Stroke at 57. Our story of recovery.

We are doing well. Our indoor facilities are still not open, but hopefully that will change soon as more of us get immunized and hopefully get Covid under control. Then we can continue going to the gym and I can line dance. In the meanwhile, we take lots of walks and cart rides when the weather cooperates. As you can see by the pic below we had some snow at the end of January. That was a treat!  Ben and Jake come and visit a weekend each month, so that is always a highlight for us.  They are both doing great.  

Me and my guys on a Christmas Day walk. Wow! Time is just flying by. I haven't updated the blog for a long time, so I figured maybe I should post something to let you know we haven't disappeared. Honestly, not much has been going on so there hasn't been anything to report. We all have remained healthy, so that's good. Hopefully with the Covid 19 immunization being administered soon we can start having some fun before too long.  Michael spends several hours a day writing middle grade fiction. Writing is one of the things he enjoyed before his stroke. He has written a few books now and we have made them available on Amazon Kindle. He was super happy to see his works self-published. One copy was purchased by someone in the Netherlands. Lol  The titles are: "I Never Wanted to be a Spy" "I Never Wanted to be a Pirate" and "We Never Wanted to be Superheroes"  They are super fun. He did a good job. Please stay safe, friends. ❤️

Hi friends and family. I haven't posted in a couple of months. With COVID-19 peaking here in California, we have been laying very low. Walking when not too hot, and riding the cart in the evenings -- maybe a trip to Starbucks -- but mostly staying put in our community. Father's Day was nice. Ben and Jake came out to see their awesome dad, of course. Our Anniversary was on July 1. Wow! 32 years. Despite the pandemic, our community had its 4th of July parade. There were golf carts, classic cars, trucks, jeeps and even a couple of bike riders. I think there were more in the parade than watching on the streets. I'm guessing there were nearly 100 vehicles in total, with several people in each vehicle. My mom came with us again like last year and we had a great time. As I write this, there is a large fire on the mountains near our house. It started about 7 miles away and has consumed a few thousand acres. It's been interesting watching the aircraft making their drops of Phos-...

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...