Teechur

First run on Sunday! My last run was the morning of my SAH, 5.5 miles. Used to run 40-50 miles a week. Today's run; drumroll please...1.7 miles! Took a nap afterwards. LOL! It didn't "feel good" but it felt great...as in it hurt a little, the hyper-sensitivity to touch right now is driving me nuts and that bothered me, and it was hard...but it felt good because it told me that while I have a ways to go, I will regain that part of my life.

Good idea with the earplugs? I am finding that loud unexpected noises just blow my brain to BITS right now. I've had to keep my dogs locked up during the day because of barking. Didn't used to bother me at all. All great ideas...juts read through them. For me so far (six weeks post non-peri sah stroke) things that have helped: 1. Siri on my iPhone. Everything from "wake me up in 10 minutes" to "Remind me tomorrow at nine to call so and so" to the calendar to the lists. One thing I love, I can put groceries on the grocery list and my husband can see them on his phone if he's out he can get them and cross them off. 2. I wrote the times of my meds on the bottles so I knew what time all had to be taken. Right now I'm mainly on two (none related to the SAH any more) and I keep those out on the counter or I'll forget. 3. One single pile like Mary has. Many piles make my head hurt. One pile I can handle. 4. Moving things into an order before trying to attack it; grading, bills, etc. I need to figure out how to NOT leave a task mid-task because that's eating way my ability to complete things. I used to be able to multitask like a pro.

Well DUH David...don't you get that your SAH is all about HER!? Good for you for being a self-advocate. Not only is it going to make things better for you, but for others. It's hard to self-advocate because we WANT to just go back to life the way it was, but the fact is we may not be able to perform on some days the way we used to. That shouldn't be questioned by cow-orkers. Period. I'm sorry you had an event at work. Stuff like that is scary and I know at least for me, when something "odd" happens I get all freaked out that I might be having another SAH (even though I know it should never happen again). I'm heading into week three back to work as a teacher and let me tell you, if I could turn back time and not go back I would. Too late now and I'll make it through, but holy cow I had no idea it would be so hard. I teach high school IT classes and worked Mon-Wed, then Fri. I took Thurs off because I knew I needed to be with it on Friday so I could check off skills. Love my kids and enjoy being with them, but right now it feels like I'm coming home, trying to rest up for nighttime activities, dragging out to do those (I also run a small business as a fitness trainer, and have PT two nights a week), and then dragging home to bed. I did just pull out of being a part of a committee planning a race, and I'm considering sub-contracting out my bootcamp classes for awhile. Anxious about tomorrow even though the really is no reason for me not to go to work. Just don't like feeling so tired all the time.

Oh Lisa I know EXACTLY how you feel. I'm 6 weeks post SAH too and it's been the hardest thing I've dealt with because when you break a leg you have a cast and your leg is broken. You have xx weeks for healing, and as long as you're smart and careful it'll heal up and you'll be on with your life. Your leg is broken, but YOU'RE still whole. But with a brain trauma not only do we have the pain (headaches) but we have the modification of who we are along with the trauma of something coming out of the blue and changing everything overnight. I feel like part of me is broken. Tears, yup and like you I'm not a crier. I cried last night. I cried a little this morning. I'm getting anxious thinking about work tomorrow. I appreciate that you shared because it helps us not to feel so alone. Others DON'T get it and it's not their fault. I wrote a blog post last night that started as an angry rant called "How not to help" then decided that if anyone were to read it, they'd also want to know HOW to help. I figure I want to remember this and I want to be able to share with others at some point, and if someone reads it maybe it'll help them not just relate to what I'm going through, but also what someone else with a head injury might go through. I am starting to feel a lot stronger, and I can tell healing is taking place but that doesn't mean I'm healed. I wish people would understand that...I had someone say to me, "Aren't you over that?" Uh...no. I wish I had known so much coming out of the hospital. I was in such denial. I was released after 19 days with "take it easy for a few weeks and no strenuous exercise for six months" which means what? No one told me I'd be crying all the time, I'd be so exhausted, I'd get overwhelmed by the simplest things (my husband tossed a box of pudding into the grocery cart today and it startled me and my brain just shut down leaving me shaking after I screamed out in fear...sigh...over pudding), I'd forget things so much, and my ability to multi-task (something I have always been darn good at, tyvm) would be taken away. Cognitively I know it's better, I can count the things that are better than even a week ago. Cognitively, I know I'm lucky, blessed, even among SAH survivors as it could have been SO much worse. But emotionally I'm still ****** off at my body, I still feel a little angry (okay more than a little), I want to both tell people to leave me the *** alone and hold me at the same time. I miss my identity as the strong, with-it person who can leap tall buildings in a single bound while at the same time wanting everyone to "get" that I'm not her any more (yet still trying to act like her). I'm my own worst enemy because I can do a lot of things, but what I don't show others is that I can't do them as fast, as well, and it takes longer (although I did have a very with-it day Friday). I don't know how to be this person I am right now, but I do know I appreciate what you wrote (and apologize for hijacking the thread for my own rant).

