Home > Blog

Today, Ben needed to go into Boulder to replace his sunglasses (which he lost yesterday, AGAIN) and pick up his drycleaning, and *I* went along to buy myself a present. I treated myself to a GameBoy DS, the newest model, and two games … Tetris DS, and BrainAge. I’ve read about BrainAge, and it’s supposed to be a fun way to exercise your mind. And it is … but it’s really HARD. There’s a game where you “play” math facts, and write the answers on the right hand side of the screen. (The GameBoy has stylus like a PalmPilot.) My handwriting is often illegible to the computer. :( My brain age is … 64. I hope I get better at it!

Here’s Bonzo looking at me from my from the deck during my parents’ visit:

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve written! Sorry! I don’t have much to say about the interim, except that you didn’t miss much. It’s been pretty boring around here.

My family came to visit this week. I can’t believe that, either; they took their vacation to come and TAKE ME TO DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENTS. Sigh. They came to ALL of them — doctors and therapists. They even came to my session with Mark (my counselor). However (to my surprise) they were well-behaved at ALL of my appointments. Hooray! :)

We had doctor’s appointments the first three days that they were here, and today we had a free day! So we went tubing! Again! We had a couple of problems, including under-inflated tubes. That’s my fault. I filled them up full at the gas station, and then when we submerged them, they just didn’t cut it. My dad was sinking. I don’t know what happened — could it be the water temperature reducing the pressure? :( Then, when dad went down the first waterfall, his hat fell off and he lost his glasses. After that, he chose to walk along the edge of the river instead of floating down it. Meanwhile, my sister and I (well, mostly me) we dodging boulders. Oh, my butt! It hurts! However, despite our challenges, we had a good time. It was a beautiful day to go tubing; we had scattered clouds and it was about eighty degrees. Perfect in our wetsuits! (Yes, we looked cool!)

I haven’t posted in a while. I’m not sure why not. I’ve been pretty tired these past few days, and I haven’t been doing anything interesting. Sigh.

On Saturday, our church held a “Guyer Garden Picnic.” The Guyers are anchors of the community, now elderly and not doing so well. We’ve established the “backyard” of our church in their honor. To raise money for the landscaping, we held a pig pickin’ … MMmmm! About 120 people showed up (a lot for Nederland), the barbershop quartet sang, so did a local folk band, and we ate … a pig. It was gooood.

On Sunday we had about a half dozen people over to our house for a “Northern Colorado Reefkeeping Club” meeting. Ben got a bunch of meat to BBQ and cleaned out our tank, and we were good to go. One of the people who came brought his daughter, and she was SO sweet. She was just three years old. We went for an “adventure” in our backyard from which Elena never wanted to return. Argh. It’s frustrating — I LOVED this kid, but I didn’t have the energy to play with her the way I wanted to. Still, though, she seemed to have a good time.

Today I went to the rheumatologist. He said that I don’t have anything that could cause a stroke — no lupus or anything like that. I knew that, but it was good to hear from “the man who knows”. They did, however, take a vial of blood “just to be safe.” Only one vial, though — hooray!

I’m sorry for belaboring my sequelae in my previous post. However, thank you to those who responded (via comments or email); I REALLY appreciate it! It makes a big difference to me that people are willing to help me through this. I feel much better now; I have no idea whether it’s because I’m doing anything different or because of the Zoloft, but we’ll just wait and see on that.

I got my custom earplugs on Thursday. They look like hearing aids. I have two levels of sound control: 15 dB and 25 dB. 15 dB is for wearing anywhere, and 25 dB is for loud places like the supermarket. So far, they are fantastic. They’re not magical, but they DO help … for instance, I wore them to church today, and I made it through fellowship without panicking like I usually do :)

Did you watch the World Cup? I did! It was good! However, I’m disappointed that Zidane head-butted one of the Italians. What was he thinking?!?! I was almost routing for the French side because of him, and then he did that … and then I was back to routing for the Italians :)

WARNING: this is going to be a sad/angry/”I hate the world” post.

I am sick and tired of having a stroke. It is SO FRUSTRATING. Most people don’t even know what the symptoms are (me included, pre-September ‘05). What are my symptoms, you ask? It’s difficult to say! I asked Melissa today what was the matter with me. She had a couple items:

1. I have trouble with my voice. The pitch is very high and I don’t have the energy to say things forcefully (like “Stay down, Bonzo!”).

2. My memory isn’t so good.

3. I’m exhausted.

4. I was incontinent in the hospital. Fortunately, this has resolved itself (much to Ben’s relief!).

5. My core muscles are weak. I’m going to cardiac rehab to fix this, but it’s slow.

6. My aphasia has been slightly worsened. (I don’t actually know if this is actually aphasia, but … instead of forgetting words, I can’t think of anything to say. Like when trying to explain what “geologic mapping” is … I completely blanked out. I KNOW what it is, but I can’t say it.)

7. My attention has gotten worse. It sucks. I can’t do anything (except watch TV) for more than, like, 20 minutes before getting bored and doing something else.

8. I’m more sensitive to sound.

9. I can’t write anything by hand. I don’t know why; it just gets really small. I’ve tried to talk myself out of it, believe me; “Write bigger!” I chant, but to no avail.

