

  5. It was good to read your blog, I was full of questions like how come your mother in law lives in New Zealand and was awaiting a phone call from Lesley so she could explain. It looks as though some big changes are going to happen. We probably know your M.I.L but can't think of anyone of that age in Papakura.

    I lied about the weather here, it was lousy last week but seems to be improving at the moment.

    Deigh

  6. I learned an amazing short term memory trick meany years ago which now proves invaluably. firstly you learn a list.

    One is a bun.

    Two is a shoe.

    Three is a tree.

    Four is a door.

    Five is a hive.

    When you have locked this in your permanent memory you use it as a shopping list. You gotta buy bananas, peas, baked beans just put them in the list.

    A bun with a banana in it.

    A shoe with a can of peas in it.

    A tree with a tin of baked beans hanging on it.

    You will be staggered on how well this works, you can add objects to numbers to go right up to ten. Beyond this you should write it down!

    Deigh

  7. Youv'e got to admire a person laughing at their disabilities.!

    I have a confession to make......To get my wife out of bed in our younger days I used to become a monster, sidle in with back hunched up, one arm locked up. Hair in disarray, dragging my right leg and drooling at the mouth. She would shriek and hide under the covers. For a bit of fun last week I went to do it again to get her out of bed. We both roared with laughter when I remarked that I didn't have to act it any more since it was practically my normal posture.

    Deigh

  8. Hi Mitch, I heard you were coming over to this forum and was eagerly awaiting your first post. Here in NZ we have no stroke forums so in desperation I joined Stroke Connect and hoped no-one would recognise my accent. The bad choice of dumping it and starting Enableme was terrible and I wonder what can be done to reverse things. There was nothing wrong with S.C. that a bit of tweeting wouldn't fix.

     

    I envy your Shed connection. I was looking forward to becoming a member of a local shed when we moved to this township but unfortunately it closed down and I see no chance of a replacement. I have moved into a pensioner flat and have very little workspace to do projects in. If I get desperate I can visit my son's house and have all my tools in his garage. I am not allowed to drive yet so this can be a bit of an embarrasment.

    Regards

    Deigh

  9. For the last twenty years I have had irregular sleeping habits. The solution as I see it is to keep the mind away from serious problems by chanelling thoughts into something inane and not unsolvable. At first I would do a crossword before switching off the light and then concentrated on an unsolved clue. Trouble with this is that if you solved it you have to switch on the light to read another clue!
     
    I wrote a Sci-Fi book by putting my characters into difficult situations and then solving them. I could mentally rewrite the chapter several times before having to get up and type the result into my computer.
     
    Painting is incredibly boring, I took on a mental contract to paint the Great Wall of China. It required ladders so I borrowed an anti gravity device from my sci-fi book. People kept leaning over the wall asking me what I was doing so I borrowed another device which made me completely uninteresting. A further device controlled the weather around me and for a few years I dropped off to sleep quite easily. I think I covered one tenthousandth of the wall during that time.
     
    Hope I have given you some direction to help your sleeplessness.
    Deigh

  10. As achandra says, every stroke is different. I get very tired and have to be careful not to overdo things, but I'm retired and my only domestic duties are self-imposed ones to do the washing up, light maintenance and help with the laundry. I'm not allowed to even drive yet so my total time can be spent in achieving recovery! I'm quite spoilt!  I take my hat off to you having to cope with a couple of active, demanding schoolboys, as well as cooking, housework and everything else. Can't give you any advice but I can give you my respect. 

    Regards 

    Deigh