1. I am a woman
2. I am 54 years old
3. I am the mother of 2 boys (now men)
4. I love cooking
5. I love eating
6. I hate to diet though I have been dieting most of my adult life and I am still overweight
7. I am a natural brunette but my hair color has changed often in the last 20years
8. My eyes are brown
9. I was a public servant until I had to go on a disability pension
10. I enjoyed doing volunteer work post stroke , it was very
Thank you all for your comments. I am speechless. I didn't realize I had a fan club I will reconsider and maybe take some time off from blogging so I that I can put ideas and memories together and make some kind of sense. I really like the idea of helping newbies with my experience. I feel like I have lived 100 years since my stroke when in fact it has been a mere 24 years. I will fish out some anecdotes in my big bag of memories and share the pleasures and the pains I encountered. Th
Today I am writing my last entry. When I thought of doing this, I thought I could do this and help people just starting out in their new life after stroke, because I did it for 24 years but I find I have nothing to say, I guess I just lived one day at a time and faced whatever difficiulties one by one. I am optimistic in nature so I never stopped myself doing anything because I didn't see myself as handicapped. I did what I wanted to and if I didn't want to do something, I had a good excuse n
today is Andre and my 3 rd anniversary of when we started living together. It is sad because we can't celebrate because he is feeling under the weather lately with depression and the thought of going out sends him in a panic. So I will celebrate in my heart. I count him among my blessings. I am very much in love with him and I look forward for the day he will feel better and we can go on with the rest of our life together.
As you all know, I had my stroke 24 years ago and 23 years ago, I was told not to expect anymore changes to my left side. What's left? My arm, I can now lift high enough to tell time(watch on that arm) I can touch my nose with my hand (in a fist) (have to be careful I don't knock myself out. lol) I can walk without cane and brace(I use the cane in winter because of the ice(slippy))For about 1 year now because I am not wearing my brace, I can wear normal shoes and don't have to buy 2 pairs(o
:yadayada: Apparently I am starting to follow conversations in live chat. I still prefer one on one though. If I can, I will join the chats on this site. In case I am not on at the time of the chats, I opened an account with yahoo [contact info edited out by MBA, Donna] Looking forward to chatting you up; pm me to exchange information.
I mentionned in one of my blog entries that I wasn't comfortable chatting with a lot of people. I fare better with one on one chat. I never expected all the replies I got. So many of you responded and game me suggestions so that we can still chat and get to know each other. You guys made me feel so welcomed, I don't know what to say except a big thank you. I hope I get to know everybody. I feel like I made a lot of friends here. thank you again. talk soon,
Thank you so much for your comments. I will not give up. I will go to chat room as often as I can and will get used to it again. Just out of practice I guess though I do prefer to chat one on one.
I've been in the chat room a few times but as soon as there is more than 2 or 3 people, I get confused and I can't follow any conversations. If anyone would like to chat one on one you are welcomed to send me a message, I would be more than happy to get to know everybody. Its hard to believe that 3 years ago, I was addicted to chatting. Now I only chat on this site, when I can manage it. Some days it seems I can't eat gum and walk at the same time. The joys of aging.
I was saying before that I enjoyed cooking for Andre because he eats everything I make. Lately he hasn't been feeling good and his appetite was gone. Tonight he asked to start dinner because he was hungry. I am so happy his appetite is coming back.
