24. Emotions, Speed Limping, No Hospital

Hair Disaster!: I thought that if I could raise my bad arm above my head, I should have been able to tie my hair into a pony tail.  Why not?  Wrong!  My bad fingers wouldn’t grip and manipulate the elastic band to tie my hair.  I had failed miserably. After several efforts, I ended with arm and neck ache. I let Della take over, only after she stopped laughing at my pathetic attempts!  It was funny at the time, but she was mischievously cruel.   I should have known her and Colin’s taunts by then. I never learned ………

Another Goodbye to a Lovely Man – 29^th September

Bad News: I was very sad to hear of Michelle’s Dad passing earlier in the week.   We had known John and family for years, and it was really heartbreaking to hear he would no longer be with us.  Never knew how Michelle, her Mother and family coped through his illness, then when he passed, it was something I was able to empathise with. I had lost both Mum and Dad a few years ago and the pain will never go away.   When Dad was the last to pass, it had been a surreal and strange experience.   I suddenly felt like an orphan and, as the eldest, I felt protective and wanted to comfort the surviving members of the family.  I was sure it couldn’t have been easy for my lovely friend, Michelle.

The Gathering: We gathered at “The Dog House Bar”, to raise a glass and pay our respects to John.  There was a wonderful turnout.  I was seated inside, as they knew I couldn’t stand for very long.  There were so many friends, the crowd spilled out into the street. We saw a few of the old familiar faces from many years ago indoors. However, I needed to stretch my legs, as my bad leg had been juddering a few times in the middle of conversations. I became embarrassed and slowly made my way outside to stretch out a bit. Before I had a chance to say my “hellos” properly, my bad leg started to misbehave again, so I had to toddle my way back to my seat inside before it became too obvious.  I thought how odd that I started having such sensations more often during the day.

Felt a Bit Emotional: A friend of ours, Ian, joined our table for drinks.  He had been in constant phone contact with Colin during the time I had my attack that ended in a coma.  What I hadn’t known was, at the time when Colin was told by medics that I wouldn’t survive, he told Ian, “I won’t be speaking to her ever again”.  That had been tremendously emotional for me to hear. It practically took my breath away.  I had to have a moment to think about what Colin must have been going through, and how hard he had worked over the past months to not lose me.  I felt such emotion grab at my throat, I couldn’t breathe and my eyes began to prick with tears. I excused myself, then had a little private cry in the ladies room ……

Self Doubt: When we got home, I was acutely aware of my limitations of everything.   My movement was slow and robotic, I slurred and lisped when I spoke and I just felt awkward in general.   I thought about how I no longer was an active woman.   I felt as if I had been broken into bits and pieces, waiting to be reconstructed to my old self.  I’d become older, incomplete and incredibly self conscious.  Walking and talking like a drunk just didn’t sit well with me.   People had been very kind and good natured, but I couldn’t get past the exasperation and sadness that I felt inside.  

I doubted myself so much, I had to apologise to Colin for not being as the woman he had married.  He told me, “I’m not embarrassed at all, you’re the same pain in the arse I married years ago”.  Charming! Trust him to drag me back to reality. It was strangely insulting, but touching all the same.  No matter how things would turn out, I had to remind myself that I was the same person inside – a pain in the arse! …..

Speed Limping with Oscar – 2^nd October: I arranged with Maggie and Maria, my friends from the UK and golf club, to walk Oscar.  Maggie arrived, but Maria had a problem with her house lock, so she had to cancel. Maggie and I decided to set of with “the Beast” on one of my usual walks around the Park Beach complex. Good job that Maggie had a tight grip of the leash, while I had a job to catch up with them with my version of “speed limping”. Oscar had dragged poor Maggie way ahead of me.   After a few metres, Maria surprisingly joined us and explained how she finally managed to leave her house secure.  At this stage, Maggie became pretty relieved to pass Oscar’s leash over to Maria.  Maggie and I just laughed and joked, as we watched Maria hauled off into the distance, legs stomping and hair bobbing up and down, as she attempted to slow Oscar down ahead of us.