Mine was January 29 this year!

Engaging the quads like that in mountain pose will definitely help with those knees. It also releases the hammier, and tight hamstrings can cause back issues. I am a trainer and I use yoga intermingled with strength training in my one on one sessions and in bootcamp. Today I got a 2.5 mile walk in with my husband and *drumroll* NO WALKER! Tired...very very tired and it might have been a bit too much. Tomorrow is my running class (I'm the coach) and I'll be running the water stops for them all. I am considering trying to find a tai chi class for movement and balance as I get a little further along in my recovery. Has anyone tried tai chi? I've had to give up karate for now and thought it might be an excellent alternative.

Thanks everyone! That is very helpful. You have no idea what a breath of fresh air this is! I get this halfway between "Am I just being careful or am I being lazy?" For example, I called off work yesterday after working 3 days. I could have worked, but I was starting to feel a lot of fatigue on Wed night so rather than teach bootcamp, I monitored and I stayed home Thursday knowing that I had more important things to do today. I teach IT classes and had to check off the kids' servers and virtual servers, which meant going around the room and being able to give verbal cues to check skills. I also have PT on Tues and Thurs nights and so far it's been good, but exhausting. Logically and physically it was a good choice. Emotionally I felt guilty because I "could" have made it through the day yesterday. Today I felt fabu, almost normal...headachy a little spidery in the head (that odd feeling that things are crawling on my brain), but excellent clarity. After work we walked a few miles out to dinner then back. But I can feel it now...so probably overdid it, but it's a learning experience. Still feel good about the day. Oh and driving, my doctor cleared me to drive last week but told me to use my judgement. I honestly didn't feel I should these last two weeks, but I am thinking of trying close trips.

Thanks! Yes, that was one thing that hit me...my doctor has never had the experience and so even though she can give me time frames, the ones who have been the most helpful are people who have either had this experience, nurses who have worked in neurology, and my PT (who has worked in neurology and with a lot of stroke patients). Today was SUCH a good day! i had clarity today I haven't had since pre-Spidey. I was able to get so much done! I know tomorrow might be different (I had a few hours of good clarity last Sunday night), but at least it feels like progress. I even got home with energy to spare. My husband and I walked out to dinner (without a walker, yay) and got in 2.5 miles (he held my hand so I didn't fall, but really I think it's about time to say adios to the walker). I am now pinging all over the place and very fatigued, but at least I know why! (More fatigued than I normally am after running 20 miles, but that's okay...it'll come.) This site gives me hope and there is NOTHING more blessed than a good day! I don't even mind that the walk home was in the rain!

