Defining Influences

I grew up in a divorced household and thus a  fatherless home.  That being the case and being a boy, I sought out older male influences which to model my behavior after.  There were many from early childhood until I was about 30.   My blogs will be a chronicle of these men and how they helped to shape me into the man I am today.  These men were anything from older relatives to teachers and coaches  Like me, none of these men were perfect but I think I was  able to take something positive and lasting  from each.  I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I will the memories they will bring up.  I will list them in chronological order starting from my earliest age.   There may be some familar names in here

new Beginnings II NEW LIFE

Well I've given an inside look at what a stroke looks like.     My purpose here has been to try and motivate others to do what it takes to avoid a stroke.   They are LIFE-CHANGING events.   You can still have a good life but I promise you it will forever be different from what it was pre-stroke.Here are just a few changes you will see in your life.

•  no driving
• loss of independence
• loss of many physical  abilities
• small list of wardrobe choices
• perpetual discomfort or pain
• inevitable weight gain due to inability to work out
• travel restrictions
• struggle with public venues that have poor access
• "hairy eyeball" from those that don't understand your disability
• inability to have  gainful employment

I want to thank everyone for reading these blogs and for the supportive comments.  I will be continuing my journey down the road of this new life of mine now but will update y'all on any significant events in these New Beginnings.   Please stay tuned to other blogs of mine on various subject matters.  If you have a subject you'd like to see me spot a light on, send me a note.  Blessings All

New Beginnings II day to day

I've given you the back story to my stroke and now I will try to give you a glimpse into day to day life with a post-stroke survivor.    SURVIVOR being the key word.  Anyone living through a stroke of the magnitude of mine is a  SURVIVOR at a minimum,  Rehab is a bonus.  I have been blessed to be able to begin a new life.  Different from my pre-stroke, but a good one  nonetheless.  Someone asked me the other day  in what way did the stroke affect my day to day activities.  The only way for someone to know without actually having a stroke is to simulate  best as possible so here is how you can do that.  Before going to bed one night, put an oven mitt on one hand and do not take it off for 24 hours   for  NOTHING!..  When you get up, carry a cane or stick in your other hand anytime you are walking anywhere.    Do everything like that, go to the bathroom,   bathe, fix a meal, pour a cup of coffee and carry it to the table or another room.  Get dressed, do household chores,    IF you carry out this assignment and don't cheat even once, you will have a little understanding of how a massive stroke can affect  your   ADLs (activities of daily life). With help from others and some creative adjustments, I am able to get by but my independence took a big hit.
There is much more affected that would be difficult for you to simulate. 1. The loss of peripheral vision to my left keeps me from EVER driving again, creates a perpetual obstacle course as I move about.i.e.  walking into things to my left that I didn't see, reading and not seeing the letters  at the beginning of a sentence are some. 2.severe foot drop which means my toes drag the ground on my left foot while walking which creates a constant trip hazard.  Wearing an AFO (ankle/foot/orthotic brace) helps but doesn't eliminate the problem. 3. spasticity which is the tightening up of your muscle tone to the degree it's very painful and can cause your toes (in my case) or fingers to curl involuntarily on the affected side. Medicine can help this but not fix it. 4. Nueropathy which is nerve pain, severe at times, Those are just a few worth mentioning.

ne beginnings II Daily Life

After 4 months of medical recovery and  intensive rehab.   I finally was able to begin a new life.  Emphasis on  LIFE!  After being told I would die, then   you'll never walk again, I had proved the "medical experts" wrong.  The man upstairs has decided I have more work to do in this life so I decided that I would work harder than  I ever had and not waste this second chance.   I pushed myself physically, mentally. emotionally and spiritually  further than ever before!.  At times, the pain was  INTENSE, but all I had to do was think about what could have been and it was easy to train myself to just "suck it up" and keep working.   taking baby steps, I was soon able to increase my physical workload. There were still many deficits that would be changed forever, but this just meant my life would be different, but there's THAT word again,  LIFE.   I have one! 
  Following is a small list of those changes,    would never drive again due to vision problems,  walk with a cane for balance, walk with a brace on left foot/leg because of severe foot drop, cannot walk and carry something because my 1 good hand had to hold the cane, no more clothes with buttons/snaps or belts , shoestrings, getting up from  a crouching position or the floor required assistance,  walking into things to my left because of left side neglect residual , greatly weakened stamina due to lack of exercise.   Well that was just a small list of what i dealt with after returning home from the hospital. I saw it as just "speedbumps" in my recovery........    Stay tuned to my next blog to see where I'm at  now and my current day to day struggle with these post-stroke affects....

