The trip to the doctor's yesterday proved more satisfactory. Although so many things depend on the individual's recovery ability, we both came back reassured that things were headed the right way & unlikely to get any worse. Progress will be slow we were assured. We're talking years rather than days here, but at least it should be in the right direction, which is something. The Fox will have to learn that old lesson known as pacing, never an easy one to learn. I've been trying to learn that for over 20 years, yet I still get caught out occasionally. Sometimes you have no choice but to persevere no matter what the consequences.
It had never occurred to me before that there were two basic types of consequence of a stroke. The most usual means that the part of the brain that sends messages to the muscles etc is killed leaving you with limbs etc that don't work. There then follows a series of rehab training/exercises trying to re-educate the brain how it had previously controlled the body.
The second sort is when a message is received from some part of the body, sent to the brain, and the brain has lost the code to interpret the meaning of the message, causing a sensory deprivation. This is what has happened to the Fox. His brain can remember the automatic series of commands to move his leg & arm. However, his brain can no longer accurately understand the environment the leg & arm is in. It's a bit like that horrible stage you feel when you've been to the dentist & had an injection. You go through a phase afterwards when the anaesthetic is half out, when your mouth feels distinctly odd. You have difficulty in finding your mouth to eat & drink without dribbling a bit. It's a similar effect here only the effect will take years rather than hours to return to normal, if it ever does.
Nothing much can be done to speed up the recovery. The doc did suggest that it is worth trying to give various sensory stimulation to the limbs eg through massage, but that's the best he could suggest. There's certainly no drugs or physiotherapy treatment he could suggest that would help. The one thing he did stress is that when it is particularly a problem, it is telling the Fox he needs to rest & so should do that.
With this in mind we're abandoning all ideas of a holiday for this year. Travelling always involves a certain amount of stress, which, at the moment, is best avoided. We may just contemplate a weekend away later on, just to see how he is progressing. I'm thinking I might try doing the driving on longer journeys, then the Fox can massage his leg if he needs to.
It's a relief to have got a clearer picture of what the problem is. We were with the GP for a long time, 20 minutes at least. He apparently reckons that, in some ways, the after effects the Fox has are harder to cope with than those of the usual stroke, more frustrating. The Fox is certainly feeling that.
I suspect it's a bit how I feel with my medical problems. I find it far harder to cope with my mental health problems than my physical one. With the latter I have something tangible to fight against, to adapt to, to learn new ways of doing things. The depression is far more amorphous. It creeps up on you when you're not expecting it, & once in it, your perceptions are screwed up with the result the brain itself isn't working properly to use as a tool to get you out of it. Much harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment