Today, I was visiting someone in my old hospital, though not in the same ward. While I had time I slipped back to physio and there was one of my old physios. Seeing the things I used to use to get by mobility back - walking bars, Balance machine, exercise bike- reminded me of the earliest battles survivors face just to stand and walk again. I realised then how far I have come in two years,five months.
At lunchtime, I bumped into several of my old nurses in the restaurant. They still knew my name and said how well I looked and reinforced how far I had come. They were so kind to me after the stroke, but also firm and encouraging. Back then, I could barely move, had a catheter and felt very sorry for myself.
Sometimes, going back is an excellent reminder of both our wonderful NHS and how we can move from total incapacity to a decent quality of life. May we all continue to improve on our individual journeys.
John your words are really inspiring and just reading them about when you visited your old ward and how you felt and what you remembered about your time there..
this made me think back to when gary was first admitted in February and I can see just how far he has come since then so thank you x
Thank you June. I am sure Gary will progress even more. Whilst I still have to watch my balance and pace myself, I also see things coming back naturally...like how I put a coat on and how I can now get a shoelace tauter using my weak hand. Oddly, I now quite like people asking, ‘Have you had your hip done?’ instead of’Have you had a stroke’. Tell Gary from me, he will get there.
I will..I have been trying to get him to have a look at the site but at the moment he won’t for some reason...here’s hoping ?
I can understand that. None of us want to have a label attached to us. However, as my occupational therapist told me...you have to accept the stroke in order to move on. That said, I prefer my ‘normal’ exercise class to my Stroke Centre exercise class, because the normal class pushes me, whereas the Stroke Centre one focuses on teaching the same skills over and over again.