Here we are, on the road: We’re in Santa Clara, California

I asked Lorraine to attempt to write something for the blog this week. She is very apprehensive about doing this, doesn’t think she can. The following is exactly as she typed. It took her over an hour to do this but it shows lots of progress for her.

April 12, 2015 Lorraine’s report

Hello ever one, I’m trying to write. It has been extremely hard to make cense of my thoughts and words. I can see only part of my right side, and the rest is blank. But I am getting better, but it is so hard!!!. I do 3 types of therby for 3 days different days each week. It is almost too much for me and I am very tired after it all is said and done..

I am so blessed I did not suffer more affects than I did. When I passed out from the lack of oxeycen that day in Pismo Beach, I thought that was the end of me. I don’t know how long I was out, but the took me back to the bay, Arroyo Grande by ambulance and watched me for until I woke up. During this time, Chuck and Susy both had a lot of “ going on” tying to see if I needed that pill I needed to take. I woke up after a few hours, and I didn’t remember anything from that day. It was so strange to me; Chuck said all of a sudden I woke up and rubbed by head. I AM STILL GOING THOUGHT THESE DAYS TRYING TO PEIECE SOME OF IT.

AS I SAID, I AM STILL TRYING TO PIECE SOME OF THESE EVENTS. IT IS SO HARD TO EVEN WRITE THIS AND I HAVE TO FIGURE IT ALL OUT AND SUCH. IT HAS TAKEN ME OVER AN HOUR TO EVEN WRITE THIS OUT .

I HOPE YOU ALL MY PRAYES AND BLESSING, THIS IS SO HARD TO COME BACK FROM THIS. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. HUGS AND KISSES…LORRAINE

4/12/15 Chuck’s report

Probably a boring blog for most people this week but I want to record the issues we’ve covered with Lorraine’s recovery this week. Most of our happenings have been with the three therapist (physical, occupational and speech) plus their homework for Lorraine. She dislikes doing her homework about as much as Katie does but we get ‘r done anyway.

The PT is really pleased with her progress, only having her do some exercises and wants her to walk more. We go for a walk at least once a day, glad the weather is nice here. I would say her physical recovery is above 95%.

The ST is having her identify and say the letters out loud as she reads from a piece of paper. She is having trouble identifying the letter Y and sometimes X and gets G and J confused sometimes. But she is getting better on these things. She also has to name as many items in a given category as possible in five minutes. Some of these she can do really well, others she struggles with getting more than just a couple. One hint she was given is to close her eyes and imagine herself in a situation where she can visualize these items, i.e., in a grocery store when thinking about vegetables or a fruit stand for identifying fruits.

The OT wants her to try to explain/describe something and we are to guess what she is thinking about. She usually only gives two descriptions and when pressed to give more she has trouble doing that. But she is doing pretty good guessing what we describe to her. She also has to trace shapes on a piece of paper, doing real well with this part of her therapy.

Her vision has remained mostly the same, no peripheral vision on her right side. She also complains about having double vision when doing her homework so we have an eye patch to cover her “bad” eye when she see’s double, seems to help. The eye doctor said he thought her eyesight should return to normal over a 6 month or so period but so far not much improvement here as yet.

When Lorraine was discharged from the hospital they told us to see a neurologist and have him/her check things out. Lorraine’s GP gave us the name of one in San Jose but when I called we couldn’t get an appointment for over a month, way too long for me. I called the GP and asked them to intervene and see if they could get us an earlier appointment.

Well, we got a call about 12:30 Monday afternoon when the OT was here working with Lorraine and it was the neurologist’s office. They had an opening later that afternoon at 3:10 and wanted to know if we could make it. The only issue we had was picking up Katie so I called her dad and arranged for him to pick her up, no problem. We got to their office about 20 minutes early and spent most of that time filling out paperwork.

Finally we got called back to a waiting room and a couple of minutes later the neurologist came in. He was a very nice fellow, didn’t “talk down” to us and answered any questions we asked. He had a tough time figuring out what happened and spent about 20 minutes or so reviewing the MRIs and CTs plus reviewed all the reports from the hospital. Finally he seemed to understand, guess the info wasn’t in the proper order so he had to hunt longer than usual.

Anyway, he told us she had signs of two stokes (we knew that from the hospital stay), said both were “significant” and told us how lucky she was to be doing so well. He also showed us on the MRI where the strokes were located in her brain, really something to see this technology.

He didn’t understand why Lorraine wasn’t on an aspirin a day therapy therapy since the first stroke. We told him the first one was thought to be a TIA vs a stroke. He said it didn’t matter, a baby aspirin and Plavix was post-stroke control 101. He implied that may have prevented the second incident but of course couldn’t say that with 100% certainty. But that was enough for us to consider finding a new GP for Lorraine as he should have been the one to start this therapy for her back then.

He also suggested we think about staying in one place for awhile, maybe up to two years so she could have continuity with her doctors vs seeing different ones across the nation. We are working on different solutions to that suggestion, have plans A – X or something like that. We have been talking through lots of different ideas this week but for the immediate future we plan on staying here and continuing with the doctors we’ve been seeing with the possibility of a new GP in the mix.

He also gave her the name of another specialist to consider placing a stent, something they considered but decided against when she was in the hospital. But this guy is considered to be one of the best on the West Coast so we are hoping this will settle this issue once and for all. But here again, we can’t see this guy for another two weeks unless they have an unexpected opening before then.

This week we tried having the therapy sessions spread out over the full week, only having one or two a day. Next week we are going to try having two or three a day with some days off in-between. On her days off we can have a more normal routine and work on her homework.

We’re thinking she may be finished with the PT and OT in two weeks but will need ST for a longer time, we’ll see. And we may not be able to keep the in-home therapy going, we may have to travel to a therapy office or hospital for awhile to continue with the ST.

We’ve also been picking up Katie from school most afternoons. I know having her around is helping with Lorraine’s recovery. Katie loves to play the therapist’s role and have Lorraine do her home work. Sure glad we have been able to spend as much time with Susy and Katie over the past few years!!!

On a side note, I did have my birthday a couple of days ago. Lorraine posted something on Facebook and lots of folks sent nice notes. As I don’t do Facebook, I’ll just thank everyone for all their well wishes.

I’ll go through the pictures we took this week and see if I can add some here.

Susy and Lorraine on the left, Susy, Katie and Lorraine on the right. This was on Easter morning.

Katie after the egg hunt.

Susy helping me blow out the candles on my birthday cake, of course, they are the type that relight themselves, ha ha. Katie at the table with her favorite stuffy.