Our Rest Stop: At my usual halfway mark, we sat down and tried to do a “selfie” photo of the three of us to include Oscar.  What a fiasco!  It took several attempts, as we giggled to control my frisky puppy.  Marie resorted to a strangle hold of Oscar’s neck, but he just kept licking her face.  After several fits of laughter and mad fumbles, we got one great photo.  I was sure that experience had been etched into Maggie and Maria’s memories. Not sure if they would ever agree to another “walkies” experience again. However, it was pretty hilarious  …..

My Blog Launch: After a few hiccups, patient online service, advice, and several rejected drafts, I finally built up the courage and took the frightening plunge to launch my blog.  I mentioned before that Colin and I had debated on what to call the blog.  He came up with the title “rebooting linda”. I thought it was perfect as I’ve been slowly rebooting my body and worked with computers for years.  I liked it.  However, I admit that I felt pretty sick and cringed a lot. I closed my eyes tight, then half opened one eye to “click” on that dangerous “enter” button.  It was a very scary step, but too late for regrets.  I had put myself out there, so I crossed my fingers and anything else that I could physically knot together for luck.  It was a pretty nerve wracking few days, but I was amazed at the gradual increase in  “reads” in the feed back section of my blog.  I felt even more encouraged when I saw evidence of “fan” clicks and “sharing” of it on social media.  What the heck had I started?  It dawned on me that I had to do more scribblings for future regular updates – eeek!

Aches, Pains and My Condition Update – 3^rd October

Unfortunately, aches and pains became a regular part of my life.  The night pains and spasms were the worse, as I would have my sleep suddenly interrupted by bouts of spasms and uncontrollable arm and leg stretching, twitching and shaking.  I got despondent, as I couldn’t understand why these things happened so often.  I had done my exercises and with some improvements, but I had to question why I was so cruelly punished like this.  Those unpleasant attacks (day or night) didn’t last for too long but there wasn’t anything that Colin or I could do to prevent them.   Colin saw that I was losing heart, so he decided to read up a bit more about my condition:

Colin’s Information from the internet:   Apparently, I’d been experiencing a condition known as, “muscle spasticity”, as explained below: 

“Spasticity is one of the common complications of a stroke. Usually, spasticity develops months or even a year after a stroke and often may become more noticeable during recovery. Spasticity is a challenging, unpleasant problem for stroke survivors.”   No kidding!  However, that explained the increase of my aches, stiffness and twitching.    “This condition is tightness, rigidity, and inflexibility of muscles.  After a stroke, the arms, the legs or even the face can become weak or paralyzed. That weakness means that you cannot control muscle movement.   But, often after a stroke, weak muscles become ‘stuck’ in a rigid or tight position and cannot comfortably relax when you want them to.”  

“Sometimes, with milder spasticity, a survivor might be able to move their muscles, but they may jerk unevenly as they move, instead of moving smoothly.  If you live with untreated spasticity for too long, your muscles can stiffen even further.  Over time, this can make it more difficult to move, exacerbating your handicap and resulting in a worsening cycle that makes your stroke recovery more of an uphill battle” 

These were exactly my symptoms!  At least I no longer felt that I was crazy.   I accepted these horrible experiences as a sign that my body had reacted to my gradual improvement.  It was a small price I had to pay and carried on with my exercises. I really looked forward to getting back to normal some day.  However, excuse the pun, but it was a real pain trying to remain positive during those bad periods.  I realized the spasticity could also possibly get worse before getting better, which I was a prospect that I wasn’t looking forward to …….

My Condition Update:

My Hand:  Inspite of the progress in movement of my fingers, wrist and arm, I was still very rigid and robotic.  My grip was still very weak and I developed mild “pins and needles” in my fingers, especially if I tried to grip onto something too tight.

My Head:  Still constantly felt tight and even more if I raised my eyebrows.  Colin jokingly told me to stop doing it then!  It got to the stage after I got used to wearing this “virtual compressed hat” each day, but wished for when it would all be over.  My head sometimes felt so thick, heavy, and made me feel rather dull witted.   Almost like a constant hangover, but none of the enjoyment of a few alcoholic drinks before ………

My Face:  I started with paralysis on the left side of my face and deaf in the left ear.  It was really weird. At first, whenever I ran my fingers over the left side of my chin, cheek, ear, eyebrow, forehead, even when I tried to pinch so hard until the skin area turned white, I still felt nothing.  Gradually this changed over time and feeling returned to the bottom half of the left side of my face.  It was hard to describe, almost like a numbness when I had an injection from the dentist.  I was aware of my facial features, but any touching of certain parts resulted in a “deadness” or very faint “feathery” sensation. 

