The Cane: It's Not Just an Aid for Walking

My cane is a lifeline. Yet, it’s humbling at times. I still often think of my cane as a third leg—cane, right leg, left leg, cane, right leg, left leg. I would rather be safe than sorry with a fall. But my thinking has changed in my four years post-stroke. I’ll tell you what I do with my cane if you promise not to guffaw!

First, a little background which you probably know already. Among the many types of canes, there is the straight cane with little support, an adjustable cane with two shaft segments, and a quad cane with four tips, or ferrules, offering the most stability. The most important thing with canes is that they be set at the right height for the users. But all canes can do something besides helping you walk. That’s where the guffawing might come into play.

I’ve gotten shorter now, as all people do when they age. At about age 40, folks are prone to lose almost a half inch every decade. I used to be 5 feet, 5 inches tall. Now, I’m 5 feet, 4 inches in measurement. The height changes, not only as part of the aging process. Gravity plays a role, too. The vertebrae of the spine might thin and dry out, making the vertebrae more compressed. And the arches of the feet are more likely to flatten out, and diseases such as osteoporosis don’t help the height situation either.

All on these physical realities may mean you’re having trouble with getting things on the top shelves of the cabinets as I do. That’s where the cane comes in. You can move boxes (glass containers break and cans dent) to the very edge of the cabinet. But wait a minute! If only one hand is working, how do you hold the cane and catch the box at the same time? You may have to let them just fall to the ground. Then if you’re able to bend at the waist or from your knees, the box is yours to pick up. If you can’t bend, bring a chair which is nearby (preparation comes first on my list) to where the item has fallen, sit down, and pick it up.

Everybody, friends and family alike, walks ahead of me because at some point, they feel like they’re walking too slowly. I’m left in tow. But I feel confident in using my cane as a weapon if need be. 

And one time, there was a need. My friend was walking ahead, as was customary for her. A thin, middle-aged man rounded the corner we were approaching, bumped into me, like the mugger that he turned out to be, and my instinct took over. When he tried to grab my pocketbook, I hit him square in the “balls” and he took off, albeit injured. Mission accomplished!

Additionally, you can use the cane to close a drawer or door that you can’t reach. I tend to leave the door wide open in the bathroom if nobody’s home and I’m doing “my business.” But my friend left the door unlocked and his workman entered. My trusty cane helped me shut the door so fast it looked like a blur. Come to think of it, I haven’t moved that fast ever!

A cane can also be useful for pushing things along the floor in order to get them to their destination. For example, the toilet tissue is stored in the back hallway. I get three or four rolls on the floor and push them to the bathroom like a herder navigating sheep. Then I sit on the toilet and get them lined up.  Easy, breezy!

And you thought the cane was only for walking. Balderdash!

Note: Write to me at hcwriter@gmail.com and tell me what YOU use your cane for besides walking. I might mention it in an article later on.

Wishes and Hopes: Do They Amount to a Hill of Beans?

It was a famous line in the film Casablanca that gave "hill of beans" its notoriety. Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman, who's married to another man, “Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

I'm having one of "those days" because I wish there was something to do about my stroke. And like Bogart says, the stroke "don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Right now, I'd have an operation on my brain if there could be some improvement in my speech, my arm, my leg, any one of the above. Maybe some neurosurgeon could close the hole in my brain with stitches. But I take the blood thinner called Coumadin, and there's the likelihood of complications like significant bleeding into my brain, especially with stitches. Alas, I have a hole in my head. Please. No LOLs.

In reality, no doctors in their right minds would want to try "it," i.e. close the hole in my brain caused by dead brain cells that couldn't regenerate. Cells in the brain just don't do that once they die. The bleeding causes them to die and I had a hemorrhagic stroke when the clot caused my blood vessel to burst. My stroke anniversary just passed. I had a stroke in April 2009 and I'm tired from it. On the surface, I'm generally pleasing and happy. Below the surface, not so much. Still. Even now.

I'm angry though it never shows, at least to the general public. The bitter side says, "Why me?" The euphoric side says, "Why me?" also. Weren't you listening? I already told you. I'm having one of those days where floods of memories come back to me even though I attempt to shun them.

A memory of my mother appears right before my eyes. She had a stroke, too, but there were signs years before. Everyone--my mother, her family, her friends--ignored them. She fell every so often when she would become anxious over one thing or another. She probably had a  transient ischemic attack (TIA) which is like a mini stroke, producing like symptoms of a stroke: weaknesses on one side of the body, blurry vision, trouble talking. 

About 1 in 3 people who have a TIA ultimately have a stroke. Then she had the big one, a name that should be only reserved for California earthquakes. But that is what a stroke amounts to--an earthquake in your brain. I feel happier now, for the moment, that I just invented a new phrase for strokes. But then again, happier is relative.

I fell every so often, too, walking along the corridor or on the street. But I'm not a complainer; neither was my mother. So we didn't do anything about our falling. I attributed my mother's falling to anxiety; I attributed mine to clumsiness or tight shoes. My mother instilled a fear of doctors in me that was so strong, I screamed when the doctor would touch me in appropriate places so we didn't take any action on our falling. Or maybe it was the shoes. My mother had enormous bunions. So do I. But I believe the falling was a precursor of the stroke that damaged our lives forever. My mother was in her eighties, but I was 61, the new 41.

That's enough for memories. I don't want to spend any more time on them. I can't; I shouldn't. I am in the present now. I looked, examined, and researched many ideas--stem cell therapy to make me, even more, mostly whole once again (all the doctors that I researched were fraudulently going after people's money), the Walkaide and the Bioness to enable people walk more efficiently (I wasn't a candidate because of my hyper-extended knee), slings that reduce subluxation in my shoulder (I got one from my "friend" on Facebook, but after three months, I didn't improve any further). I just got the name of a doc who does Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. I'll try that next.

The definition of crazy is when you do the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Maybe I'm crazy. Or maybe I'm hopeful. I'm always searching, and I always reach dead ends. But I still try to find magic in the medical community. Perhaps I'll blow a hole in that definition of "crazy" yet. 

The weather is heating up, and summer is about 30 days away. But all the seasons the same for me, and just the temperatures are different. The days are consumed by the stroke, searching to find the silver bullet that will make it all, or most of it, or part of it, go away. I'll take any improvement. My friend calls me Pollyanna, a character in a 1913 novel that turned into a popular term for someone with an optimistic outlook. I say, "How can I NOT be." Hope and wishes are both traits of Pollyanna.

Today, I'm going to do research on Amazon for pomegranate and chocolate. That's to take my mind off of the stroke, but only momentarily. I am obsessed with the stroke and who it's going to hit next. "On average, one American dies from stroke every 4 minutes," say the Centers for Disease Control, (CDC), and it is a fact. How can I not be obsessed, I scream silently to myself.