New Year's Resolutions for a Stroke Survivor...Again

All my successes in the almost eight years since that horrid day were just actions I took to make the world more aware of strokes. But the successes are insignificant now in my eyes, always attempting to seek out the "thing" that will take me to the last stage on the list in Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' On Death and Dying, the Five Stages of Grief--Acceptance.

But it's Acceptance that just won't come to me. Don't think I haven't tried. I wrote a book about the stroke--The Tales of a Stroke Patient. Not enough. I write a blog called the same name as the book. Not enough. I was leading a stroke support group in the hospital. Not enough. I spoke at various forums and medical facilities about strokes. Still not enough. When is it that I will "accept" the stroke? Maybe never.

So here am I again, the stroke survivor, with ten resolutions for the new year. Maybe this will lead me to Acceptance. My random forced optimism is just that, an effort to see if this post will get me there. So here are my resolutions, in no particular order except the last, the things I want to happen most:

10. I will continue to work on the novel that is purely fiction. I've never written fiction before and I find it a challenge. I only wrote non-fiction for the past 50 years--telling, teaching, informing, explaining, aka news stories, books, blogging, how-to technical manuals. By the way, that picture is accurate. I write one-handed now. (http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-fiction-5-tips-to-get-more-creative)

9. I will continue to lose weight beyond what I lost so far, and it's a lot, but it's harder now that I am older and don't move around so much because of the stroke. I can't do any exercises that have me sit on the ground because I can't get up. Yes, there's the recumbent stationary bike that I use four or five times a week. And there's walking up the hill to the parking lot. But I'm determined and that's, in my opinion, the most important quality, not to mention lighter is better. (http://www.clevelandclinicwellness.com/conditions/Stroke/Pages/FuelYourRecoveryfromStroke.aspx)

8.  I will set the phone alarm and put it on "Snooze" so I will be forced to get up and take my Coumadin. (http://stroketales.blogspot.com/2016_11_28_archive.html/) I usually set the alarm to "Stop," but no more. The best way to take this blood thinner is to take it the same time every day. I've been having ups and downs on my INR, the test that determines clotting, but maybe this alarm set to "Snooze" will help. The alarm sound unnerves me!

7. I will stop pretending that I can change people, to fit them into the mold that is acceptable to me, aka kind, gentle, supportive. The ones who don't? Out of my life. (http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/06/23/nearly-1-in-4-stroke-patients-suffer-ptsd-symptoms/56321.html) People that are angry-spirited and controlling will continue being angry-spirited and controlling because they are satisfied with themselves and don't see a reason to change. People can only change if the "want" is there. Without it, the success rate is nil.

6. I will donate to Heifer International instead of buying gifts for holidays and birthdays from now on. The charity's mission statement is this: "Heifer International’s Global Impact Goal will be measured through a process...to allow us to clearly measure the impact of our work to end global hunger and improve livelihoods." I just gave chicks to combat hunger. Pretty neat, huh? (https://www.heifer.org)

5. I will regulate my sleeping schedule to arise at the same time every day, even on weekends once the new year comes. My poor sleeping habits started in the 80s when I worked as a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. My ex-husband was no help with the kids, and I could only write when the children went to bed. So I got used to it, writing from 10 until 2 or 3 in the morning, with sometimes with 4 hours sleep. But no more. Now that I had a stroke, sleep is extremely necessary to support a healthy nervous system and a clear-thinking brain, or what's left of it. (https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Understanding-Sleep#for_us).

