A lot has happened in 2012. The biggest event being of course my brain surgery, closely followed by our move to Regina. One year ago, I definitely would not have predicted either of these things, and they have changed my life so much. It is almost hard to reflect on the past year as it seems like I've been through three lifetimes in that span. But I will try (and will attempt not to re-use too many photos I have already posted, though some will be repeats).
January gave us snow in Seattle, back when snow and cold weather were rare events in my life.
Jeff in front of our house stepping in my footsteps so as not to disturb the snow too much.
Then February brought spring-like weather:
Kite-flying at Gasworks Park
In early March, I had a new brain bleed, and was not feeling so well. Despite my symptoms, I was able to keep doing my normal activities.
After finishing the Mercer Island half-marathon
In April, all sorts of things were happening. I was waiting on second opinions about surgery, Jeff was negotiating one job offer and waiting on a second. Then when we were at a friend's wedding in Las Vegas, Jeff got his official offer at University of Regina.
At the wedding
In early May, I was sitting on a job offer in Honolulu, interviewing in Regina, and getting more doctors' opinions about surgery. By late May, Jeff and I had both accepted jobs in Regina, and I had a surgery date. We visited Oregon over Memorial Day weekend, as we weren't sure when we'd have another chance.
At the Oregon coast.
June is when things got crazy. We went hiking on June 10th knowing that this would likely be our last northwest hike before moving to the flat prairie, and needing to do something distracting and relaxing.
On the trail to Lake Serene
Then three days later I had surgery, and I woke up feeling like my life had completely changed. Before surgery I was afraid of the unknowns, but after surgery it felt like there were even more unknowns. I was physically pretty bad off, and I had no idea what problems would remain and what would get better.
After surgery
Through June and July my recovery began, and I worked hard. There were many ups and downs, and my initial recovery was emotional, frustrating, and slow, but it also felt good to be making progress. By the end of July I could walk about 400 feet with my walker.
My last PT session before going home
Then in August, I was discharged from the hospital and a week later we moved to Regina. At that time I still needed a wheelchair to get around, even in the house, and I needed help to get dressed, get to the bathroom or shower, or even get from the wheelchair to the couch. With all that, it's no wonder I have a hard time remembering our first weeks in Regina.
At Kiwanis Park, a few blocks from our house
In September, I started settling into my job, and tried to get a feel for my new town, but my memories of that time are still a blur. I started venturing out of the house for short trips with the walker, trying to rebuild my endurance. This picture is a bit misleading, because at that time I wasn't actually walking without someone right there ready to catch me. I was able to stand still on my own long enough for Jeff to get a picture.
At Kinsmen Park, a few blocks from our house in the opposite direction
In October, I started feeling a bit more like myself. At work, I was actually starting to do some work, and by mid-month my walking had improved enough that I was mostly leaving the wheelchair at home and just using the walker. I was finally back in physical therapy, and seeing that it was making a difference. My vision suddenly improved, which was a huge relief, and made a lot of things easier.
Celebrating the return of my vision with a brownie sundae at Dairy Queen
November came with continued physical improvements, more engagement at work, and energy left for occasional fun times.
With Jeff's siblings and their partners
In December I have felt more and more like myself. Walking gets easier and
easier, and while it may still be a while, I can see that one day I will
be walking without assistance again. Jeff and I went to Eugene on
December 21 and returned last night. We enjoyed visiting with friends,
eating some of our favorite foods, and holiday festivities with my
family. I also successfully completed my 5k, and was even much faster
than I predicted, finishing in 1 hour 21 minutes.
Eugene Holiday Hustle 5k at the finish line
And tomorrow starts a whole new year. Of course we can never predict the future, but if I were a betting woman, my money would be on better health and calmer times ahead. Happy New Year and best wishes for 2013!
I am always a big fan of Christmas, and this year I am especially looking forward to it. Going home, seeing my family, visiting friends, and being in a familiar place are all sounding really nice right now. Not that there is anything wrong with things here, just that there really is no place like home for the holidays, and this has been a particularly difficult year!
