So much has transpired in my life since my last post. Not all
of it has been good, to say the least, but I will focus on the subject of my
last post and what has changed since I wrote
it.
A little over a week ago, my grandmother suffered a stroke.
Not a stroke of luck, and not a stroke of genius, but a stroke. This means that
the oxygen supply to a certain part of her brain was cut off for too long, and
essentially that part no longer works. Unfortunately, the part this effected left
her with a condition known as aphasia, which hinders her ability to
communicate.
Last week there seemed to be little hope, as the doctor
bluntly told us there is no cure, only therapy. She moved to the Courage-Kenney
acute therapy center at United Hospital on Friday... I think Friday. I don’t
know. Anyhow, that’s where she is now, and she has been undergoing a battery of
physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I have been in attendance for a
good number of them, and I am happy to report that things—although still a
little sketchy—are moving forward at a good pace for a stroke victim.
Everything we can do
we take for granted. That we can not only see, but interpret what we
see into information that we can understand and communicate is something we don’t
have to think about doing. When we look at a pen, we know how to hold it and
what to do with it. When we look on a loved one, we know who they are. We know
our own name and we can certainly write it. When we see food we not only know
that we need to eat it to live, we know how to eat it. When we listen, we
understand. These were all lost to my grandmother a week ago.
Today I was present for her speech therapy where she was
able to look at objects, say what they were, and write the names down on paper—not
always properly, but she knew when she was making a mistake and figured out how
to correct them. Yesterday during physical therapy, she walked over 200 feet
with her walker and collected different colored cones that had been placed
along the walls, giving her an opportunity to mover her head around while
walking: helping to improve her overall balance. She also went up and down a
flight of stairs, and was able to maneuver over some hurdles.
Her basic communication (conversation) skills have vastly
improved. She knows names, can engage in productive conversation, and can
understand a lot of what is going on around her. She still has some vision
troubles especially when her brain has to work hard at recognizing and writing
words. She gets what she calls “double vision” and her periphery to the right
is blurred, but even she will admit that she can’t properly describe what is
happening.
Tomorrow the therapeutic recreation nurse will be bringing
in some art supplies to see how her motor skills will function for something
she is quite accustomed to. She has been a watercolor painter for as long as I
can remember, and I think it would be great if she could get that back, or at
least relearn her form.
We have great hope, yet we remain cautious to applaud just
yet. She has made prodigious strides through hard work, and she has a long way to
go. The process of recovering whatever will be recovered after a stroke usually
takes about two years, so there is some time, and the largest area of repair
happens early on with getting a lot of the speech and motor skills back.
It’s been a tough week seeing her like this. I don’t know if
I could do as well as she is doing under these circumstances. Next week she will
get to go home—actually to their new home, where she will have assistance
around the clock available, and home visits from nurses, doctors, and family.
We are all in this for her, and I will be there as much as I can.