Cooking is something I enjoy doing when I can feed somebody. I don't like cooking for myself and I didn't enjoy cooking when the kids were at home because they were fussy eaters. My ex-husband was also a fussy eater. After that I was alone for a long time so I did little cooking. Since I met my present partner I realised that I do enjoy cooking. He eats anything just like Mikey in the commercials. Its fun to cook now. Funny, I am writing this today and I just finished wasting a lot of t
There is a little store in our community that sells accessories for the handicapped. I was chatting up a woman who works there and we got around to talking about these gadgets and where they come from. The woman told me " Necessity is the mother of invention" Turns out most of these accessories were thought up by friends and family of handicapped people. It's nice that someone thought of sharing these accessories with other handicapped people, hence, the store which they named "Handi House"
In the kitchen I have a dishwasher but most days not enough dirty dishes to make a load worthwhile so I have a dishrack I use to dry dishes after they are washed and rinsedAlso I have a neat device made like a triangle with teeth to open jars. I have a cutting/buttering board. This board has a little ledge on 2 sides to hold a slice of bread so I can butter it and this prevents it from running away from me. The board also has 3 stainless steel nails to help hold anthing I want to cut. Very he
Prestroke, I used to cry at nothing, reading a sad book watching a sad movie or hearing a sad story.Poststroke , let's say a couple of years , I had cried so much after my ex left me, then after stroke, I became a piece of ice, those few years, I had kept so much inside to show I was strong in front of family and friends, I just couldn't cry anymore except when I was telling someone my story about divorce or stroke. When I met my partner, he encouraged me to express myself in words and emotionn
When I started to read this book, it made me cry, Maybe just the way I felt that day. I finished it today. An excellent book. Julia Fox has described perfectly what we go through as stroke survivors. She brought back memories I had forgotten. One of them is the feeling you have when you realize that you don't want to stay that way(handicapped)and you try anything you have heard of to get better. In my case, I tried acupuncture, a faith healer and biofeedback. Even when I didn't believe,
As I had mentionned before, I was divorced 2 years before my stroke. Those 2 years as a single (full time) parent to 2 young boys(Dan 1 and Marc 4 ), I had my hands full but I managed fine. I was a good mother with moderate rules and discipline. 5 years after my stroke, I regained part time custody(joint custody) I had missed being a mother to my kids, Having them for visits every second weekend felt like they were visiting their aunt. I hated it. The kids were now 6 and 12. It seems, ever
I now had a new goal. I would show them that I could take care of myself and my kids. This is when I found out that my ex didn't want the kids to come back under my care, While I was in the hospital, he had moved to a new neighborhood with the kids and by the same token had to change their sitter and their school and he refused to put the kids through all those changes again. So I became a part time parent. I didn't know that I could fight this and didn't get much support from my family bec
When I came out of the hospital I went to live with my parents. I never again saw the place where I was living prestroke . When I was still in the hospital, my parents emptied the place and the kids were now living with their father. I was 30 years old, with small children and the only thing I was thinking about was getting my life back. I wanted to reclaim the kids (I had full custody prestroke) and move out of my parents place. I wanted "a normal life" again.
It was now winte
One time I went with a girlriend to her cottage. She took me for a ride on her peddleboat. I really enjoy the water. I love boats but I have a hard time getting on and off. So that day when we came back to shore, actually just before getting to the beach, I threw myself out of the boat. It was a nice day and I wanted to go swimming anywaybut I almost gave my friend a heart attack. After checking that I was ok, that I hadn't fallen out, she realized I had done it on purpose and we both sta
I enjoyed telling this story and it still makes me laugh. About the 100 things to know about mcd. I doubt I could find 50. When I think of something I will enter it on my blog. This is fun and I prticularly enjoy reading your comments so keep them coming. (I"m such a ham lol)
The following is my first (and last) experience at a water-park with my kids. This was a couple years post stroke. I was on vacation and I had the kids with me. I wanted to do something that would be fun for the kids so I decided the water-park should do the trick. We had been there a few hours and the kids were enjoying themselves and I was enjoying watching them. I saw them coming down the slide for the up teennth time but instead of going up again they came running to up to me. " Mom, M
Simce my stroke, the thing I like to do most is driving. I feel so free. I feel I can move faster without restriction. It makes me feel liberated somehow. One of the first thing I did when I came out of the hospital was to retake my driver's permit. Let me tell you it was cause for celebration to be able to drive again. I hated waiting for somebody to drive me where I needed to go. Even the service we have for the handicapped drove me nuts. First you had to call the night before to boo
I hate shopping. I was never abig fan prestroke and its worse now. Shopping for clothes takes forever with trying on. I hate it. Shopping for groceries is hard, especially now with large surface stores. I get back home and I'm ready for bed but I have to put them away, then start supper. I rarely plan anything else on shopping day. I used to go where they have carts for the handicapped. I don't use those anymore because I can manage even if I do come back exausted. I figure that I shoul
I got the book today from the library. I started reading it and I suddenly started crying. Boy, does it ever bring back memories. I don't know if I will be able to read it. I want to, but I hate the way its making me feel. I knew the book was about Julia Fox Garrison having a stroke but I never expected it would hit me this way. Funny how you think something is over and can not affect you anymore and it comes back to bite you on the ...
I am on new meds and I wonder if my reaction to
I used to think depression happened only to weak people. After my stroke, I refused to be weak so I kept everything bottled up and tried to smile or laugh off my emotions. Today, 20 some years later I see the error of my ways. I kept everything inside until I blew up, in my case a burn out which left me no choice but to quit work. I was able to get a disability pension but even with all that I never thought for one second to seek professional help. When I finally did because my partner s
