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Thursday, November 30, 2006
There’s hope in the routine of life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve missed a bunch of things since I had my stroke in July.
You don’t realize how much of a routine your life really is – and how much you can miss that routine – until it’s interrupted.
For me it was actually more of a stop than an interruption.
While y’all were commuting to work, I was learning how to walk again. While you were deciding what to wear, I was learning how to get dressed and how to shower myself again.
I miss being able to work. My first morning in the hospital, I told my boss how sorry I was that I was ill and that I would return to work as soon as I could. I worried about how I would finish all the projects I had.
I didn’t realize that I would have to retrain my brain how to write, even how to speak. The information is there. I’ve been working on finding new paths to get the information from my brain onto paper.
I’ve been doing my exercises daily, going to rehab twice a week, working hard in preparation for my return to life and reality. I walk through hallways, neighborhood streets, then up and down stairs.
I can even make it to my condominium now. When I’m not staying at my parents’ house, I get to spend a couple of hours a day there, and spend the night there every now and again, watching football with my roommate or movies with some friends.
During those visits I get to see my cat. Junior the Imperious has been remarkable throughout all of this. He even manages to treat me like he knows who I am. It’s important to keep your pet fed and watered so that he knows who you are, even if your roommate spoils him too much.
I read the paper and keep up with the news, though I admit that my aches and stumbles and frustrations from working with a broken body sometimes take me away from Nancy Pelosi or the latest in Iraq.
I miss driving myself around. I’ve just started to do that a little bit again, which has made me discover something I definitely don’t miss.
Traffic.
Traffic never seems to go away. I had a respite from it when I was in the hospital. For five weeks, I didn’t even see a road.
Then I had to jump right back into driving to get to rehab, doctors’ appointments, get haircuts, go grocery shopping and take care of other errands.
They are widening Old Peachtree and North Berkeley Lake roads. There’s a new traffic light on Pleasant Hill and construction workers there are digging a road beneath the railroad tracks.
Judging from the stress I felt driving in those areas, I can only imagine what kind of pain rush hour instills in the weak of heart.
Although traffic bothers me, it has made me realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
After the stroke I felt like I was lost, but traffic makes me feel like I was never really away. It reminds me that I’m getting better because I’m getting back to my routine - even if that means I’m stuck in traffic!
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