Now Ray has been at Woy Woy for a while I am getting used to the drive there and back. I pass a few suburbs rather than go through them but there is a lot to see. It is as familiar to me as most of the routes of my life having done it so many times in 1999, again for four weeks in 2000 and 2001. There haven't been a lot of changes so I can almost do it with my eyes shut. I keep them open though as it has tricky bits, like school zones, buses turning and a few busy roundabouts.
Today I c
Today was not a good day, not a bad day, just a different day. I think I must have been getting complacent about going over to see Ray because today fate stepped in and I nearly didn't get there. I got half way and realised I had left the bananas at home so I stopped at a fruit stall and when I got back into the car, it wouldn't start. ARRRRGHH!
But dragonslayer number one appeared a man in overalls who asked the usual question: "You okay love?" Yes, love was fine, but the car won't st
It is strange to visit Ray at Woy Woy Rehabilitation Unit. It is like going back to 1999 in a way as he spent so long there then. It is all so familiar. In 1999 he came in on a stretcher and walked out three months later. We know each recovery is a miracle as we know that so many don't recover. They have had people that didn't walk out but were shunted back to another hospital to await nursing home placement. That was one of my fears for Ray this time.
Today Ray had five visitors at
This morning I woke up, got out of bed, dressed and had breakfast. It wasn't until I got to put the toast in that I realized how rare this is. I did it all in my own timing. When Ray is here I wake up early, do some preparation and come onto Strokenet. That is because I can actually see him from where I sit as there is a connecting door which I keep open a crack. That way I can go in and help Ray up and out of bed if he needs it. So as soon as I wake up I am thinking about Ray. That is my
It finally happened. Last night around 9.15 pm I got a phone call to say that Ray was in the Rehabilitation Unit that produced the miracles for him in 1999 after his major strokes. Then he spent three months there and went from being a stretcher case to walking out on a walking stick. I am hoping they can repeat the miracle and put him back on his feet again for me.
It is 18 days since the fall that broke his pelvis and fractured his acetabulum ( left hip joint) and so far he has had ver
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, at the moment it is just a tiny pinprick of light but it is there. Ray is "walking" with the help of two nurses, a gait belt and what is called a "full arm high walker". He walked to the shower and back yesterday ( about a dozen steps each way) and today walked out to the nurses desk and back ( about twenty steps each way). His pain level the nurses now describe as "manageable with mild pain killers" so no more morphine.Yeah!!
I have had some ea
Today Ray stood up for the first time in eleven days. He still can't take steps, the physio tried but he sagged at the knees and the physio called the nurse to pull the chair forward as he was holding all of Ray's weight on the gait belt. It was sad to see that despite a pain tablet half an hour before Ray was still in a great deal of pain. Even just standing up he was doing what he himself calls:"Waving in the wind."
The orthopedic team, apparently four of them, decided that the hip sock
The end of week one of Ray's hospital stay saw very little progress made. He had eight xrays and scans of various kinds to get a diagnosis. The hip joint on the left side, where he already has the hip pinned is cracked across. I guess that means an operation but so far no-one has said they will do it. The orthopaedic specialists will consult tomorrow and I hope one brave one will agree to do the operation.
If Ray cannot have the operation we look at the worse case scenario: Ray spendi
It seems like a fortnight since last Saturday and it is only five days. Ray is still in hospital, still in bed or on the chair beside the bed, still not walking or weight bearing. He is still undiagnosed as the xrays have been "inconclusive". So more tests have been ordered, still a bone density test to go.
Today they had a second try at the nuclear scan but when I asked the nurse when we will get the results she replied: "Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, maybe." Seems it is all done
I have just posted a call for prayers for Ray because he had a fall today and is in hospital with a fractured pelvis. It amazes me how quickly things change as we were having a very good day in a week which promised to be a good one too.
Ray actually had the first fall this morning, he said he tripped over a cord (which he knew was there) and had twisted around somehow. He had fallen on carpet and was unharmed, maybe just slightly winded. So I did the British thing, sat him down in a com
All of you who have had strokes or care for someone who has know that you can't just rush off and do something on the spur of the moment. Well today I tried and almost made it work. It is summer here, a really gorgeous day today topped about 85 degrees so not too hot. And even late this afternoon perfect weather so I decided on a picnic tea down by the sea. We would buy some seafood and eat at some picnic tables in a little bay about 20 minutes drive away.
Ray got up from his afternoon n
Ray and I went to our local support group WAGS today. It was a mostly business meeting as they have a lot of funding to spend. The lady survivors have formed a group and are going to have monthly lunches, this will be subsidised as the Friday Scallywags (male) group is. Scallywags starts again this coming Friday so (yippee!!) I will have some time away from Ray again.