I read a lot, and hear a lot from my PT, friends who are nurses, etc. that I need to be careful or I'll set myself back. This seems like a stupid question...but how do you KNOW what's too much? I mean I can often figure out what's too much AFTER I've done it and I'm drooling out the side of my mouth. But how have you learned to limit yourself and what happens in a "set back?" I know I feel 2x stronger this week than I did last. This weekend I want to try to drive and lose the walker, but my husband is nervous. It's been just under six weeks and it wasn't a "bad" SAH compared to others.

Thanks Sue! That is so good to hear. I feel like I just rambled in my intro mainly because it's so hard to find someone to TALK TO about this! I had a great PT session today. I started out doing some of the neuro stuff and a lady jokingly gave me a hard time because my exercises are so "easy". I know she didn't MEAN to be so thoughtless, but right now I feel like half of me wants to NOT let people know what happened, but half of me wants to wear a button that says "Not firing on all pistons so be nice". I think that's what's hard...people tell me I need to take it easy, then they ask me to do 15 things for them and if I can't they act like I'm letting them down. At any rate...the session was good. I could do things today that I could not do a week and a half ago. Strength is much improved. Balance is still off but better than it was. I'm not stumbling as much. He's going to give me exercises for my eyes, which is great! I honestly thought I would get out of the hospital and go right back to life. Unfortunately I think I gave that impression to others too. I'm just hoping I can get through the next few weeks and into spring break, relax and recoup, and then make it to summer! I've been calling mine my stroke of genius! And yes, I do feel very fortunate. I think I'm still in the overwhelmed state, though. I'm not used to feeling that way...but I know it won't last forever.

I had those spasms in the hospital too and they were HORRIBLE! At one point one of my sweet nurses was in the middle of the night rubbing my poor spasming gluteals because there was no way she could give me more pain pills. Finally they gave me enough morphine to kick it in the rear...but wow it hurt! Had my SAH on Jan 28 and am still recovering. Looking forward to putting this all behind me.

You have no idea how THRILLED I am to find this thread! I posted my story in the regular thread. Anyhow, I'm a long distance runner myself...70 marathons/ultras under my belt. I'm not fast, but I can run for a really really long time, and I love it. Right now, not quite six weeks post SAH, I feel so frustrated. Sometimes I almost feel "normal". I'll go to a bootcamp class (I teach bootcamp 2x a week) and feel awesome, but then get home and I realize I've overdone it and pay for it the next day in spades. I work full time and wish there was a way not to, but I love teaching. (I work full time as a teacher, plus I'm a fitness trainer.) It is so nice to see people talking about getting back. It's also a relief to read about the tiredness. That really freaked me out at first. I have never felt this kind of tired! I am still using a walker, as I lost about 30% strength in my left side and sometimes my left foot decides to have a mind of its own, but even that is better already. Mostly I'm using it for energy conservation. At home I hardly use it, and as long as I get up slowly and don't try bounding across the room, I don't fall any more. I'm hoping next week I can say goodbye to Laverne, the walker. She's served me well (and she's pink and has a seat for my dog...which is awesome), but I'd just as soon bid her adieu! Last week was my first week back to work and I made three days (Tues-Thurs). This week I made Mon-Wed and took today off with headache and exhaustion, but plan to go back tomorrow. Besides the running, and missing that I think the brain stuff scares/frustrates me the most.

