Another step

I’m back on the road. Got back behind the wheel this week. Started Monday, driving to a poker game of course. Game was close to home so figured it was a good place to start. Had intended to start over the weekend but the stomach virus put the kibosh on those plans. Since the grip is still a bit weak I had Dad put a knob on the wheel to give me an assist but I find that I do not really need it as much as I thought though it does come in handy every so often. I was going to wait a bit longer, trying to get more strength in the arm and hand, but came to the conclusion that waiting wasn’t really helping. Over most of the rehab the last couple of months I concentrated on doing exercises to build strength but lately had seemed to hit a wall. While I tried using the arm and hand it was more hit or miss than I like to think about. Over the last couple weeks I decided to make a major effort to do things left handed, things I might not even normally do just to push it. Carrying things, opening doors, picking up objects. It’s not easy, especially since I’m a natural righty, but the more I did with it the more I was able to do. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t strength that was needed but reeducation of the limb also. Hence the driving. Figured the sooner the arm got used to the wheel the faster it would return to form. So far, so good. While driving I try keep my left hand on the wheel as much as possible to retrain it. It seems to be giving the arm and hand a hell of a workout. I’m getting some swelling on the hand that’s affecting the grip somewhat but overall it’s not too bad. The arm itself must be getting a hell of a workout though since it’s tired as hell. Had what I take a good signs the last night and today, got some muscle flex in both the bicep and the forearm, something I hadn’t seen in 5 months. It ain’t consistent yet but I know I saw and felt it. Means I’m still improving.

That last sentence means a lot to me. I was starting to get worried. A lot of reading I had been doing was starting to scare me on the rehab. I was trying to get a timeline on things and checking on the Net and everything that I was reading about rehab was stressing learning to adapt and do things with what was available rather than about recovering use of the affected limb. Now my therapists seemed to concentrate more on the bad arm and had a lot of encouraging words for me but the reading was getting me discouraged. Was the happy talk just encouragement or was it straight talk. As I read deeper though I started to find more recent stuff that helped my mood. It seemed that more recent findings on stroke rehab contradicted the long time accepted principle of adaptation and encouraged the use of the stricken limb to get it working again and even mentioned certain device developed mainly to assist in these tasks. So I started on my reeducating program. Word of advice for anyone who might be rehabbing and reading this, push yourself to reeducate that limb. Do, or try to do, things with the bad limb. Don’t wait for recovery, you have to chase it. There will be frustration along the way, that towel will drop, that switch won’t turn, especially at the beginning. Just remember, most progress in recovery is done in the early months so the sooner you push the better.

BTW, thought I was gonna make Eh-Vegas if I could get behind the wheel. After all it’s only about an 7-8 hour drive, piece of cake. Don’t look like it’s happening. Did not realize exactly how tired the arm would get after just a few days of driving to work and back. By today I could barely keep my arm up and on the wheel. It obviously ain’t makig no 8 hour road trip. Damn.