Ella Jane Free

This blog is dedicated to my Grandma Free, known as Ella Jane to non-Family.  Today is her birthday, though we lost her in 1989.  Due to  other's actions I didn't get to spend much time with her until my twenties but I sure tried to make up for it by taking vacations and weekends off to spend with this special lady.  We had many long one on one chats about her life, my life, and life in general.  She was not an educated woman but highly intelligent, wise and full of common sense.  She was well read, which made her more "worldly" than she may have been given credit for.  She had this unique ability to "read" people that I think I inherited from her. Grandma Free's number one  mission in life was her Family.  They took priority over EVERYTHING including her own wants & desires.  She spent her life sacrificing for her children and extended family.  What makes that stand out is she emphasised to me that would have it no other way.  No regrets! I'm not sure all of her family realized or appreciated that, but most did.  She never had the opportunity to get out of her small north Georgia community until I was able to bring her to my house near Atlanta and then to St. Augustine Florida to see the ocean for the first time.  She was in her 70s then.  We had a  GREAT time!  I have to say I could hardly keep up with her as she was used to walking everywhere.  That, combined with her excitement was  a tough challenge for me to keep pace with.  One of my favorite memories was waking up each morning at her house to the smell of an old fashioned southern breakfast.     could she cook you ask ?    LORD YES!   I have too many memories over those ten years to mention here but suffice it to say they were all great and forever etched in my mind.  She taught me a  LOT about life and being a "good person".  If I am ever half the person she was, I will be a really fine person.   Grandma Free, I miss you terribly and will ALWAYS love you!        HAPPY BIRTHDAY

new beginnings II getting my life back

...   Being transfered to Kernan after two long months of medical recovery  in Shock Trauma  was just what I needed.  I  had heard for years about the acclaimed physical rehab success rate here.My first day, the PTs greeted me in my room and promptly put me in a wheelchair and rolled me to the gym.   After spending 6 hours a day doing a variety of exercises on my legs and upper body I was asked.. "What are your goals?"        I had a simple answer....   WALK   WALK   WALK.   So I spent two more months in the  hospital  going through TOUGH physical work that any Marine drill instructor would be proud of.     I made the mistake only once of saying "I can't" because my PT (physical therapist) promptly  yelled    "do 10 more now"!"   This tough approach was a trademark of Kernan and is a cornerstone of their success.   As tough as the regimen was, the PTs & OTs (occupational therapists) executed their jobs with compassion and empathy without being too "soft".
By the time I left Kernan  I was abled to walk short distances with a quad cane and had regained  some use/mobility of my left arm.   I was told I had a strong case of hemiparesis which is weakness on one side.... 
My next phase  of recovery would take place at home, that place I had not seen since that fateful day of my stroke 4 months prior when I set out to pick my little girl up from school..........   stay tuned for my next blog for those ecperiences.....