I hope it's okay to join...I'm here in the US and it's been so frustrating to find information on SAH. I had mine on January 28. I was at a movie theater talking with a friend in the lobby, I turned to walk into the theater with my husband and suddenly WHAM! I got the worst headache of my life. I've never been a headachy person, so I was surprised. We went into the theater and I sat down. The lights were about making me want to scream, I felt like I was going to throw up. I sat head down, hands over my ears and kind of whimpered. My husband said something and I almost said "Take me to the ER". I heard him again and he said "Do you want me to take you home?" and for some reason I thought "Okay...but wait, I can have a headache here or a headache at home and at least then he can enjoy the movie." (He would NEVER have hesitated for a moment if I'd said yes.) Fortunately there weren't a lot of explosions or loud noises in "The Descendants" (although it was haunting later on when I was in the hospital). Fast forward about 6 hours later and I finally (after trying to sleep off the pain) posted on FB (after turning the brightness almost all the way down on my computer) "I have the worst headache I've ever had. Do you think it's a migraine?" A friend, who is an EMT in New York, text-bullied me into going to the hospital, so I went out and asked Roy (the husband) to take me. Even after I went in I felt like an idiot, thinking that I was overreacting. I sat in the ER with a hood pulled over my head like the unibomber and kept wanting to say "Let's just go." I was in the hospital for 19 days with a non-aneurysmal sub arachnoid hemorrhagic stroke. The hardest part, at the time, was when the doctor told me she'd be keeping me 10-14 days because I'm EXTREMELY busy. I am a full time high school IT teacher in a technical high school. I run a small business as a personal trainer. I had just started FIVE fitness classes. I have no employees so it's all me and any intern who needs a spot to learn the ropes. I teared up because all I could think was, "I don't have time to be in the hospital!" I was in a LOT of denial. I literally thought I'd bounce out and get right back into running. I don't recall much from the hospital, but I THOUGHT I was fine and any funky feelings were due to all the medication. They had me on. I remember having horrible spasms and bad headaches. Prior to this I would get up in the morning at 4:50. My husband and I would work out (okay I would MAkE him work out). I'd go to work as a teacher, come home and run 4-8 miles and then two nights a week teach an awesome bootcamp. On the weekends I coach two running classes; one for new runners so I'd run 2-3 miles with them, then one for marathoners/halfers and I'd run from 10-20 miles with them. Sunday often a race, or Saturday and Sunday a race (marathon or 50k or both). I slept 4-6 hours a night with no problems. At night while watching TV I'd work with one-on-one clients (I do weight loss support for clients around the world). I'd check food journals, set up websites, talk people out of the cookie jar or cheer my brains out for weight loss. I'm used to having 10 balls in the air at a time. I love LOVE my life. I have a fantastic husband, I am a good teacher, wonderful wife, have a ton of awesome friends, and I had at the height of my fitness, a SAH stroke. Six weeks tomorrow (Saturday) from my SAH. I am still dealing with headaches (although they are getting better this week...they're still nasty). My brain feels like it "short circuits" all the time. Multi-tasking? Forget it. Exercise? Physical therapy wipes me out (although I'm still teaching bootcamp...some days I can mostly keep up but other days I have to just supervise the class). No running at all. I am walking when I can, but most days I don't have the energy to even do that. I'm learning my gas tank is about 1/4 of the size it was. Even if I feel good, the next day I'm ready to pass out. I went back to work full time the week after I got out of the hospital and I know it was too soon, but it's a bell I can't unring now because I had to have sick leave donated for the hospital stay and HR won't award me any more (even though I had more than enough donated to me...we're still fighting it). I don't know how to slow down gracefully and bow out of things I'm dealing with. The support from friends and family is absolutely amazing. I am so blessed. I get that I'm blessed to be alive. I understand it could have been worse. But I'm having a very hard time accepting this "new normal". I want to know how long it will last (I know no one knows that for sure). I am tired of feeling like I'm not really "me". I worry about how long I can depend on the kindness of others. I miss driving, but worry about how tired I get and my brain "rebooting" while driving in traffic. I want to run...I had a goal of a 100 miler and half ironman this summer with a full IM next. I feel like I'm whining and that makes me feel guilty. I'm home from work today because I'm tired, have a headache, and when I evaluated what day I could miss better; today or tomorrow, I realized I need to evaluate the skills of my kids tomorrow so I'd better be there to make sure they're where I want them to be. That makes me feel guilty. I want to talk about how I feel, but don't want to sound like a whiner. A lot of this has been completely fascinating, some has been wonderful, other stuff has been maddening. I'm just not used to being "tired" like this and I'm still learning how to go about my day without using up all my gas. Anyhow...that's me in a nutshell and I am so happy to find others dealing with this and am looking forward to insight and wisdom!