4. I won't worry what people think when I wear the same-styled  sneakers all the time. Those sneakers, said more eloquently as Hush Puppy Power Walkers, are not cool when I dress up, but so what? These shoes, which I have in three colors--taupe, white, and black--help me get from point A to point B. So if somebody thinks they're not appropriate, I won't care. I'm so grateful for ambulating at all!(https://www.amazon.com/Hush-Puppies-Womens-Walker-Sneaker/dp/B001AX0EFW)


3. I won't be a shopaholic in 2017. There's nothing I need aside from food and drugstore stuff and random entertainment. I have enough clothes and (see previous) shoes. I used to get super-charged when I would go shopping before my stroke. But now it's tedious, stretching the functioning arm or leg to assist the other side. Bottom line: I have enough. (Here's an interesting article on shopaholics:  http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/when-too-much-shopping-becomes-a-problem_)

2. I won't give up. Too many stroke survivors do. But for me, the way I was raised, the way my parents wanted me to be, I have no choice. Strength is all I know. Life has thrown me some curves but nothing so severe as the stroke. The stroke ruined the 17-year relationship that falls under the category of "it was just a matter of time," challenged my chance of ever speaking well enough to be a professor once more, and destroyed my hope of ever working in the law firm again. And still, I am here, smiling, when those who don't know me wonder why. Sometimes I ask myself the same thing. But my strength rescues me, once again. (https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2013/may/01/stroke-survivors-emotional-impact)

1. My sons know the unconditional love I have for them, in 2017 and beyond. I wish them health, happiness, and peace in this new year. To my friends (you know who you are), who emotionally supported me, thank you greatly. And to my readers who now number over 300,000, I will always be grateful for the opportunity to educate, inspire, and mind-boggle you. This resolution is ongoing.

Christmas is Sunday and Hanukah begins Christmas Eve, but I want to get a head start on this post so Happy New Year to all!

Olfactory Hallucinations and Stroke Survivors, aka Wowee! I Still Smell the Awful Turtle Bowl!

The sale of turtles less than 4 inches has been banned in the United States since 1975 because turtles pose a high risk of spreading salmonellosis, especially to children. In 1975, I was already working as a writer and was a whopping 25-year-old woman who knew of the ban on small turtles.

But as a young child in the 1950s in the living room of our very small house, I didn't know it yet. I could smell the stench from our turtle in the appropriately named turtle bowl with its fake palm leaves sitting next to our over-heated radiator. If my mother didn't clean the turtle bowl for a week, and a week was all it took, the turtle bowl would stink because of the grossly wilted lettuce that served as food for the turtle that became slime short of a week's time. The turtles died (we had seventeen of them, one at a time) and my mother flushed them down the toilet. I remember us standing over the toilet and saying our tearful goodbyes as the turtles whooshed away in that maelstrom.

At the end of my teenage years, we moved to a bigger house and I forgot about the turtle bowl as, apparently, did my mother. We were almost grown then, my brother and I, and a turtle bowl would be an unwelcome annoyance because we would have to clean it, the responsibility that my mother would have passed on to us. 

Jump ahead a little more than forty years. That's when I had my hemorrhagic stroke. Now, I smell that rancid turtle bowl again when it isn't present. Why? Could I be having smell hallucinations to add to my never-ending repertoire?

Ronald DeVere, M.D., Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), is the director of the Taste and Smell Disorder Clinic in Austin, TX, has been evaluating patients with taste and smell disorders. Dr. DeVere is also the coauthor, with Marjorie Calvert, of the AAN's patient book, Navigating Smell and Taste Disorders.  

In the thoughts of Dr. DeVere, "olfactory hallucinations are perceived abnormal smells—usually unpleasant—that are not actually present in the physical environment. They can come from a number of different areas of the smell system. If the smell continues for less than a few minutes, the site of origin is likely the smell region of the inner temporal lobe of the brain, called the uncus. The source could be an abnormal electrical discharge or a seizure."

I was stuck with the turtle bowl. Potential causes, says Dr. DeVere, among others, of this abnormality, aka hallucination, could be a stroke or an injury following head trauma. (Almost all stroke survivors have head trauma, or PTSD. See http://stroketales.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2016-08-01T00:00:00-04:00&updated-max=2016-09-01T00:00:00-04:00&max-results=2). An MRI and a brain-wave test are what are needed to confirm through an imaging study of the brain. There is no cure yet that is FDA-approved.

There are worse things to smell than a turtle bowl but, at the moment, I can't think of any.