lmouat

Stroke Survivor - male
  • Posts

    27
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About lmouat

  • Birthday 12/08/1945

Contact Methods

  • Stroke Network Email
    Yes
  • MSN
    Miss Linnie

Shared Information

  • Stroke Anniversary (first stroke)
    07-25-2004
  • Stroke Anniversary (second stroke)
    08-17-2004
  • Facebook URL
    http://
  • Interests
    creating unique jewelry
    reading
    sporadic attempts to whack a golf ball - usually without great or even moderate success
    my 4 grandsons
    my husband - retire countdown 11 months and counting
    going to the Oregon coast and loving the beach, the waves that stretch for eternity
    tai chi and walking my little dog - she literally saved me twice when I had my 2 strokes my brother calls her the "Golden dog."
    television especially the travel channel
  • How did you find us?
    Google Search

Registration Information

  • First Name
    Lin
  • State
    WA

lmouat's Achievements

Associate Member

Associate Member (2/10)

  1. Happy Anniversary lmouat!

  2. Happy Anniversary lmouat!

  3. Happy Birthday lmouat!

  4. Resuming the climb with my heart considerably lighter than the last time I wrote. Sometimes the smallest thing just sets me free from the mire of my despair. My yearly physical. My Dr. isn't very thorough but she asks lots of health related questions. My answer to her "do you have?" questions is mostly "no". i thought my list of ailments seemed terribly long until I realized that the list of things I do not have far surpasses the do haves! :happydance: My first check for my part of my hubby's RR retirement (like SS) is here! WOW! Some recognition for my part in Gary's career. Let the games begin!! :yukyukyuk: The sun is shining and we're off to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia to visit Gary's family. Me and my scooter will visit all of the little touristy shops, shop for clothes (a favorite past time), read, and enjoy. As we have aged, the older people on the Island have died and it strikes me that at 61, we are the newest older people.
  5. lmouat

    I GIVE UP

    I am so sad that you are feeling so stuck! Trust me, all of us get mired in th quicksand from time to time. You are so young and I am not. Tell you what, I'm going to sprinkle you with pixie dust! Close your eyes and imagine the beautiful irridescent dust floating all around you, catching the light from all of the people who care about you. Amazing, I've been in the dumps lately and you have lifted me up. My mom had one crippled arm from childhood polio and there was nothing she couldn't do. Her advice to you would have been :laughbounce: "You can do everything anyone else can do - you just have to find a different way to do it." My thoughts and prayers are with you.
  6. I don't really expect anyone to care about all of this but I need to get it out. For 3 years after the strokes, I couldn't cry and I couldn't laugh. Physically could not do it. Many times I wanted and needed to cry. Yesterday I bottomed out at the prospect of one more proceedure to ease the pain in my lower back. And started crying. I findally took a xanax, which helped a lot. All of us are made up of so many experiences other people don't know about. These experiences are a part of the whole. Why was I crying yesterday? I just wish there was someone to talk to who knows what it is like to live in unrelenting pain and watching her life become smaller and smaller. My son used to complain alot and my daughter-in-law would tell him to call 1-800-whine! My thoughts are a jumble at the moment. Think I'll just go ahead and pretend like i am talking to a dear trusted friend. All of us have mountains to cross in our lives - some more than others. My life seems to be a series of mountain ranges that stretch out for as far as my eyes can see beginning at the age of 2 with sexual, physical, and emotional abuse that continued until I got out when I turned 18. I took the hard road out, though, by getting pregnant, marriage and a sweet little baby, Randy. Terry and I were two kids having a kid. Not surprisingly, he'd get drunk and beat me. I got out again. My now husband and I have been married for 38 years. Gary just loved Randy and ultimately adopted him as his own. Our second son, Will, came along a few years later. There was a long period of lovely valley living. And then Randy died at 17 from cancer That was one mountain I almost didn't make it over. Losing a child never goes away. It has been 24 years and there are still moments when it hits me all over again. Our lives smoothed out for a number of years until Will was gone. Emotionally I began to fall apart, ended in therapy and worked so hard to get over the mountain range of my childhood. I went into that therapy at the same time I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrom. By the time i figured out what I had, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Oh Crap! another mountain and I am fighting my way over it when BLAM my first stroke happened! 3 weeks later an even more massive stroke. I am a fighter! Climbing, scrambling, falling, scrtaching my way over this everlasting mountain. I've lived with the pain in my low hips for years. I've learned a lot of coping methods for dealing with pain. And then, suddenly it has gotten so severe I can barely function. I've already had the series of injections the drs put into the nerves in my back to deaden the pain. It didn't last long and while it can be repeated twice a year, the expense is just too great. I take a low dose of tyleno with codiene and vicodin My primary dr. helps as best as she can. I am desperate to stop this pain! And I am just worn out with it. I don't know if i can fight anymore. Is it self pity? Perhaps. I don't ask why me because that is pointless. Time to go. :yadayada: Thanks for listening anyway.
  7. the dull gray fog sometimes settles over my brain and it's hard to figure out how to do things I usually do just fine. How to make new Blogs just didn't click today and I took all of my energy on this quest. In fact, even finding my blog page proved an ardous task. Now I've got no more brain energy. Frustrating. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow won't be so hard and I'll remember how! Warmly, Linnie58
  8. :cheer: To celebrate every success great or small is vital to my mental health! I took the train from Vancouver, WA to visit a friend in St. Paul. Took a good friend with me and all of us had a great time. Gone 9 nights - which is 4 nights longer than my best since the strokes altered my reality. Am slowly learning to recognize and celebrate those successes. With something like a trip, the challenge is obvious and the success also. It is the smaller things that I too often fail to even notice. A friend pointed out to me that if I put the amount of energy into hand writing that I put into other things, the writing would improve. I didn't like her saying that! So I am trying to make myself spend a few minutes a couple of times a day writing. I suspect that doing this simple thing is a success, especially in the light of how little patience I have with this motor skill that once came so easily. . . :Tantrum: Are you ever surprised to find yourself past middle age? I don't spend a lot of time lamenting my age (60) but with the strokes and fibromyalgia placing such unwelcomed limits, it is hard not to notice that other people my age are so much more functional... is there an emtion con for whining? Cause that is what I am doing! There are a zillion people who have less to whine about and a bazillion people who have more to whine about that I do!! Will give myself the precious gift of rest from the trip. :cocktail: Linnie58 - no make that 60!
  9. lmouat

    My recovery angels

    helps and helow