Every day things matter.

Recently a friend said to me Susan, " I get the feeling that you must have to approach everything in your life like you are doing it for the first time." How true that statement is! Everything is very different now.I must function differently.I have had to learn how to do things Without the use of my left hand.Daily tasks such as as  the way I approach brushing my teeth are turned into a challenge that needs to be mastered.
     It has been just short of two years since I suffered a massive stroke in the right side of my brain. Some how I survived the stroke but it  left the left  side of my body  paralyzed. the stroke also took away a large portion of my vision, Since the stroke I no longer have any Peripheral  vision to my left. .After almost two years in recovery I am  just now beginning to Rediscover  and to understand that there is a world that exists left of my center. For a long  time after the stroke anything that was out of my sight was out of my mind Or out of my awareness. Nothing existed to my left.  No doors or walls existed on my left. No tables or chairs no pillars or poles. Nothing. It was only after I bumped into countless walls , tables, people and doors that I began to get it.
     The trauma to my brain left me unable to walk, or use my left arm. I couldn't see , I couldn't think. for the first few months all that I felt I could do was sleep and cry.Because my left side was totally affected everything in my life became much has become harder. The simple things that I took for granted have become My daily challenges. In the beginning even the eating was a challenge, for example because I could not see the left side of the Plate I could not always find my food!The left side of my plate remained untouched. While I was in the hospital I often wondered if the kitchen staff was  trying to hide all of the good tasting food from me, by putting it on the left side of the tray.  During my time in the hospital and in rehabilitation I lost over 40 pounds. Not because I was on a diet but because it was too difficult to eat! The dining staff would bring my tray to my room and leave it for me. I was left asking myself the question, how do I eat with one hand? I learned how to open a packet of Splenda using my teeth. I would hold the packet with my teeth as I tore it open with my one good hand It was then that I learned, that it's not good to inhale with a opened Splenda packet in your teeth I could open my cereal box with one hand. But the milk carton was more than I could cope with using only one hand. So cereal without milk became what I've lived on. It was too hard to think about doing anything else.
    Gradually I began to give up, depression Was setting in. My future looked very bleak. I felt like I was on the edge of a deep pit. I could feel myself beginning to slide into the darkness. I was afraid that I didn't have the strength to hold on.I felt totally helpless and totally hopeless.
      It was about that time that I began to hear these words in my head! ," I have come so that you may have life in abundance." The thought of having an abundant life seemed impossible to me at that time. and.I looked up at the ceiling in my hospital room and screamed," God are you crazy! Then I wept.                  God had many surprises in store for me.  But first God knew that I needed to grieve.So with God at my side I  began my journey, on which I would learn to grieve my many losses,leave my past and, discover a future.