Blue Monday

Ugh, what a day. It started innocently enough. Ellie and I had a fight about what she was going to wear to day care, and I won for a change. Linda and I stopped to pick up coffee, and I walked some final paperwork over to the bank. We even stopped to get boxes from the recycling center before heading over to therapy.

Linda's therapy sessions went well. I declared that I was going to do errands during her therapy, but I stayed instead. She walked with her canes again, and it went well. Interestingly, her left leg gets tired with the canes. Forever it has been her right that was the trouble-maker. Go figure. The PT had some ideas about it.

In the afternoon, I went out to do errands. We signed the contract for our house, and the bank has everything they need. We close Friday.

The big hangup this afternoon was Linda's medications. I realized on Friday night that we don't have enough medication to last until Linda's followup on Wednesday in Columbia. No problem, her physician in Kirksville said she would write for Linda's refills. So I stopped at the office with Linda's medication calendar around 2pm and asked them to call scripts into the pharmacy.

At 4pm they hadn't called. The pharmacy called the doctor's office, but things were hectic and they were waiting for a call-back. At 4:30 I realized that my stuff would probably get done faster if I went there in person. It's harder to ignore a human person than a note. Not much harder. I think half of Kirksville must have been sick today, they were so busy. My stuff was OK'd at 5:30pm, at which time I picked up Ellie (1.5hrs late--I called) from day care and proceeded to the pharmacy. We were home just before 6:30pm.

We packed tonight, as usual. I found some special things. You sometimes do when packing. I found some junk, too (more common). Among the neat things I packed tonight were a few handfuls of Linda's handwritten manuscripts. Some date back to high school. When Linda was in the hospital last February and everyone expected her to die, I had started to make plans for these manuscripts. None of them are any good, but you learn a lot about Linda when you read them. They can't be replaced, so I prepared to get a larger safe deposit box to save them for Ellie.

I mentioned that to Linda tonight, and she said Ellie wouldn't have cared about anything silly like that. Somehow I doubt Linda is right about that.

I found journals and diaries from both of us. I kept a dream diary for a while, with really elaborate recordings of dreams I had (one even had a diagram of the setting and objects from the dream). Linda kept a teaching journal one semester. I found letters that Linda wrote to me when we were courting (Linda commented, "Wow, my handwriting was good then.").

Linda went to bed a little while ago. I helped her stretch and then sat down to fold the remaining socks from yesterday's washing. Neither of us like doing the socks, but Linda hates it way more than me.

Linda spontaneously started to cry in bed, which is to say she started to weep. Linda doesn't cry small, because of the stroke. She either doesn't cry, or she cries with gusto. She told me that she's tired of the whole stroke thing. She's tired of things being hard. She's tired of therapy. She's tired of not being able to speak and be understood. She's tired of not being able to walk, and not being strong enough to do tasks like open the door on a public restroom. She's tired of there being another hard thing right behind every skill she masters. She hates her canes, her walker, and her wheelchair.

People are amazed when they learn that Linda went from completely paralyzed to her current state in less than 6 months. It doesn't matter where you've come from. Where ever you are, you look ahead and see what you want, and it's more than you have right now.

Come to think about it, I don't think that attitude is particularly unique to stroke recovery.