Monthly Archives: August 2017
stroke update 4
Hi, good news, they sent me home on monday 21st August, three weeks and 5 days after being admitted to hospital with left side weakness in my arm and leg. Bad news I have the attention span of a goldfish 🙂 I actually wrote this about 5 days ago then forgot to post it.
Monday morning the physios had me walking on a treadmill, and decided that I could walk unsupervised, by 4 pm the early release team had an opening for me, by 7.30 the pharmacy had produced my pills and Simon had arrived to take me home.
Part of me would rather have stayed in an extra day, to be going from being ok to walk unsupervised but with medical staff on hand to home with Simon in 10 hours was a bit daunting. I would have liked to have been given the opportunity to say goodbye to some of the Paglesham Ward staff who had supported me and the Physio staff who made learning to walk again more fun than it probably should have been (Artie I would like my £100 note now).
I am home now, still getting tired in the afternoon, and having a slight headache, I need to go back to the hospital 6 weeks from the stroke to have another MRI, the swelling and residual bruising will have gone down by then. The Doctors are hoping that this will show why it happened.
The early release team is in place to give me support for up to 6 weeks after leaving hospital, they have been to see me and given me a set of exercises formulated to strengthen my left side, I can walk up and down stairs easier every day and even cooked dinner Friday, even though it was only Chilli.
Stroke update 3
Three weeks from the stroke and the doctors are still no closer to finding out what caused it. Tuesday after a good day with physios I had a seizure, which could just be part of the healing process, it isn’t uncommon after a head injury to have a fit. It lasted 2mins I came out of it without medical intervention and didn’t lose consciousness, at least I don’t think I did, I remember the questions and them using the hoist to put me into bed.
I think I have surprised the physios. When they left on the Friday I still couldn’t lift my foot then by Monday I could walk holding a hand. I now just need supervision, but it means I can walk to the toilet and have a shower, which is always a bonus.
Friday just gone I had a home assessment which meant that instead of physiotherapy at the hospital they took me home in a taxi and watched me get around at home, get on and off the bed, toilet and sofas. I also made Simon a cup of coffee, there wasn’t time for me to make and drink my own hot drink. I managed the stairs ‘slowly’ and petted the cats.
Hopefully these are the first steps to getting me home.
Craftsy Class – Pattern Making for Knits the essential sloper
At the end of May Craftsy seemed to be desperate for me to spend my money with them, they sent me a ‘buy one class for £14.99’ so I obliged by picking this class.
It is a very well taught class by Judy Jackson, I wouldn’t have said that the blurb gives you a complete idea of the course, the first thing that you don’t realise is that Judy assumes that you have a body double, and brushes very briefly on what to do if you don’t have one, where as any other sloper course I have taken relies on measurements and drafting onto paper, this one is more of a draping class than a sloper course.
The course starts off by describing different types of stretch fabric and how to tell how much stretch it has. You cut two pieces of fabric and and pin one to your dress form, then working on one side of the dress form you pull the fabric tight across the shoulder and under the arm. After getting this to a state you are happy with you then mark it un pin it and duplicate to the other half.
Once you have the front peice you copy that to the back peice, apparently the front and back should be close to the same size. You pin these together on your dress from and take some more markings duplicate it on the other side of the back peice. Once you have your front and back pattern peice you stitch them together and try them on your dummy and see if there are any other tweaks needed.
Once you have your pattern this is when the class comes into it’s own, it shows you how to take your sloper and create tops and dresses, the class also shows you how to take a woven pattern and turn it into a pattern for stretch fabric. At the moment I do only have one photo
Here you can see the shapeing for the front, the resulting sloper needed a lot of pulling in for the waist.
It has given me lots of ideas for future projects and I can’t wait to actually get home start trying it out.
Overall for £14.99 the class was brilliant and I hope to get a lot of use out of it.