The group also planned a couple of informal get-togethers, one will be a day tour, by coach, possibly late March, the othe
Ray and I went to a funeral yesterday. We knew the widower as he is a member of our Lions Club. Sadly, although we had met his wife it was as a lady in a wheelchair who hardly spoke and never smiled. She had had severe dementia for the past four years. Imagine then how our view of her changed when we heard the eulogies. She had been a Radio Operator in the Women's section of the Australian Airforce in the second world war, had been a department head in a large department store, had run her
I told Jean and Bonnie I wasn't going to make New Years resolutions and as I have been sitting here alone the last three hours or so I have been thinking about that.
When I was young I learned to establish goals, long term and short term goals. The short term goals are something I could do in the next few weeks, so get a haircut, tidy out the linen cupboard, reply to all the Christmas letters would seem reasonable goals for the next three weeks. Realistically longer term goals would depend
I agree with Bob, I am also suffering from "post Christmas boredom". Now you need to remember it is summer here so there is plenty to do but all the organisations we belong to that form part of our routine are closed until the third week in January. It is easiest to shut down over the Christmas/ New Year period and give workers time off when families are around (kids on a six week summer vacation) so factories, charitable organisations who depend on volunteers and some small businesses take a
Yes we had a super Christmas
Fa-la- la- la- la, la la la la
And it was tiring, fun, full of family and far too much food. So I didn't have much sleep Christmas night and I did have heaps of indigestion medicine and many drinks of water and not a lot of comfort but at least now I feel less like a washing machine tumbling the chocolates, turkey, prawns, chicken etc that I ate and ate and ate. It was purely a self-inflicted injury this time. Is it too late at 3am to repent of all that foo
T'is the season to be jolly and Ray and I have been overdoing it. This has resulted in Ray having three bad days in a row. His confusion levels have resulted in us having arguments all three days and I am sick of it. I know he has had strokes and he has dementia but now he is driving me crazy.
One of his new problems is that he can't find anything. If I say; "It is over there." and point he will still walk right past whatever it is he is looking for. It is as if the desired object and
The tree is up. We had Tori for a sleepover and she and I put the decorations on the tree. I had planned it all gold and red (this years colours in the tree fashion stakes) but she went off and came back with some more decorations I had left in the bedroom and started raking though them and soon I had hung up the little drums, the old angels, the golden bells and some very old decos she found that I was about to throw out. It does all look nice and the tattered old tree ornaments remind me th
Today I am having a "bah humbug" day. I am not particularly sick, or overburdened or unhappy, I am just not enjoying my life. Which is quite common for care givers at this time of the year. After all this is when we women are supposed to arrive at whatever the current event is, wearing our best dress, our happy smiles and bearing in our hands the food we have so thoughtfully slaved over in the kitchen. Well, folks, it isn't going to happen like that. Not with a survivor in tow who really sh
Ray and I sold raffle tickets in a giant Christmas stocking, at our local shopping centre today for our Lions Club. We have seven four hour "slots" to do this Wednesdays and Saturdays until 20th December.
One buyer, a slight acquaintance from years gone by complimented Ray. He said: "Buddy, you are doing what a lot of able bodied people never do, paying your way in society." I take that point. Ray IS doing what a lot of able bodied people don't think to do, working for others: the blind,
Ray and I just had a weekend in Sydney not at my daughter's place but in a hired unit on the same site. We all went down to see her and her husband commissioned in the Sydney Town Hall on Sunday as officers in the Salvation Army. It was a real big deal and we were both so proud of her. We had all our kids and grandkids there too so as a family we really did put up a good show of support. We love them heaps. I have had a struggle accepting that they are going to Cairns (1700 miles north of he
Somewhere in the last seven years Ray and I got blended. I don't know how it happened as we used to be very different individuals. We had separate jobs, separate cars, separate lifestyles. We kept different schedules, had separate bank accounts and made separate friends. Or maybe I should say colleagues as those I thought of then as friends are not our friends today. We have retained a couple but the rest are long gone.
Then Ray had the major strokes and our world for a while revolved
It's only been six days and I am tired already. Having Ray come back home was a big adjustment for us both. We have lived together for 38 years, the last seven of which I have been a full-time caregiver for Ray. It was marvellous how quickly I took to jumping into the car whenever I wanted to go out, choosing what I wanted to eat and when and having a full bed to myself! It was like the doors of the cage had opened and all the world was mine. Not anything like it is whan he is home and fully
I can't believe how quiet it is, the cars are gone from the driveway, the fold-down bed is packed away, the sides are cleared of bottles, plasticware and food. The family have gone home. It has been a wonderful family weekend.
This is one of the last times our Sydney family will be here for any length of time, they came up to do the service at their old "home corps" this morning. They came up yesterday afternoon and we all had a BBQ dinner together early and then talked until late. The
During the weekend away there were many discussions. My room mate was a marriage celebrant but had formerly had a job which included counselling. She is a widely read woman and produced our wedding skit. At the end of the weekend she also produced a two page document for us to take home. It is to help us look at our relationships.
I with many others here have a great deal of angst about the changing roles of relationships in our life post-strokes. This can apply equally to those who hav
