Leading up to Christmas sinusitis, chest infection, colds, minor mouth surgery and a stomach problem have been wearing me down. Luckily I had two days reprieve, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when I could enjoy myself. Christmas Eve spent with friends that we have known for many years and Christmas Day with our daughter, son in law and grandchildren.
With the New Year approaching I am asked, what resolutions will you make? I always answer honestly - I don't make them. I have seen people start the New Year by planning to take up exercise, start a diet or give up smoking, invariably they never succeed and two weeks later they have failed.
My idea of change is not stopping something but starting something. My logic is that cutting or throwing out the 'bad' and bringing in the 'good' can never work when done suddenly. You have to run the two together, for instance if you never exercise and suddenly start exercising every day is doomed to failure but introducing exercise slowly as part of you daily routine will be better for your body and for success.
I have never undertaken a faddy diet, instead I have gently changed what I eat by introducing items into my regular diet or substituting one type of product for another. That way I avoid stomach upsets and other problems connected to a new way of eating. People who resolve to stop smoking usually find themselves buying cigarettes again two weeks after throwing away the last packet. Like those who resolve to stop drinking, the reason they fail is they go cold turkey. Cutting down and having a 'buddy' is more likely to succeed as the failure is the body reacting to the sudden stop of nicotine or alcohol. It is like weaning a baby away from milk and onto solids; it has to be done slowly and carefully.
When I want or need to make changes I do them when the need arises. Then I have no pressure to succeed unlike if I were to wait until the new year, nothing would ever happen and would doom to failure. Besides there is no time like the present to make changes if they are needed.
Therefore, I have no resolutions but I do have challenges which are on going from the work I have been doing since my stroke.
I have been working on my speech and using many aids to help. I have downloaded some apps onto my phone and tablet which I hope will help and inspire me. Many of these apps come via the ARC group on facebook. ARC, Aphasia Recovery Connection, is an American website to help Aphasics, not just in America but other places too. Members of the group post things they find useful and helpful to their recovery. I have a game I play which is a word game called 4 pics 1 word. You see four pictures with one word in common and that is the answer. Some are quite difficult. I have the whiteboard application which I haven't used except to show people. I you cannot make yourself understood verbally then the whiteboard means you can write the word, if you know it, or draw what you want, easily erased it is simple and effective. I have also downloaded onto my Kindle a workbook that my husband helps me with. He reads phrases or sayings and I have to fill in the relevant word. I know the words mainly but the pronunciation is the bigger problem there.
What I cannot improve on is my emotional state. If I cannot think of a word or make myself understood I burst into tears, if I lose something I know I had I cry it is like going into panic mode and nothing I do can stop it. If I want to tell my husband something he has to hold my hand to calm me. On occasions he does interrupt of finish my sentences when I am looking for a word and that upsets me. This week at the Aphasia group I go to we had a lady come to talk about homeopathy and how it helps with stroke. My husband had gone to the carers' meeting so I sat alone. I found the talk confusing and difficult to follow and he wasn't there to explain what was going on. The talk was long for me, I cope with short conversations with simple words but a talk like this isn't short or easy to follow. I panicked and started to cry and a volunteer came over to talk to me and calm me. I stopped crying but I was at a loss as to what the talk was about. I knew why I was crying then but sometimes I have no idea why I am doing it.
My husband tells me to calm down and breathe which helps. Other people say there is no problem with your speech we understand you, the problem there is they do not seem to appreciate the stress communicating puts you under. Yes, they may understand what I want to say but to get there is traumatic as searching for the RIGHT word is uppermost in my mind. At home I have lots of 'things' these are words that I cannot remember or find. My husband's job is to guess the 'thing' I mean and he is getting good at it. I can only describe it as the word accessible, there but just out of reach. I do not know the word of the thing I am writing this on for instance, there are many more and some people think it is funny that I don't know what they are. It isn't funny and when they laugh I cry.
This is my challenge to find these words and work on them and the pronunciation. This is not a resolution this is work in it's hardest form.
