Monday, December 24, 2012

Stroke recovery: Christmas pleasures and pain

A happy Christmas Eve present

Walt, our oldest son, celebrated birthday Number 41 today. What a special gift! Happy Birthday, Walt.

Christmas blues
Husband Walter has been under the weather since Friday. We made a late night visit to the ER. Saturday and Sunday he had no interest in food, not even a nibble, but I am thankful that he seems to be feeling better today.

He ate a bit of chicken noodle soup and a few crackers. That was my go to medicine in a Campbell’s can when I was a child. I hope he derived as much comfort from that soup as I used to.

He felt well enough to take me to therapy this morning and follow that short trip with longer last-minute forays to finish Christmas shopping. We both followed up on that excursion with collapse and naps.

Blogging break
We will be spending time with family members who are traveling to visit during this season. I am looking forward to the visits of our sons and their families and my brother and his family from Virginia.

I am not looking forward to being without my laptop. It seems the graphics card is in a not-so-slow-decline. I have backed up everything except my draft of this post. My beloved MacBook Pro will travel back to Baton Rouge with youngest son Jeremy. He will deliver it to the Apple Store for shipping to the Apple docs.

He is no stranger to the personnel there, and I am confident the laptop is in good hands. But blogging will be seldom to not at all until the patient is returned to my care in what I hope is a healthy condition.

Therapy has resumed
I have been approved for 15 more sessions with my occupational therapist at the neuro rehab center. I went through the evaluation routine Thursday Dec. 13 and had my first session Monday, Dec. 17.

It felt great to be back working with my creative therapist. Joared, a blogger friend who has professional experience in the therapy field, articulated precisely what I felt during my Monday session.

Her whole comment was informative, but here is her observation that summed up my return to therapy:

“Sure, your daily activities benefit you, but understand how you feel most positively about the concentrated structure and supervision of actual therapy sessions.”

Joared is a speech therapist and her comments on my posts often contain nuggets of practical advice. Although I often want to join in the commenting conversation following some of her posts, I have had no success signing in to comment on her blog Along the Way.

Hers is not the only blog where I am unable to comment. I have yet to find what the difference is between Blogger blogs where I can comment and those where I cannot. 

Dec. 3, I acted on a fellow blogger’s suggestion to change my settings on who could comment. As of Dec. 3 none of those auto-generated messages has shown up in the spam folder, but I wonder if any real people are having problems commenting. If you are, please email me.

Celebrating
Our kids and grands will be arriving the day after Christmas, and the parents are helping with what promises to be a simplified Christmas meal this year. It makes me happy that they are creating the tradition of celebrating Christmas morning at home with their offspring.  

Their day-after schedule will also give me a bit more opportunity to finish wrapping, bagging and tagging gifts. I know kids of all ages like ripping into wrapped presents. But wherever bagging works, that is how I will be finishing up. One-handed wrapping is frustrating. If I were not so last minute, I probably could have used some of the new products to make the process more doable.

At least one ability has not been affected by my stroke. As I bag or wrap the remaining gifts for my family, I can still pray for each one and enjoy thinking about the love and joy each one brings into my life.

And that is a gift too big to be wrapped or bagged.

May your Christmas be filled with love and joy.

13 comments:

  1. What a beautiful idea to pray as you are wrapping each gift.

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  2. I do hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a good blog break. Our son's birthday is at Christmas, too, on the 19th. What happened to your husband, did the E.R. give you a diagnosis...flu? Flu is everywhere here. We will not be with our family at Christmas due to their flu, the festivities will be delayed. Be well, my friend.

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  3. enjoy your blog break and don't fret to much about your missing laptop. Merry Christmas. Your next week sounds wonderful to me

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  4. I'm sorry the hub and the computer are sick, but all else seems well. Merry Christmas to you and yours, LC!

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  5. I felt the same way when my desk top computer and my netbook both died on me! I was so miserable that David bought two new ones for me. We hope that they will last for 5 years, at least!

    Hope your Christmas was a merry one. And hope your hubby is feeling better now.

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  6. Well I have missed your comments so perhaps it is the Blogger system after all.

    Yes, Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup. Good for what ails you. Dianne

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  7. Merry Christmas Dear Linda.
    I am so happy to hear you got okayed for more therapy. One step at a time is one step closer to full recovery.
    Glad your hubby is getting better too.
    Enjoy your Grands and hope your computer gets healed too.
    Looking forward to your next posts.

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  8. I'm currently on a blogging break, too, due to health issues. I've enjoyed catching up with your posts, and look forward to new ones once your computer is home from the "hospital".

    I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas celebration!

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  9. So sorry he was so ill and that your iPAD is down....that's really major. We had a good family Christmas here. Hugs.

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  10. So much good and not so good news here. I'm sorry hubby was not feeling well. I hope he is better now. I also hope that MacBookPro is returned in good health! I need to send mine to the doctor also. It is not performing well.

    I love the way you so lovingly pray for your family.

    I hope your Christmas was extra special and that the new year brings added blessings. I'm so glad you will have additional therapy sessions.

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  11. My husband has been sick too. It started with appendicitis after Thanksgiving! Then he has had 2 colds and an ear infection! Hope he's better soon! I took a 2 month break from my blog. But, I think I got burned out, now it is a new year's resolution to get back to all the activities that I love but have stopped. From Bea http://filledwithretirement.blogspot.com

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  12. Sounds like you're in better shape than your computer, but glad to read it's out for rehab, too.

    Delighted you're able to resume therapy. I have concern that with some politicians clamoring for Medicare cutbacks that therapy disciplines may be adversely affected. We'll all need to monitor budgeting actions closely and advocate to preserve these important benefits. Any one of us could need such services at any time, and especially continued followup as you're receiving.

    I would welcome your comments on my blog, but understand leaving them is a problem for some. I've had issues with WordPress and finally gave up commenting on several of those blogs.

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  13. Linda, I have been thinking about you and your dear hubby a lot lately.
    I hope things are improving. I miss the chats and updates.
    Praying.
    Yesterday we went to The Black Bear Diner.
    The newest one just opened last week. Its only a few miles from our house. It was jam packed after church but we waited and had a fantastic meal with terrific service even though there were a gazillion people waiting.
    So
    When you come visit this way again we will go to it together...
    Sue

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