Stroke update
Hello since ‘goals for August’ was written I have had umpteen blood tests while the doctors try in vain to discover why this has happened, no family history, no high blood pressure, no stress, not over weight. I have been prescribed a muscle relaxant and had Botox in my left bicep and pec muscles, this is to weaken these muscles to enable me to use them.
Botox in my bicep allows my tricep to start working, because the bicep wasn’t switching off, the tricep couldn’t engage. Botox in the pec muscle stops my arm from being glued across my front. The Botox was done a little over a week ago and this evening I am using both hands to type this post. Botox was done on Friday 4th, by Sunday I could hold the arm away from my body with the other arm, Wednesday I could just about get grapes to my mouth. Each morning I had a little bit more movement. Today I almost have a full range of movement, the fine motor skills still have to be worked on, but I am pretty happy with the progress.
The muscle relaxant to help with my inability to release the large muscles in my legs, apparently I am a good teaching opportunity, most stroke victims have floppy muscles, mine are fully engaged and I can’t switch them off.
Friday the physios decided to attach what looks like a tens machine to the back of my leg, She had me straighten my leg then ran a current through it then I had to practice bringing my leg back what was interesting was with the leg twitch my foot brought itself into line.
Although I still can’t make my knee work I could wiggle my toes this morning.
I feel that I am making a good recovery and can’t wait to go home, medically I’m sound, but once I leave the hospital I lose the daily access to the physios so I shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry.
More soon
Rhapsody Blouse second attempt
Post from before the stroke.
I have my second attempt at the Rhapsody Blouse by Love Notions and I will say I like this one a lot better. I made it medium across the bust and shoulders and graded down to small for the waist and hips. The sleeve options I picked were ¾ length sleeves with a flare.
It is made from a peachy coloured crinkle cotton, I have just received some dress making supplies from relatives, this fabric was from Aunt number 1, it wasn’t really big enough for the options I wanted but I wasn’t going to let that stop me, all the main parts were in one piece it was just the flare on the sleeves that I had to piece together, that and the bias binding, I needed two meters and I don’t think that any bit was longer than 10 inches, also I had to cut the inside yoke piece out of a different fabric totally.
now it has been washed you can hardly see the joins. it went together just as easily as the first time
Goals for August
Hello, as you see from my previous post Goals for August probably won’t be sewing related, by the end of August I hope regain some control of my arm and leg and if I am lucky go home, so not too much.
I already have more control of my arm hopefully it will stop turning over on its own when I stop thinking about it, My leg is already accepting more of my weight, even if I can’t direct it to do anything yet, the physios seem happy enough, I ‘walked’across physio floor yesterday i say ‘walked’ i operated my right foot, someone else moved the left one I did manage to push down into my left heel.
More later
Hospital
Hi, every one if you thought posting has been sporadic this year it is about to get worse, Wednesday evening last week 26th July after experiencing a sharp headache at about 8pm I went up stairs to work on my new dress, pictures to follow, while trying un successfully to step over Charlie (dog) a few time and being unable to make my left hand cooperate with undoing my trousers I realised there was something wrong..
Simon called an ambulance which arrived about midnight after doing some tests the paramedics notified Southend Hospital they had a potential stroke victim on the way in. This meant that I was assessed as soon as I got on hospital property. I was given a CT straight away which showed a small bleed on the brain which was restricted to one small area, unfortunately that one small area affects the use of my left arm and left leg.
Friday they moved me off the acute stroke ward and on to the ‘normal’stroke ward which means instead of hourly obs and having a bright light shone in my eyes at all hours of the day and night there is no bright lights just blood pressure temperature and blood oxegen taken twice a day. I have started physio therapy which has been complicated by my left bicep deciding not to co-operate with the tricep
I seem to have full functunality in my left hand but the wrist forearm, upper arm and shoulder not so much 😦 my left leg is starting to take some of my weight when my foot decides to co-operate
You don’t realise how much you take for granted that both arms and legs will do what you want them to do when you want them to do it.
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 