Plastered!

Yesterday two different and unconnected pieces of news knocked my socks off! 


Firstly, Coorabel Adult Rehabilitation Service (a part of the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney), which is where I was situated when I had my stroke, is wrapped up in wire and that red and white striped tape, to let people know that it's hazardous to roam around there. The whole team out at RRCS have been waiting for a couple of years in the hopes that the whole hospital would be re-built and now, they finally have the finance (after selling off  a certain amount of land that was left to the Board) to make that happen! 


It is a shock to us, who have called RRCS 'home' for a while, to know that the end is nigh, but this complex and the staff, are so fantastic that they HAVE to be able to build it into the world class Rehabilitation Hospital that they so richly deserve and we, the patients need to have a venue that will grow over time to become a state of the art facility.


Secondly, I said in my last post, that I was going to RRCS, to get my cast off - I did get it off but I was surprised to get another one back on! Serves me right for boasting about it!


The very talented and lovely Occupational Therapist, Lisa and a student named Michelle greeted me in the outpatients department and we went around to the plaster room and they started to remove the cast, while they did that, I was watching and was very excited to see that my long and index fingers started twitching! This was simply amazing for me, as those fingers had not moved since I had my stroke. They kept on moving and twitching, while we tried to see if they could be made to pick up and put down some balls, they did!! My whole hand and all of the fingers can move independently, for now.


Lisa and I agreed that the casting was going so well, that we really did need to do some more of it (although I am a woman and can't stand my grotty and disgusting hair, that I have not been able to wash for over a week and won't be able to until it's all over) and so Michelle who is a student OT and watched how Lisa wrapped and cast my arm the last time, was asked to cast it this time. She really did well, but when you are used to the best looking after you, a student is very funny to watch and my cast is huge and unwieldly! 


The wrapping is of a soft material that you wet before it goes on, but it 'goes off' very quickly and won't stick anymore and poor Michelle was struggling with the wrapping and trying to hurry but the more you hurry with this kind of material the more you make a mess, so, all in all we had a real laugh (I have had many people look at me very strangely with my humugous cast!) and I am going to get this cast off on Friday afternoon, so, fingers crossed that it has the same affect as the previous one.


I have become very adept at catching buses to North Ryde and to the RRCS, with me being fortunate enough to be able to catch the bus from my suburb to the city and from there, I just have to walk down a couple of streets to catch another bus, which I catch to a place called Putney, which is where Royal Rehab is located. In Putney, I walk across the main road and the RRCS is just a hop, step and a jump from the main street and the whole journey takes 1 & 1/2 to two hours there and the same for the return journey, which is nothing compared to the people who have to come from all over Australia.


The people of Putney are very kind, because they get a whole heap of people who come to them for coffee, cake, lollies and lunch etc and just want to talk about nothing in particular, as the reason that they are there in Putney, is because one of their loved ones is a patient of RRCS and they are going through a lot of emotional pain, they don't know if their loved one is going to be rehabilitated enough to go home and how they will be when they leave the RRCS.


They are also a special kind of person to be able to converse and not shudder or look away or show how they are really feeling, about how some of the 'broken people' look, as I have said, some of them are definitely not a pretty sight, but it is not our fault so why should we have to hide away? The poor folk who have been burnt or have some other catastrophic event happen to them, are the main people that need to 'normal people' to just accept them for what they are and stop looking at them sideways etc they have already had something terrible happen to them, and they need people to accept them for what they are, the last thing they need now, is for 'normal people' to turn away from them and hurt them some more!!!


Some of my friends are quite upset when people ask me what happened to my arm (always in a sling, except when I am at work or in my own home), and I say quite plainly that, 'I have had a stroke', but I don't mind people asking me because I think it is about time that we come out of our shells and stand and be counted!


I feel blessed, that I have come through the blackness and hopelessness of having had a stroke, I can't help it that I am different now, but I really feel that I am on the way to a different and more fulfilling journey, that also fills me with anticipation, because there is a whole world out there, just waiting for me! 

I'm rude!!

I used to think highly of my 'Intellect', so this is not something that I tell you lightly, in fact it is such a huge thing, that I don't think I will ever get over the trauma of living with a 'brain injury'. 


Sometimes, people are horrified with me for being this rude, but I can't help it! It is like telling a woman on the bus, that she was sitting in 'my' seat! How embarrassed my 'bus mate' was with me and she said that I should be more tolerant with people and keep my voice down, when I said 'but she is sitting in the red seat and she is not supposed to. They are only for disabled people and ladies with babies and old people' (they aren't just for disabled people, the man from Sydney Buses was so nice in answering my queries, and I will put an excerpt from his letter to me, **At this stage the idea of the red seats is for other customers to identify that these seats may be required for less mobile passengers but this is not compulsory and is not enforceable, however we hope that common courtesy would prevail** well, it doesn't!!, so, we just have to put up and shut up! (now I know how it is for my nephew, who has Asperger's)), and my bus mate had to explain to me that it wasn't a crime that the person was sitting in the red bus seats and she said that she was sure the person would move if there wasn't any where else to sit!!


Another example is a few weeks ago, I bumped into my dentist in the parking lot of the building where I work, and went up to him and opened my mouth wide and said, 'oh John, I have this chip where 'blahblahblah', and John, being the nice man that he is said, 'come to my office and I will see what can be done', but my friend who with me, looked most appalled and said, 'oh Wendy, you can't do things like that'. Like what??? It took me several minutes to understand that people did not act this way!!!! I have lost the 'Social Skills' that I used to take for granted, and it happens all the time, that is another of the 'brain injury' things that I have only just come to grips with, and not only me, but my family and friends as well.


Another thing is, that I have to be told upwards of 10 times to get anything to 'stick' in my brain. I will ask one of my daughters something and then a while later, I will ask the same question again and I couldn't understand why the girls (teenagers!) would get cross with me, then I would ask the question, again! The telephone is something that I used to use without thinking about, but now, I hesitate and only like talking to my good friends or family on the phone and I am quite good at texting, rather than talking, because I am not sure what the person said! 


Sometimes it is clear and simple, but if it has numbers or an address etc, I am lost! If someone is putting me on hold they might as well hang up because I won't remember what it was they had told me or what address or what number I had to press! So, as you can see there are a lot of people like me, the 'broken people', who just can't fathom or don't know what is going on around them, not because they don't listen or don't care, but because they just do not understand. 


So, those of you who read this blog will understand that it is not very well edited, because I have trouble spelling and leave out a lot of words now, things that would never have slipped through before, but, I can cope because so much of me has come back and every day in every way, things ARE getting better.