Jeff and I have finished all our shopping, put up our tree (even though we will be leaving, I've enjoyed having it up for the past two weeks), and baked cookies. For no reason that we could figure out- we followed the recipe, and that recipe has been in use at least since I was a small child- our first batch of cookies turned out so dry that the dough just crumbled. After doing some investigation, I discovered that Canadian all-purpose flour has a higher gluten content and lower moisture content than American all-purpose flour. Who knew? Also, the climate here is much much drier than anywhere on the west coast (where I have previously baked cookies) so that is also likely contributing. I adjusted the recipe slightly for the next batch, and they turned out perfectly. Knowing is half the battle.
Last week was full of medical appointments. I had an evaluation with an occupational therapist (now that I have a routine down with work, PT, and everything else, adding in OT sounds less overwhelming), an appointment with a physiatrist (rehab doctor), and an appointment with a neurosurgeon, in addition to my regular PT appointments. These appointments highlighted a few things for me. First, I have come such a long way in the past 6 months (Thursday was exactly 6 months since surgery). Second, all the doctors are optimistic about my recovery, and in another 6 months it is likely that I will be doing way better than I am now. And third, I have a tendency to "fake good" in my day-to-day life, such that even Jeff doesn't realize how impaired I still am in some areas sometimes. Experts doing evaluations are able to force me to show my deficits, whereas most of the time I am able to hide some of them by using compensations and work-arounds.
There are pros and cons to faking good. On the plus side I am doing my job, keeping an upbeat attitude, and making it so that others are not so uncomfortable being around me. On the downside, very few people in my daily interactions realize how hard I am working or how difficult it is for me to accomplish seemingly simple tasks. And by avoiding doing some of the things that I have the most difficulty with, I don't get practice with them, so they improve more slowly. I am also able to trick myself into thinking I'm doing better than I am sometimes, so this week's appointments were a little rough because there are many neurological tests I still fail, which is discouraging. It's hard sometimes to strike the right balance between acknowledging what's wrong and recognizing what's going well or improving. Too much focus on either side is a problem. I think I generally do a pretty good job walking that line, but it is hugely challenging.
Over Christmas, my plan is to focus more heavily on how much I have improved. My family hasn't seen me in over four months, and they were around to see how bad off I was right after surgery. They will likely be impressed by the difference between then and now, and I will do my best to show off all the positive changes :)
Earlier this week I was extremely annoyed by the fact that some people are just not that smart. And I don't necessarily mean that these people have low IQs, just that they have very narrow views of the world, and assume that there is only one way to think or do things. It is seeming to come up more in this relatively insulated Canadian town than it ever did anywhere on the west coast, which is understandable (most of the people who live here have never lived outside the province), but there are certain people and agencies that I expect to do better, and I get irritated when they don't.
I am running up against a ridiculously annoying problem (series of problems, really) related to my application for licensure/registration as a Psychologist in Saskatchewan. I will not bore you with the details, but the issue is basically that there is a set of rules to follow that only really makes sense for a person fresh out of grad school (especially a person who completed grad school in Saskatchewan). There is another set of rules for psychologists who have previously worked in independent practice somewhere else in Canada. In both cases, it is expected that the applicant is currently seeing clients. The response I got when explaining that I do not fall into either of those two categories, and I am not currently seeing clients, was basically "I don't get it-- you should fall into one of the categories, and be practicing, otherwise why would you be applying for registration?" When I insisted that this was not the case, but that nonetheless I am required to register as a psychologist in order to supervise and teach graduate students in clinical psychology, the response was basically "you must be wrong." After a 30 minute conversation I finally convinced this person that I was right, but she was utterly unsure what to do with me regarding a couple of key issues. The conversation ended without any of my questions being answered.
I was so annoyed! But then I talked to one of my colleagues who explained that no one expects me to figure all this out before I send in my application. I am just expected to do my best, leave things blank if I can't make sense of them, send a cover letter explaining my situation, and expect a phone call later on from the person in charge if she has any questions. Basically, just don't worry about it, someone else will figure it out. Apparently that's how things work in this province for a lot of things-- it is small enough that people can take time to look at things on a case-by-case basis. My annoyance immediately turned to a much kinder, better feeling.
