Small But Significant Victories

Early in the morning yesterday, before getting out of bed, it came to me that it was going to be a wonderful day. As someone who believes that all good gifts come from God, I had to believe that the positive “vibe” had come from Him. 

Our plans for the day were simply to go to church, come home, and watch the Red Sox game at half past noon. Going to church sometimes is physically challenging. The parking lot is gravel and as such is an unstable platform for the quad cane. There are no stairs to get into the fellowship hall, where we have adult Sunday school/Bible study prior to the service, but there is a three-step set of stairs between the fellowship hall and the church building that I navigate using the railing for support, since the ramp is on another side of the building. As Lutherans we have a traditional liturgical service, during which there is a lot of standing and sitting, if one is able to do so. So though I enjoy church and always feel better after having attended, anticipation of these small challenges weighs on me before we go. But that wasn’t the case yesterday. I wasn’t sure exactly why, but I knew when I got up yesterday that it was a special day. 

So we went to church as usual on a Sunday. But on this day, Laura gave me my dress shoes to wear instead of my walking shoes. The walking shoes have been outfitted with elastic laces that are held on with a plastic clip – they do not need to be tied. I just sit and slip them on my feet. Dress shoes need to be tied, and with a significantly impaired left hand and arm, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that. But I had confidence that this day would be special, so I slid an untied shoe on each foot, determined how tight the laces needed to be for it to be just loose enough to slip on my foot but tight enough to stay on, took them off, and tied them while holding them on my lap. Seems like no big deal but it was, since the left hand’s fingers have difficulty cooperating. Once they were both tied, I slipped them both on my feet, and we were off to church. A small but significant step forward. Little victory number one.

At church, I got in the building the way I normally do, and during the service, using the back of the pew in front of me,  I pulled myself up to a standing position for the parts of the liturgy for which standing is appropriate. I started doing that two months ago, because the last time we brought my Mom to church before she died in 2012, she did that. She had Parkinson’s and was barely able to walk into the church, but she did so with gusto, proclaiming, “Halleluiah!” as she was hobbling in, behavior which was very uncharacteristic for her. She also had dementia that was associated with Parkinson’s and by then she hardly recognized her own children anymore, but she knew she was in church, and she knew the liturgy, so she insisted on standing when appropriate, though she was barely able to do so. If she could do it, I could do it, so I had been standing for the liturgy for a few weeks by now. But during communion I’ve been sitting as it was brought to me. Yesterday, I stood for communion. I kept my balance as I let go of the back of the pew in front of me, and held my hands out for the host. Little victory number two.

Going out the front door, instead of negotiating the ramp down to the parking lot, as I usually do on the way out, I took the three steps down while holding the rail. Faster and shorter distance than the ramp, but riskier. But I did it with no problem. Little victory number three.

On the way home Laura wanted to go by Ace Hardware and pick up some paint to repaint the columns on our front porch. Instead of waiting in the car as I normally would do, I walked in, using the quad cane, and while in the store used a shopping cart as a sort of “walker” (arms  draped over the handle) and made my way to the paint section  in order to help her. My Mom would use a shopping cart that way while in a store.  Little victory number four. 

Without going into to much detail, until now I have needed assistance from Laura to take a shower. I’ve ben able to stand, but have had to hold the bar on the wall inside the shower to keep my balance. I can get in and out of the shower on my own by using that bar to hold as I go in or out, and we have a seat in the shower that was built into it when we had it remodeled almost four years ago. Using the hold bar and my right hand, I can sit down and get up off the seat. Until yesterday, Laura has been helping me with showering since my balance is questionable. But yesterday was going so well that I decided to try to figure out how to do the entire shower myself. It worked! I was able to figure it out by myself. This wasn’t  small victory. It was a significant victory. It had been very frustrating to have to depend on Laura to help wash me, putting an additional burden on her. I now know that I can do that task myself the way a grown man should. Major victory!

These events were confidence builders. I have been a bit frustrated that since that glorious day we had at Busch Stadium, my progress has seemed to plateau. Regeneration of the nerves to give me back proper control of the muscles on my left side is not yet complete, and it’s not yet supposed to be. I’m told that for a bleed stroke like I had,  that process can take many months. But it hasn’t happened yet, and I’m impatient. So these victories are important emotionally, and they help me keep a positive attitude.