10. I can’t sleep. I’ve “fixed” this with Lunesta, but I don’t like medicating just to sleep. I’m tired; why can’t I just go to sleep?

11. I have “emotional lability”, which means that (for me) I laugh instead of cry. Which sucks if something bad has happened; other people just don’t understand if you break out laughing.

And this affects the way I act …

1. I look sloppy. I don’t have enough energy to shave my legs. I get ugly zits, presumably because I’m no longer on birth control. I’ve gained ten pounds.

2. I suck at going to weddings. And casinos. Basically, I suck at anything loud, or busy, like a city.

3. Because I’m sensitive to sound, I need to roll the windows up. No more driving with them rolled down.

4. I sleep for ten hours a night. That’s a REALLY LONG TIME.

5. I don’t have the energy to clean out the garage, clean the house, or do any of those “necessary” chores I used to.

6. I’m no longer an “organizational Nazi”. I used to LOVE being organized; not anymore! I mean, don’t get me wrong — I like to be organized. But the energy to GET there is out of my league. I know let crap pile up on the table until Ben declares that it’s too messy. Ben’s messiness threshold is terrible. It’s embarrassing to wait until he complains about it to do anything; and even then, I can’t always do anything. A lot of times, I’m too tired.

7. I’m out of shape. :P The people at cardiac rehab won’t even let me go jogging; I have to “run in intervals”, they say. That means walk for three minutes, run for one, and “see how you feel”.

8. I can’t do two things at once, like talk on the phone while I surf the web.

The sucky thing about this is I don’t know if I’ll be able to teach. I WANT to. But will I have the energy? Will I be able to yell when necessary? Will I be able to write (by hand)? Will I be able to (type) write long things? Will I be able to explain things, on the spot, in front of an entire class? I DON’T KNOW!!! Several people — like Karen, my OT (occupational therapist) and Cindy, the disability services person I met with yesterday — have let me know of their doubts. It’s like my whole future is disintegrating. And yes, I am depressed about it.

Who wouldn’t be depressed? I would like to take any Caltech student, hit them with three strokes, and see what happens. If you couldn’t pay attention to anything long enough to do science anymore, would you be OK? If you were told that going to teacher school would be too challenging for you, would you be mad?

I started seeing Mark, a “medical social worker” (i.e. psychologist) last week. One of the things I said was that I don’t feel like there’s been any organic change in my brain that’s suddenly making me depressed. I’m just depressed because I’m tired of having to deal with this. I just want it to go away. I’d like my old life back. Mark said that most people can tolerate about four months of “suckiness” before their sadness turns into real depression that medicine can help — and that I’ve been dealt a double whammy because I’ve suffered two strokes.

I am, as of a week ago, now taking Zoloft. So far, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything, but Ben has noticed that I don’t cry as much. (Fantastic, I said. But then why don’t I feel better?) I ramp up to a full dose tomorrow, and I hope that it works. Oh God, I hope that it works.

What should I do? Please, tell me — do you have any nice, quiet career ideas for me? Are you in need of a handicapped person to come and tend your garden? Do you think I need to just “buck up”?

Last week, the University of Colorado held a large conference and a lot of my friends from mechanical engineering came :) I arranged to host a dinner on Wednesday; Sam, Erin, and Nathalie could all be there. Then Sam had to leave Boulder due to a family crisis, so we swapped her for Tamer and Kaushik. Anyway, it was really fun, and … I did well! Wednesday turned out to be a hectic day; I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and three therapies in the afternoon. Gasp. Also, the final appointment I had was cardiac rehab, which tires me out in a jiffy. I had a legitimate fear that by suppertime I would be completely and utterly exhausted. I think I did well, however! (At least I hope so!) Afterward, I discussed my “performance” with Ben; I’d had some trouble finding words, I told him. He said that he didn’t notice that, but that the pitch of my voice was sometimes confusing. A simple comment could be mistaken for condescention. However, he said that he was impressed by my ability to maintain a conversation about dunes research; I wouldn’t have been able to do that a month ago. :)

I accompanied Nathalie to the Great Sand Dunes National Park on Friday. I was quite apprehensive about going … What if I couldn’t make it to the top? What if I got into one of my “completely, horribly tired” modes, where I stare into space and say nothing? What if I have another stroke?

However, Ben encouraged me to go, and I went. I’m glad I did! None of my “worse case scenarios” actually occurred, and I had a good time. We drove down and got a hotel room on Friday. I got my ten hours of sleep, and then we went to the dunes. Ugh … climbing the dunes was hard. My heart rate monitor (which I wore during the climb) showed 196 bpm … is that normal? It seems really high. (Which wouldn’t be inconsistent with the rest of my readings, but …) The dunes didn’t boom. The sand at the top seemed pretty packed, though, so it’s not surprising. They did, however, burp, and we confirmed with a ranger at the visitor’s center that they do boom sometimes. :)

I arrived home very tired but smiling. I did it! I climbed the dunes. Moreover, I feel like I could actually DO some of the research, which hadn’t occured to me before. I don’t want to anymore; I’m happy helping Nathalie. But it is nice to feel that I’m capable :)