Adam: my comeback

 Wednesday August 26th Showed up at Trillium yesterday for my cardiac procedure... SERVICE DATE???  What am I, a car 🚘 in for an oil change?  Just call me HottRod. 🔥  Woke up at Trillium Hospital this morning in the cardiology recovery room.  The procedure went well yesterday.  I was under conscious sedation, so was able to watch most of it on a huge screen in the operating room.  Pretty amazing to witness it FIRST HAND!  They put 2 catheters in my groin and one in my right wrist.  I could actually feel the one in my arm snaking through me.....creepy and cool all at once.  I watched them place the PFO Occluder in my heart.  Nice work Dr. Puley Hole patched!!  🙌  (Now i just gotta deal with the three holes left by the catheters)  Hopefully that’s the last of my strokes.  ONE AND DONE! ♥️  I’m gonna have to give the Breakfast Edge to Trillium over Oakville Hospital... Believe your Eyes.....PORK SAUSAGE! 🐖...

 Monday August 24th I do, thanks. It has been so great to be home. I spent the weekend relaxing at home with the family by the pool.  Today was my first day dealing with some in-home therapy.  I also went to a local physiotherapy clinic that specializes in Neuro Physio.  I will be going there to supplement my outpatient therapy. Tomorrow is a big day in my recovery. I’m going to Trillium hospital in Mississauga to have my PFO closure procedure done. I will be staying there overnight and then hopefully home Wednesday morning.  It is a routine cardiac catheterization procedure for which I will be under conscious sedation.   Nothing to worry about.  🙄🤞😬  Below is a short video showing the whole procedure… Pretty interesting. Definitely worth a watch. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9yx5BHRkcU&t=299s Pancake Bites tomorrow! 🥞 

 Saturday August 22nd I waited a long time for this moment.   A moment I’ll never forget.  We all cried, we all hugged, we all needed it.  Released back into the wild at 3:30 on Thursday afternoon... Jillian was there to take me home.  From the moment I went into the hospital until the moment I left, she was always there when I needed her.  I had the best welcoming committee there to greet me.  The kids made the most amazing signs and cards…  Aqua therapy has been fantastic! It has definitely been an adjustment coming home. More so than I thought it would be. The frustration of having to ask for help with everything. I mean everything.  Definitely need to take time to rest. Gone from puttering around my hospital room, to having to navigate the house and yard. Friday: A couple of errands that HAD to get done on my first full day at home… Went to the DMV with dad 😒🙄 and LensCrafters to get some new reading glasses 🤓. Not sexy but like I said...

Thursday August 20th Sometimes it’s good to look back,  in order to move forward…

 Wednesday August 19th Mama’s Boy It was mom‘s turn to visit today. Another epic hug… More tears.... It was fantastic.  😭  Last time I saw mom was in the hospital in Sault Ste. Marie when she snapped this pic of a fine looking fella... Go figure… They start allowing visitors two days before I get out.  🤷‍♂️  I gave mom the usual tour, showing her all around my bachelor apartment.  Close your eyes now if you don’t want me to spoil it for you… All part of the journey... Home while I healed. Well tonight will be night 42 in the hospital. My last night in the hospital. It’s the end of this part of my recovery.  6 weeks.  Looking back, it’s safe to say I’ve come a long way.  But I’ve still got a long way to go. I know that I’ll get there. I just have to be patient. ♥️💪 For the last time, from 4North…  Goodnight! 😴

Tuesday August 18th Let me start with the BEST part of my day… August 18th, 2020 As of today the hospital is allowing a visitor a day… And it can be a different person every day.  The only member of my family that I hadn’t seen since my stroke...was my Dad!  It was so great to see him, and to hug him. I think that’s the longest we’ve ever hugged.  And as the tears streamed down my face, all I could say was “it should be me visiting you in the hospital”. 😭   👨‍👦 “Oh don’t worry...that parts still coming” he said. 😆   5 years ago today, the two of us along with Max, were on a boys camp trip.  Let’s hope that 5 years from now we’re camping together again! August 18th, 2015 But hey… Check out where my hand was in that first picture!!!  I could barely get my left hand belt high a couple weeks ago. I’m pretty pleased with myself. 😊  Dad brought me the WallStreetJournal and a lottery ticket… If I win, I’m gonna split with him 50/50.  Seems fair...

 Monday August 17th Joker on a staircase That was me today… Joker on a staircase.  I went up, and down a flight of stairs today.  Believe it or not but this is very exciting. Now I did have not one, but two spotters… LOL.  And I did have a cane. But I made it. Up and down. I have been going up and down four steps in the gym here but hadn’t attempted a full staircase yet. Now I know I’m ready for home. 🏡  Speaking of going home...It turns out my discharge date has been moved up to Thursday afternoon 🙌 because there is a large group being discharged on Friday morning. I figure if Jillian picks me up at 4 o’clock....I can catch the 4:30 GO train into the city, be at the KEG by 5:30 🍻 , dinner at Jacob 🥩 ...maybe head to 2CATS around 10...Then head to the Matador when that shuts down.  🙄 KIDDING!  I can’t wait to GO HOME!   Thanks for dropping off lunch this weekend, Johnny!  🍆  On a completely unrelated note, I wore shorts with a butt...