new beginnings II - Dying twice

....  by now, I was faced with the toughest fight in my life.  The stroke had taken away the use of the left side of my body.  Just imagine half of your body not working and how that would affect you.  I suffered from extreme  "Left side neglect" as well which means my brain couldn't recognize  ANYTHING on my left side including people or objects to my left.   This caused everyone to approach me from my right or be ignored.  One of the more terrifying moments was when my nurse held my left hand up in front of me to challenge my brain to recognize it.  I started sobbing hysterically   (which is a normal reaction I'm told) as if it were a monster as a child.   This "shock" paid off though as I started to slowly recognize my left side body parts, although the neglect for objects remained and  still does to a lesser degree.
One of the most humiliating parts of recovery is the necessity to wear adult diapers because the nerve endings killed by the stroke included those that tell you when you need to go to the bathroom.  I hated it but it was necessary.  There's not much more humbling to a 42 year old man than  to be rolled around as a nurse's aide changed your diaper like a baby.  You have to remember my mind was not affected at all.  My cognitive ability, logical reasoning, overall intelligence remained the same  and yet here my body was being treated  like an infant.
 The scariest moments post surgery were the two times I "coded" (heart stopped beating) and I became a "code blue"!   I stopped breathing as well until they put a "trache" in my windpipe,  I still carry that scar.  Fortunately they reacted fast and revived me.
Another scary time was when my feeding tube site became extremely infected(oozing green) and I had a temp off of the charts and they rushed me into an ice bath!....I ended up at one time or another with a life threatening infection like MERSA 5 times during my two month stay in Shock Trauma.  I was finally transfered to a full inpatient rehab facility called Kernan......   See my next blog for the start of my physical recovery/rehab......

new beginnings II - Shock Trauma

....   First thing I remember after being medevac'd to Shock Trauma was being pushed down the hall in a hospital bed.  I saw my mom standing in the hall. She came by the bed to see me and I told her.. "  mama don't let me die!"  She told me I would be fine through her tears.  Next I remember being real cold as a guy was shaving the hair from a large spot on the right side of my skull.   Being worried how my "great" hair would look afterwards, I begged him to just go ahead and shave it all off rather than look "goofy".  He told me he was only allowed to shave the area designated by the nuero-surgeon.   The next thing I remember is waking upwith a TREMENDOUS headache and thick bandages wrapped around my head.  I next remember a doctor explaining that  I had suffered a massive Hemmoragic stroke on the right side of my brain.  He cut out a large piece of my skull in order to relieve the pressure on my brain from the bleeding and subsequent swelling.   He explained that as soon as the swelling went down enough, I would return to surgery in order for them to put the cut out piece from my skull  back in place.  Through all of this I was paralyzed completely on my left side.  ( R side of brain controls L side of body).  After a  couple days they explained I would never walk again and likely  would be bedridden for the rest of my life. I immediately shook my head NO and my mom told the doctor " you don't know my son! He WILL walk again and take his daughter for a walk at the park"  The doctor said he'd buy us a steak if I was ever able to walk again.after being in the bed a week, I was ready to get the devil out of there!  I kept trying to get out of bed because I planned to sneak out and take the train home.  Finally, in order to teach me that I was unable to walk, they stood me up next to my bed and I screamed in agony as my atrophied muscles and damaged nerve endings tried to work.  At that point I realized this would be a long-term obstacle, but I was determined I would  WIN!..............more on my next blog..........

new beginnings II

HOW IT ALL STARTED on March 7, 2002  I headed out to pick up Sarah from school as it was my day to spend with her.   She lived about   60-90 minutes. away.   I was nearly to Hampstead when I noticed I was running over  the centerline orange cones, one after another and was confused why.  I had an incredible thirst and decided to stop at a 7-11 for a coke.  While there  I had difficulty getting out of the car.  my left hand didn't have any coordination.  after a passerby helped me out of the car, someone called 911.  the police and an ambulance responded.  I was laying on the ground by now.   I heard Holly, a paramedic and someone I knew.   as they helped me into the ambulance I said  " I've had a stroke, right ?".  they said it appeared so.     I kept shouting "someone has to pick up Sarah!"   finally Holly said she had called my ex-wife & Sarah's mom to go get her from school.     The next thing I remember is being in the ER  with all sorts of folks around me.   one doctor told me that I likely would not live through the night.    Holly insisted they medivac me to University of Maryland's shock trauma unit in Baltimore.  The next thing I remember is.........  (will tell the next phase of my new beginnings  II in my next blog  )