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 once. I took a friend with me. Her husband died last year after a battle with heart disease and then a couple of strokes and a series of TIAs took him into an early grave, he was 73 but had been on forced retirement since he was 55. She is slowly making a new life for herself now. She said she has been shredding a lifetime of accumulated documents related to his illness, all the old xrays, all the old medical reports. This is all part of moving on. She came with me today to keep me company which was nice.

Another couple from our stroke support group WAGS who live close by came in just after we arrived. Bill has had a brainstem stroke so his body sometimes lets him down and he has some difficulty with walking but his mind and personality are intact. He was telling us he had gone fishing and managed to fall into shallow water. He said he had a problem with that as he could either swim or breathe, couldn't do both at once now! He had us laughing with his description of how he emptied the water out of his hollow walking sticks! He has a slow speech but a wonderful turn of phrase and his face beams with good humour.

His wife is a nursing professional so she still works part-time. She went off and got us all coffee. I didn't know that was possible but she did it. We all settled down for a long talk. I could see Ray was having some trouble following the conversation but it didn't matter, he was joining in and enjoying it so much! Then another member of WAGS came and he lit up all over again. It is so good to just sit around and talk - does it matter what about? and just enjoy time with a group of people.

I often wonder why families can't take an illness as simply being a part of a person's life and act like those visitors did today. What is so hard about sitting near a person in bed, talking in a normal voice, maybe making a few quiet jokes, telling some old stories? Ray and Bill's wife had even worked in the same workplace though at different times so we had stories to relate of times there, Ray told a bit and I filled in the gaps when his memory failed him. Hey! it all seemed so perfectly NORMAL!! So why can't his family manage to get together and do the same thing?

We had thunder and lightning oobviously a storm approaching so that broke the party up after an hour or so. Ray seemed a bit tired today too. The walking practice is going well now he said, he goes up and around the corridors twice a day plus his walks to the dining room for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His two new room mates seem okay and have been talking to him. Neither has had a recent stroke though one had a stroke years ago and has just had surgery on one wrist and shoulder as he has damaged them propelling his wheelchair. That is another situation I hadn't thought of before.

The thunder and lightning are past now. We did have a sprinkle of rain, not enough to do more than green up the grass but rain is always welcome in a hot summer if only to cool down the evening air enough so we all get a good night's sleep.