Stroke at 57. Our story of recovery.

We have had such beautiful weather for walking and enjoying the outdoors.  Highlights from May include: * Daily walks on the trails, including a night walk with Ben and Jake. *Meeting our new nephew, Silas, for the first time. 😍  *Discovering a hummingbird nest in our yard. It's the simple things make us very happy these days. 

We are still following the Safer at Home order, which worked out well with the most of the first half of the month cold and rainy. The second half brought temps in the 80s and even 90s. We enjoyed walking in the neighborhood and riding our cart, even between raindrops. Michael is doing well. We are still seeing small improvements here and there. I know it doesn't seem like much, but this entire time he has been unable to snap with his right hand (affected by the coordination disruption of the cerebellar stroke area) Just yesterday we were cruising in the cart blasting some Frank Sinatra and he snapped like a boss. It was very exciting! Small steps. 👣 Ben and Jake came over for a couple of days (they both are both fortunate enough to work from home) and we celebrated Jake's 24th birthday with brownies and ice cream. Doesn't get better than that.. our boys AND chocolate? Score!! Braving the cold between raindrops. A pic by our friend/neighbor, Linda, who went ...

Wow. Wasn't March the longest month ever? It seemed to drag on and on. But here we are. April. We passed our two year mark since Michael's series of strokes. It came and went without little notice, as our thoughts are more with the millions of people who are affected by COVID-19. We cannot fathom the pain and suffering so many people are experiencing. It's heart-wrenching. March 26th was Michael's official last day of "work" as he had been on the district payroll until then. We are so grateful for the dozens of his colleagues who collectively donated just over a year of sick leave so we could postpone the inevitable for as long as possible. Now we are a couple of retired folks! Not quite in the mood to celebrate, as this was not exactly entered into under ideal circumstances. But we have had two years of practice and we enjoy our carefree days. We have already perfected the art of napping...that's for sure. All our facilities here are closed, s...

Our biggest accomplishment for the month was a 2.7 mile walk. That is the farthest we have gone yet!!  Besides that feat, February was mostly uneventful for us. Michael began feeling dizzy toward the end of the month, and since dizziness was a symptom of his initial cerebellar stroke, we didn't want to chance it. So, we spent 10 hours in the ER of Kaiser Fontana. Most of the time was spent waiting for an MRI and the the review of the MRI. They did a thorough work up and even consulted with his Neurointerventionalist who is at the same location. They all agreed the dizziness was not stroke related as all of his tests came out great. They are not sure what is causing it exactly, but gave him some motion sickness medication to help until the episodes pass. So we have been taking it easy for several days now and will resume our regular schedule when he isn't experiencing feeling like he's on a ship on the rough ocean. We enjoyed NBA All Star Weekend with Ben and Jake, watchin...

January was a fun month. Michael and I joined my mom and my oldest brother, Terry, to watch the taping of two Jeopardy episodes in Culver City. It was a fun experience. Michael and I had a method of squeezing each other's hand once if we knew the answer, and twice if we answered correctly in our head. We had zero accidentally shouted answers! So yay! LOL  It was cool seeing Alex Trebek in person. He spoke during breaks and took questions from the audience. He looked pretty good despite his current struggles with pancreatic cancer. And wow is that man sharp! A very impressive, yet super down to earth celebrity. Michael celebrated his 59th birthday on the 18th. The boys came over for the weekend and Jake treated us to a nice birthday dinner. LOVE those guys! We went bird watching at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area with our friend Jeff. We saw so many birds even before we got out of the car. It was really cool! One of the birds was a juvenile bald eagle sitting on top of a telephone...

We had a very busy December full of fun activities. Family gatherings, parties with our Four Seasons friends, community holiday shows, Christmas Karaoke, viewing Christmas lights with our other golf cart friends on a 45 degree night...we had a great time! Hope you had a good season as well. Happy and Healthy New Year to all!!  Celebrating New Years Eve at our friend's party  Our Christmas cart Lunch at the bistro Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the boys and mom ONE OF MY HIGHLIGHTS: Our great-nephew got a guitar for Christmas. M helped him tune it up learn a chord or two. M looks forward to helping Logan again in the near future. It was awesome for both of them. 

The highlight of the month was meeting our new great niece, Addie for the first time. She's the only girl great we have so far. Nothing like holding a baby to make you smile. She is precious and her mommy and daddy (my niece Kelsey and husband Jon) are great parents. We got to spend Thanksgiving with them as well. My brother Tim and sister-in-law Tammy hosted us up in Yucca Valley. (super yummy!!!) Speaking of Thanksgiving, it snowed in the morning! It was awesome. Ben and Jake were here so they got to share in this rare occurrence with us. It was snowing up in Yucca Valley too and it was an adventure driving up to the high desert. Michael spent so much time in the snow in his youth, he wasn't quite as impressed, but for us Southern California born and raised folk, it was a treat. We had some shorts weather earlier in the month, but lately we've been indoors with the cooler weather. We continue to go to the gym and Michael is enjoying working with his personal trai...