My Mouth:  It still felt alien to me.  My tongue felt very thick and too big for my mouth, while the cheeks inside seemed swollen, which meant sometimes accidentally biting them from the inside when I ate or tried to speak.  I still had an annoying lisp when I talked, which made conversations really irritating when I had to repeat myself to Colin and others when they couldn’t make out what I was trying to say.  After several fits of giggles and misunderstandings, I sometimes had to resort to my own clumsy version of sign language, which often ended in even more laughter.

Uncontrollable Giggling:  This was a strange condition to fathom.  I would start to giggle whenever I thought of anything amusing or was in the middle of trying to relay a funny story.  It was so bad that when Colin (or somebody) only had to make a silly comment, or look at me in a certain way, that resulted in me loosing complete control of my bladder.  When he noticed the warning signs, he would say, “here comes miss pissy knickers again”.  I couldn’t help myself and giggled even more!

Our 31^st Wedding Anniversary – 4^th October

Colin and I married in 1988.  As he’d been married before, we had a registrar ceremony in Gibraltar, followed by a church blessing in La Virginia church in Marbella a few days later.  We were given the date of 4^th October for the Gibraltar ceremony on our certificate, so Colin chose 7^th (his lucky number) for the “Blessing” in Marbella.  I thought that date could remind him for future anniversaries.  Wrong!  Colin has always been terrible remembering special dates, so over the years he pacified me with the amount of several “Happy Un-Birthday” and late “Un-Anniversary” presents and dinners.   However, after so many years and challenges together, I couldn’t question his love and devotion to me.  I found a lovely photo of the two of us and posted it on social media to celebrate our 31^st wedding anniversary with caption:   “LOOK OF LOVE – today is our 31st Anniversary! We certainly lived up to our vows but especially “in Sickness and Health”, but this year Colin’s look told me everything. Happy Anniversary to a Lovely man – Love you loads xxx”.

Anniversary Lunch – 5^th October: We made arrangements to meet John and Anisa at our favourite chinese restaurant, “The Golden Sun”, in the Benavista commercial centre.  Colin and I bumped into a friend, Paul, as were about to climb the stairs up to the restaurant.  We exchanged a few pleasant words, then I hung onto Colin for dear life, while I tackled the stone difficult steps up.  When we got half way up, I heard Paul shouting up to us from behind, “why don’t you use the elevator?”.  I defiantly turned round, smiled and replied, “ I’d rather try and use the stairs thank you”.  Paul’s quick response was, “I meant Colin, not you!”.  Such a cheeky chappie ……

Leg Backwards – 8^th October

It was impossible for me to bend my bad leg backwards at all before.  After a bit of practice, I managed to move it slightly back. I felt annoyed after several attempts, as it had been a great deal of effort, for such little reward.  On the other hand, better nothing and it was a positive sign.  When Della recorded the video clip for me, she said, “nobody likes a show off”.  Charming! ….. 

Being Kidnapped – 9^th October: I had a call from Michelle in the morning.  When I told her I had nothing special planned, she ordered me to get ready, as she and our lovely friend, Helen from Jersey, where going to pick me up within an hour to go out for a coffee.  Stuff that, the idea – cava was better!   We went to the La Antigua Beach Restaurant and had a lovely “chin-wag” over a couple of hours.  It was a fabulous and unexpected way to be kidnapped …..

Reunion of 5 Families – 11^th October

We had a great “early doors” drinks meeting of 5 families at Gregorio’s in Villacana.  A delightful and rare evening for a get together of the Cartwright and Banister clan from the UK to meet up with us (Martin), James, Allyson and Rosanagh (Irish) from Spain, plus Paul & Dana over from the USA.  Quite a wonderful cocktail of nationalities …..

