Stroke Rehabilitation

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS

Life: having a great time... TIC... TOC... TIC... TOC... Early 90's, I was a happy-go-lucky girl, with a husband that shared my sense of humour, my love of photography and travelling.  I loved to dance, ballroom and latin-American were my favourites.  I could ski on snow, not very well or very elegantly, but it was exciting, and the we always enjoyed the apres-ski. I did jet-boating and white water rafting in New Zealand, para sailing in Australia.  Low-key travelling around Egypt: the Temples of Abu Simbel, Luxor and Karnak.  Took a camel taxi in the desert at Aswan, the Donkey Express at 3am from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings for breakfast and Queen Hapshetsut’s mausoleum for lunch, and in Cairo and hung on for dear life on the back of a horse at dusk around the pyramids of Giza. Greece, Santorini, free and easy two-up on the moped, inches from plummeting down the slope into the sea. Turkey, Ephesus and the Cotton Castles at Pamukkale. And of course Istanbul, browsing the grand bazaar for slippers with curled up toes and visiting Dolmabahce Palace and the Topkapi Palace, and... St. Anton, Austria Ephesus, Turkey Valley of the Kings, Egypt TIC... ….perhaps Petra in Jordan for our next trip, or do the Silk Route to Lhasa (Tibet) and visit Potala Palace. All this and more, were playing on my mind, as I had happily been planning the next summer holiday. Everyone who is alive owns an expensive watch: it's better known as your life clock.  Your life clock is indeterminate: it could stop after 20 seconds or last up to 120 years, or fail somewhere in between.  On the very rare occasion it resets, which means you get a second chance. TOC...? 7th June 1995, my clock got hammered without warning.  Luckily it reset but as a result the face glass is cracked, the minute hand doesn't work, the 11 numeral has fallen onto the 7, and the brand name on the faceplate now reads rather appropriately “SWITCH” (some of the 'A' dropped off). This is an analogy to describe suffering a stroke, more precise to say a near-fatal brain haemorrhage, and then enduring intrusive brain surgery.  The effects were paralysis on the right side, losing the ability to talk, read, write, walk, or remember (short term memory was gone), and confined to a wheelchair for three years. A brief recount of her stroke, and how she has coped, within the context of moving to Spain.   Why not try a bit of modelling? Credit Crunch Calendar 2009; look out for Miss July. Violet line is one permanent reminder from the surgery I recall waking up in hospital, post-surgery, wondering where I was, and what had happened. Why am I in a hospital bed? Why can't I move? Why can't I talk? That's my husband, and I can sort of understand him. He frequently asked me if I wanted to know what happened, and I recall shaking my head... this is too big. It took a week for me to sort through the frazzled fragments of short-term memory to agree to know. A stroke, he said, a bad one . What the heck is a stroke I thought?  My puzzled look prompted him to slowly explain what the stroke was, this particular type.  It took repeated explanations about the stroke to finally get through my addled brain.  Then I did the only thing you could do - I burst into tears.   Any stroke is bad enough, but this one literally came from nowhere with devastating effect; my life as it were was scratched out at a stroke (pun intended), leaving me with permanent disability, although there was always a chance of some recovery but that depends on the severity of the injury from the stroke and the willingness of the patient to try and improve. Stroke rehabilitation is usually defined by what hospitals can offer, whereas anything else is up to the individual. Conventional or alternative, therapies can only be considered effective if  individual strives to improve.   Recovery from this sort of stroke, or any kind of stroke,  is not definitive so there are only two options: resignation, or come out fighting.    Where do you start? - at the beginning. How do you cope? - with a lot of love and support. How do you take it? - one day at a time.  When will it end? - it doesn't until your clock stops; in the meantime, get on with it!   Life is a journey, so make it worthwhile.  How's the journey so far?  I finally dispensed with the wheelchair and now get around thanks to a leg brace, a bit slow but I'm mobile. 1995 London, after 8 weeks in the hospital, allowed out for my first restaurant dinner... the wheelchair stayed with me for 5 years 2007 Maldives, without the wheelchair: notice the leg brace on my right leg... My voice has returned, and my memory still improving, but the right arm/hand function has not returned although I've learnt to write (and do everything else) with only my left hand.

Inspiration : what does it mean to you?

In our case, it means:

• vacation travel
• see different things
• do different things
• meet and talk with other people from different countries and from completely different walks of life
• this means different perspectives that you are not normally exposed to
• which gives you a greater breadth of knowledge to compare with your own
  
• better known as ‘life experience’
  

Conclusions?  

• real experience counts, perhaps more than virtual; going inside the Pyramids at Giza sure beats seeing it on Discovery Channel
• best ideas come from raw material from obscure events, mishaps, an even meaningless detail (at the time)
• inspiration is innate in everyone; will you use it?
• when an opportunity arises, do you take it?

The internet has spawned a new era of global awareness of different countries and cultures as well as learning about them, in that the sweep of a mouse and the click of a button can deliver so much to the user, on demand.   The PC can deliver text, sound and video, from all corners of the globe, without the individual needing to move from their chair.  It is comfortable, safe, and no other medium can compare.

However, the virtual experience cannot ever replace the real experience of travel in that there is an element of surprise, change, excitement and even danger than can never be experienced behind a screen, mouse and keyboard.

We've travelled quite a lot over the years, and other than the usual gamut of souvenirs we seem to bring back with us, it's the intangibles that are worth far more to us. Like shared experiences of meeting different people, tasting exotic food, trying new activities, and seeing new things that either take your breath away or leave you scratching your head. Perleta Magic has opened up new avenues of thinking creatively, in that as well as chucking around wild ideas brought back from vacations and making some of them fit at the property, other possibilities have emerged and have been acted upon. With the wide variety of naturally grown items at Perleta Magic, an opportunity to use them as nature intended, and explore better ways for a healthier lifestyle.

2005 Perleta Magic

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