 Sunday August 16th 36 nights.   36 straight nights i’ve spent in the hospital...5 more to go.   That’s 36 nights not at home. 36 nights not at home with Jillian.  36 nights not tucking the kids into bed.  Those first few days after my stroke were like a blur. Just trying to figure out what had happened, how things were going to change, and what lay ahead of me.   Through all of it, Jillian was incredible. In ‘crisis mode’ as she put it. Driving the RV back to the SOO.  Calling for back up help, getting the kids settled in the hotel in Sault Ste. Marie, at my side in the hospital.   For 36 straight days she has been right by my side.  There to hold my hand, give me a hug, or encourage me. We cried together....more than once.  There through all the doctor 🩺 meetings asking all the questions that I didn’t know to ask.   Bringing me dinners, bringing me lunches, bringing me coffees ☕️, bringing me snacks.  She brought me a c...

 Saturday August 15th I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again… The weekends are hard. Without the daily routine schedule, there is a lot of downtime.  Too much downtime. Time to think. Think about how this happened.  Think about why this happened.  Think about how much I hate that this happened.  It’s hard. Every single day is hard. Things that are supposed to be so easy, are so hard.  I get frustrated. I can pretend that I don’t, but I do.   And at the end of a long day, Jillian arrives. Smiling like she always is, here to lift my spirits. To spend time with me. To help me heal.♥️  And then she tells me to look out the window. Somethings happening, someone’s here… here for you... #KitzbühelCrew The perfect thing to lift my spirits. They even did  JAGERMEISTER shots in the parking lot! So close I could almost taste it.   They even brought dinner… #Sottosotto From sun up to sun down, today had the full range of emotions.... 6 more sleep...

 Friday August 14th Spectacular sky this morning Another week of rehab is in the books.  Feeling really good about my progress this week. Both Melissa and Rammjot have ramped up their focus on my left arm/hand. 💪🤚 Getting my left elbow and shoulder moving feels really good now… Been pretty dormant the last six weeks or so. Still significant weakness, but the tone (stiffness/spasticity) is starting to decrease, albeit slowly, which is a good thing. This afternoon Jillian and I had a phone consultation with Dr. Puley, a cardiologist at Trillium hospital.  He will be performing the PFO closure on me on Tuesday, August 25th.  During this procedure he will implant an AMPLATZER PFO Occluder in my heart.  This is a device specifically designed to stop blood flow through the PFO. The device will remain permanently implanted.  The Occluder is made from a Nitinol wire mesh with shape memory characteristics.  Nitinol is a metal alloy of nickel and titanium. ...

 Thursday August 13th Hike along the shores of Lake Superior...Morning of July 9th. July 9 was the day of my stroke.. It was just another picture perfect day on our vacation. We went for a hike to see the pictographs on the cliffs along the shores of Lake Superior.  It was, at times, a precarious hike as you can see by the picture top right. It required all the dexterity we had… Crawling on those rocks.  I think about that day all the time. I guess mostly because it was the last day since then that we spent as a family.  It really was a perfect summer day. The sun shining, the lake was still.  Nobody knew what lay in store that afternoon. I remember the next morning waking up in the hospital. I couldn’t feel anything on the left side of my body or face. My face felt frozen. Did it look different? I pulled my phone out of my pocket, opened the camera, and put it in selfie mode… Yikes!  But it’s not so much what I remember seeing that morning looking back at ...

 Wednesday August 12th Skies before Sunrise GRASP - Graded repetitive arm supplementary program GRASP is an arm and hand exercise program for people with stroke It can be undertaken by the patient on their own as homework It is highly recommended the patient has assistance from family Grasp has three exercise levels to accommodate different levels of stroke severity The exercises are designed improve range of motion, strengthening, weight-bearing, functional tasks and fine motor skills. It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of time, but hopefully I’ll be able to eventually perform such simple tasks as putting toothpaste on my toothbrush, doing buttons up on my shirt, or taking off/putting on the lid of a jar.  As crazy as it sounds… All three of those things seem like monumental tasks to me right now. Jillian caught me hard at work on the blog in my “hospital office”.... I feel like I hit the jackpot today with my lunch… Steak Pie!  Yeah, so what if the thing was the...

 Tuesday August 11th Some funny GET WELL cards... Had a meeting today with the social worker, occupational therapist, Jillian and I. Starting to discuss my transition to home at the end of next week. Things we have to consider are outpatient treatments, extra private treatments, and other options.  Another treatment plan we are considering is hyperbaric oxygen therapy.  The hospital has an outpatient program called STEP UP, but it has been closed until just recently because of COVID-19. While we are hoping that I’ll be able to get in there when I’m ready for outpatient physiotherapy, there’s definitely a chance that there will be a delay, or a gap in my treatments that we need to be ready with a contingency plan if necessary.  Definitely want to keep the momentum going from my daily treatments in rehab at the hospital! What a difference a year makes!  Got a reminder on Facebook today.... August 11 last year was the last day of Ella softball season as they won si...