Out Supermarket Shopping – 12^th October

During the past months, poor Colin had been doing the weekly supermarket shopping alone.  This time, I accompanied him.  We wanted to know if I could cope with hanging onto the trolley, while I tried to walk around the supermarket.  It was slow work but I managed to get around, while Colin whizzed around the aisles, occasionally returning to pop an item or two into the basket.  It had been months since I had done any shopping myself. I felt a bit disoriented as the shelves had changed and I wasn’t able to find articles in the old familiar places.  Our trip proved that I could join Colin on some future shopping trips.   Unfortunately, Colin told me that I couldn’t come out too often as our shopping bill seemed to drastically increase when I was with him!

Rugby World Cup Round – 13^th October: Colin had always driven me to distraction with the many sports he followed and watched on TV.  Any sport with odd shaped balls I guess!  I´m afraid that I had never shared his passion, except for some major events.  As it was Sunday, it was a good excuse for a “Sunday Roast” meal and watch the round of Japan v Scotland Rugby World Cup match at the “Dog House”.  The atmosphere was vibrant, the food great and an enjoyable reunion of friends.  The place filled up as we enjoyed the tussle between the 2 teams.  Although, Scotland had put up a brave fight, it seemed obvious that Japan were going to win.  Joe, our jovial Irish friend in his usual Irish rugby shirt, piped up, “ I suppose sushi is off the menu next week” ………

Shoulder Rolling Time!  –  16^th October

In spite of my new movements, I still felt awkward and rigid. I began to do some shoulder rolling, which had been near impossible before.  I felt wonderful, proud of myself, in high spirits and more encouraged.  Della just had to pop in a comment on the video about me eventually being able to do my own hair soon and I would looking amazing. Yeah, right!

Ladies Golf Invitation Day – 22^nd October

It was the El Paraiso annual event, which was the usual success.  I was invited to join in and was very thankful the girls thought of me again.  Another fun reunion with some of my lady golf buddies over lunch.  This was also a good opportunity for our gang to have sneaky, secret chats about our fancy dress theme for the next Christmas competition …….

Oscar and Obedience – Not!

That puppy of ours had grown even more!  I wasn’t safe to walk in the garden with him around, as he would take a running jump at me, which sent me flying!  It was only a natural sign of showing his affection, but he became far too boisterous, big and muscular for me to cope with.  Obedience had never been a part of his behavior, more like a mischievous “naughtiness”.   However, we just couldn’t help ourselves in adoring “The Beast” in our lives.  We tried all sorts of ways to discipline him, but unhappily failed.  Oscar must have sensed some sort of  weakness in both of us to create such havoc and mess.  He found our broom and made friends with the darned thing.  We totally ignored, as he ran around the garden with it!  Back to the drawing board for discipline school – NOT! ….

Walking Around Gibraltar – 29^th October: It was the first time in Gibraltar for over a year.  John and Anisa kindly drove us down for the day.  I actually managed to hobble up and down the “Main Street” while we got some Christmas goodies from Marks and Spencer. A kind Morrocan store owner let me rest on his private bench outside his shop, where Anisa and I bought his fresh chillies.   John said that I’d “pulled”, while he took a sly photo.  We had a great lunch at the Clipper. I bought new christmas tree ornaments representing our 3 gorgeous pets, then onto mega Morrison’s supermarket shopping.  I was really proud as I actually managed to walk (toddle) around for 3.5 kms that day! However, I was really shattered afterwards ………

Final Malaga Check Up – 31^st October: John and Anisa kindly drove us again to my check up with doctor Hamad in Malaga.  The doctor studied reports of my last scan from a few months ago. The one with the animation of palm trees and speedboat.   Apparently, my last MRI scan revealed some brain scarring, but no further damage after 10 months.  I then had to go through balance and reflex tests. Colin and I felt relieved that Dr Hamad had been very happy with my recovery process, blood pressure and told me to continue to do what I’d been doing. Any urgent checkups would be referred to at regional level in future, so no need for further Malaga appointments!   I must have been a pretty horrible patient as he didn’t want to see me again. Yippee!  On the serious side, he warned me not to get too upset or stressed again as I could risk a relapse.   Point taken ……….. 

Celebration Lunch: The four of us were really happy with the great news, so on the journey back home, we decided to celebrate with a Chinese lunch at the Golden Sun in Benavista.  Things began to look up ……

Please view next page 25 at link “New Boots, Walking and 1st Celebration”: https://www.rebootinglinda.com/25-new-boots-walking-better-first-attempt-to-colour-my-hair-and-first-thanks-giving/

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