Fear Subsided, Now Let's Get Back To LIving

My fears weren't gone, but they sure were hushed after our second opinion appointment at Mayo with Dr. Lanzino on December 30.  I had not been told inoperable, but instead, "let's play the odds."  I could swallow that.  I no longer looked at 2014 as the year I was going to slowly fade away, but rather a year of second chances.

We went on living with our newly found hope.  I continued to work hard in out patient therapy.  On December 26, I was given a prism to stick to the lens of my right eye glass.  It was a drastic improvement from my glasses clip, to my film, to this.  A prism helps refract light so that my double vision is prevented.  It is also less noticeable.  It does reduce my vision down to 20/30 in my right eye, but it is way better than walking around with a clip or a film that drastically reduced my vision.  But, the biggest benefit is that it helped to straighten out my eye and it was helping it track better so I didn't look as cross-eyed or lazy-eyed. 

Now that I could see pretty close to normal, my OT and PT improved much more quickly too.  It is amazing how much having impaired vision affects everything you do.  Combine my improved vision with a new sense of hope and I was keeping my therapists busy trying to come up with new challenging ways to keep my improvement progressing.  

In OT, my prism helped the most.  I was absolutely smashing my vision board results.  NFL teams actually started using the board to help their athletes improve their reaction skills.  The square board is about 4'x4'.  It is made of 1"x1" squares that light up either green or red depending on the setting chosen.  The squares are arranged in to rings; one large ring on the outside with smaller rings filling the center of it.  It resembles a bulls-eye at a gun range.  The goal is to hit as many of the lit up squares as you can in a minute as they flash randomly at you.  We would do the following sequences:
1. Hit the red lights only with my right hand.  Then with my left.
2. Hit the red lights with my right hand, and the green with my left.  Then repeat the opposite way.
3. Hit the lights as I read the numbers flashing in front of me.  First with my right hand only, then my left,  and then alternating with my right hand hitting the green lights and my left hand hitting the red lights.
The vision board was my favorite.  It was challenging and it brought out my competitive spirit.  Plus it worked my eyes (especially tracking and lateral movement), the natural movement of extending my arm, and placement of my hand as I reached and pushed on something.  There were even times where my PT would bring in balance foam and have me balance as I did it.  I would balance standing with my feet equidistant apart, side by side, and one foot in front of the other.

PT continued to step it up for me.  I was doing a lot of squats, lunges, one-legged balancing, one-legged step-ups, and balance foam and balance roller patterns.  It was challenging, especially now that my belly bump was starting to get in the way a bit.  Plus, since I was growing my balance was essentially changing every day so I have to relearn how to balance and overcome my new balance restrictions.

By the time mid-January hit, I was feeling much more confident in my abilities.  My eye had improved immensely.  It was still a little less cross-eyed, but it was tracking much better.  People had began to comment on its improvement.  My fine motor function in my left hand no longer prevented me from doing something but rather just slowed me down.  I could even get my hand to function well enough to manipulate hair ties so I could do the girls' hair again!  My balance and walking were looking normal to outsiders although I could still feel the difference.  I was still stiff from about my knee down.  That was a huge improvement from having stiffness from my hip down though.  I no longer stuck out my hip to bear weight because I could feel more and as a result, I trusted my leg more.

These are just a few Facebook posts that I wrote over the course of those weeks.

Facebook post from January 2, 2014

And this is why little miss Jaelyn always reminds me to laugh. She is so going to hate me when she grows up :-D

Facebook post from January 6, 2014

Cancelled therapy for this morning so I did some on my own. ...Three girls in pigtails this morning, but only two wanted to say chhheeessseeee!!!!!!

Facebook post from January 8, 2014

I found these notes in the book I was reading tonight. It is interesting to think of who wrote them, why they wrote them, or how long they had been in the book. They made me smile and touched my heart. I plan to leave them in the book so the next person that reads it gets the same pick-me-up that I did when I found them.

Facebook post from January 9, 2013

Today I dreamed about warmer temperatures, quality time with Patrick Smith, and taking a break from my stroke. So my throw back Thursday picture is from our honeymoon in Jamaica. 8 years, soon to be 4 kiddos, and one stroke later and we are still going stronger than ever. Now if we only looked that young again!