Persistence

"Our praying needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage that never fails." (EM Bounds" The Power through Prayer")

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I believe that one of the things that helped me in my recovery was having a goal. I was still in the hospital not even 48 hours after the stroke, and I was asking my husband no telling my husband that I wanted to do two things. the first one of them being that I wanted to find a therapeutic horseback riding center. The other and most important thing that I wanted to make sure I could do was continue on with my dream of studying to be a psychotherapist.my husband thought that I was crazy.Tom had been was trying to comprehend the situation. He was just trying to figure out if I could go home and care for myself without a nurse's aide.

He wondered if I would be able to dress myself, feed myself and be able to be left alone while he was at work. And here I was talking about riding a horse. But I needed to have a goal something to work towards, something to hang onto that would make me feel That my life mattered.The world mattered. Something to make me feel like there was going to be more to my life in just lying around doing nothing. I had been a care manager and I had seen many clients who had strokes. I thought I had been compassionate and caring and I thought I had understood their predicament but I wasn't even to understanding. The sense of loss that I felt was so overwhelming. I was sure that someone had died only I had forgotten to stop breathing. I needed to have something that made me feel like I did not die. So much of myself was lost from the stroke. I needed to hang on to at least one little piece of who I was.it was my love of horses and my determination to get my doctorate that kept me going in those first days. So I held onto my dreams Like my life depended them. I had other dreams but I did not dare voice them. I still wasn't ready to hope. You see I was still wrestling With god over that abundant life conversation. As I look back And think I was testing God. If he was going to promise me an abundant life I I wanted him to provide me with that kind of abundance that I Wanted

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Every day things matter.

Twelve years ago, a friend told me, " I you are going to have to start  approaching  everything in your life like you are doing it for the first time." How true that statement has proven to be!  Since the stroke in March 2009, Everything has been very different.  I have learned to function in a new way. You might say that I am now differently abled. My blouse or sweater must be adorned with bling at the neckline. The bling helps me determine if I am putting on the shirt correctly.  Without the bling, I might be wearing an inside-out and backward blouse in public.  

I have to do things using only one hand.   Daily tasks, such as how I approach brushing my teeth, are a challenge that needs mastering. I learned to brush my teeth. I would have to discover a new way to do it. After all, how do you put toothpaste on a toothbrush with one hand?  My solution was to hold the toothpaste tube by the top, grabbing it firmly between my teeth. Then I grasped the tube of toothpaste with my functional hand and twisted it until the cap came loose. I would then balance the brush on the side of the sink, and if I was lucky, the toothbrush stayed put. I would squeeze on the paste. 
     It has been two years since I suffered a massive stroke on the right side of my brain.  Somehow 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 had any Peripheral vision to my left.  After almost two years of recovery, I am just beginning to Rediscover and understand that there is a world left of my center. After the stroke, anything 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.  I began to get it only after I bumped into countless walls, tables, people, and doors.
     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 affected, everything in my life became more complex.  The simple things that I took for granted have become My daily challenges.  In the beginning, even eating was a challenge. For example, I could not always find my food because I could not see the left side of the Plate!  While in the hospital, I often wondered if the kitchen staff was trying to hide the good-tasting food from me by putting it on the left side of the tray.  During my time in the hospital and 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 asked myself the question, how do I eat with one hand?  I learned how to open a packet of artificial sweeteners using my teeth.  I would hold the package with my teeth as I tore it open with one good hand.  I learned that inhaling with an opened Splenda packet in your teeth is not good. 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 bottomless 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." Having an abundant life seemed impossible to me at that time. 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. I grieved my many losses, left my past, and discovered a future. With God at my side, I began this journey.