In other news, I am training hard for my upcoming 5k walk. The past few weeks I have been doing a variety of different types of walking with my walker-- fast walks, long walks, easy walks-- similar to what I would do in the past if I was training for a long run. It's paying off-- I seem to improve in some way each time. Today I went for a 1 hour and 45 minute long walk through the university buildings (7 consecutive laps around the whole indoor loop) and it wound up also being a fast walk. Faster than I have ever gone, partly related to a suggestion from my PT to make a playlist of songs with a rhythm that matches my walking speed. So I figured out that a perfect cadence for me is music that is 100 beats per minute, and made a playlist of about 60 songs that matched that. I estimate that I went about 5 kilometers, a new record for both distance and speed. That was indoors on a smooth surface, and walking on uneven outdoor surfaces will be considerably harder (the 5k will include roadways, gravel, and grass-- which may also mean mud), but I'm fairly confident I will finish!
Our potluck yesterday evening was a success-- lots of good food and good company. Unfortunately I failed to take any photos, so don't have much to post about it. So I'll talk about walking instead.
In my PT sessions, part of what we work on is walking in lots of different ways. Recently, I've been working on walking a bit with no support, using parallel bars to catch myself when I falter, and last week I made some big improvements. This is a video that Jeff took on Thursday:
My physical therapist, Lola, is the other person in the video with me. She has I think something like 30 years experience working in neuro rehab, and pushes me to work hard every session, always taking me just beyond my comfort zone. And it's working, I'm seeing improvement week to week. My journey into outpatient therapy was a bit rocky-- I went a full two months after leaving the hospital without having any therapy, related to moving, getting set up in a new healthcare system, and communication breakdowns within the system. However, after finally getting into therapy, I have been very lucky to have been paired with an excellent physical therapist, and excellent rehab facilities. No disrespect to my inpatient therapists in Seattle (who were great), but I think the rehab services available here in Regina are actually better than rehab services in Seattle. I never would have predicted that before moving, and it has come as a welcome surprise.
Part of my homework for PT is to walk (with Jeff spotting me) with forearm crutches. Here is a picture from today's walk:
This is a walkway connecting two buildings on campus-- all the main university buildings are connected in a big loop, so it's a great place to practice walking on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Note the cactus plants indoors, in contrast with the snow outside. It is currently about -7F (-22C) outside, but inside is warm and cozy. I walked a total of 40 minutes, with a break halfway through, and went probably a total of about a half mile (it's hard to measure distances inside buildings, but I estimated with this). It takes all my concentration to walk with the crutches, and afterward I'm mentally and physically exhausted.
I mentioned before that my stamina keeps improving,and that walking with the 4-wheel walker is getting easier. Well, inspired by a friend's recent blog post about doing a 5k turkey trot (that would be you, Andrew), I decided to sign up to walk a 5k while I'm in Eugene-- the "holiday hustle." I'm not sure I'll be able to finish, and if I do finish, it will take me a very long time. But I checked with the race coordinator, and since there will also be a 10k and a half marathon happening at the same time, the course doesn't close until three and a half hours after the race starts, so if I'm going to finish, it will be within that time. Jeff is going to walk with me, and maybe my mom too. It's exciting to have a new goal to work toward!
Last weekend, Jeff's brother and sister and their respective partners came to visit us to celebrate an early Christmas. For various reasons Jeff's family will be unable to convene in December so we did an early holiday celebration, consisting of food, games, karaoke (at home on a pay-per-view type channel through our cable company), going to see the new James Bond movie, a gift exchange, and having a fun and relaxing weekend. Here is a photo of us at a restaurant, just as everyone was about to head to the airport:
Caroline, Jeff, Allison, Bridget, Ray, Shuo
This coming weekend, we are hosting a potluck to celebrate American Thanksgiving, as we did to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving when we lived in the US. We invited our psychology department colleagues, and expect that we'll have 16 guests and lots of good food. Our house is quite small, so we won't have room for everyone to sit, but I don't think they'll mind too much.
It struck me over the weekend at several points that I felt "normal." At least a few times I caught myself having a good time, not thinking about my physical limitations. I didn't realize just how much of a focus this has been for me until suddenly it wasn't a focus. I think that in one way or another, every waking moment since surgery I have been thinking about my physical health, either overtly or in the back of my mind. Until this weekend. There were moments this weekend when that wasn't the case, and it felt good. I can only assume that there is more of this to come.
On a related note, Jeff and I will be in Eugene Dec. 21-30. Send me an e-mail if you will be in town and want to get together! And happy Thanksgiving!
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