RIORITA

Hi Kris, I always tell everyone to SMILE lots everyday, it will make you feel better. My husband had an acute stroke three and a half weeks ago and yesterday we joined a new local club to play Boccia which is a type of sit down boules and we loved it and are looking forward to next weeks session. Others are right, nothing ever stays the same but different can be good too. Live for the day.

Thank you all for your lovely replies. xx

Soppy or not Greg each point is very valid. Every day I get my husband to say (practice speech) something, usually inspirational and your number two is the quote I will give him tomorrow but your number five is the one I will inspire him with. Thank you for posting them.

Good for you Sophie, well done on completing your GCE`s fingers and toes are crossed for you and your results. I am glad that you have decided to write all your thoughts and feelings down each day, when going through such a trial it will be good for you to look back now and then and realise what a tremendous journey you have been on and just how very far you have come. You are an inspirational young woman.xx

I am very touched by your replies Sophie and Skippy. It is indeed very difficult watching Jeff going through all this and though I am trying my very best to help him through it all it still feels as though it is not enough. One thing that I do know is that it will make us both all the stronger for it. xx

Sophie, as I am new on this forum I am not sure if you are still logging in but if you are I want you to know that I think you are a wonderful, inspirational young woman and I can only add "SMILE a lot, every single day" xx

Hi Casey, I think all of you are very special too and you have my admiration. It is amazing what the human spirit can endure and then become even stronger.

Thank you everyone for your lovely replies. It seems to be ME who has gone into melt down this week and I am probably one of the least emotional people you could ever imagine. Today has been a good day because my husband got to meet a lovely man who had a stroke four years ago and they were able to discuss all that has been going on. After introducing ourselves to him over a coffee I left them to it and went to our local library, one of my favourite places so why did I have to hold back the tears when a group of ladies were chatting and having a good laugh and I wished I was with them! On arriving back home I finally ended up in tears when I had to tell my husband that I miss my late sister Jenny so very much, she would have given me so much support and love at this difficult time. Having worked in care homes I am lucky enough to have had experience of mood swings etc. affecting people who have had strokes but of course it is a totally different situation if it is your own loved one who is in this situation. My husband was a fit energetic fellow, doing volunteer work on post was jets and just getting into racing his mini stock car when he had his stroke. It has been tremendous shock to everyone, never smoked in his life and an odd one pint each week when playing chess with his mate and the week before we were walking the Brandon Marshes, life indeed seems very unfair. Thank you for your advice Macca, I am very organised and have kept written notes from the beginning, and we have now graduated to reading bits of poetry to each other, I expect that we are lucky that we have always sang little ditties to each other and read bits of news from news papers and magazines so there is no deviation from the norm there. Not all bad news, not only does he have an appointment now for a twenty four hour heart monitor at our local heart hospital but today he has received an appointment to see his consultant again on July 20th. Questions to ask are already being written down in anticipation of this! Winb, we have been out to one or two favourite coffee shops which certainly lifts our spirits. He can also now walk the mile to the center of our village which is quite some going in that it is not three weeks yet since the traumatic event but of course we have always been walkers. Louise, good news that you are doing well, we had a lovely lady speech therapist to see him yesterday and she said he was the best patient she had ever seen in making such good progress after such a short time and she was able to give us both some tips on what to concentrate on and it was a boost to both our morale to know that we had been doing the right things. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction to the carers topic which I had managed to miss Casey, I am not the best on a computer and especially going on forums but I am going to do my best for you all! Many thanks to you all for your replies RIO xx

Good morning everyone. I hope no one will mind my joining this forum as I haven`t had a stroke (yet!) but my husband has had an acute ischaemic one and I feel as "at sea" as he does at the moment. We were fortunate that we knew straight the way what was happening and rang for an ambulance and then it was all systems go. The emergency services were wonderful as was the team at Leicester`s new stroke unit but everyone , including doctors at our medical practice, have been shocked that he was sent home later the same day. I realised pretty quickly that we would have to work things out for ourselves, I devised some simple, light weight exercises and we have progressed from doing nursery rhymes to him reading one page of "Paddington Bear to me each day, and if a stranger met him today they would be hard pressed to know what happened just over two weeks ago. I massage his legs, neck and arm each day and encourage him to take short naps throughout the day as his major complaint is of overwhelming tiredness which I am sure many of you have encountered yourself. I would appreciate any other suggestion of things I can do to help him move forward, things which you may have tried for yourself. I do understand his frustrations but as his supportive carer it is upsetting when he becomes angry or shouts, so unlike his normal self who is a mild mannered person. Just back from seeing his GP who is going to refer him for physio because though he is doing very well, when tired he drags his right leg and also he has strange sensations in his foot . Already in contact with a speech therapist who is telephoning us again later today. Thank you for reading my own personal experience to date and I hope I will be allowed to stay amongst you all.