Stroke at 57. Our story of recovery.

Today, we celebrate our 31st Wedding Anniversary. We met in August of 1986 and were married on July 1, 1988.  How'd we meet?  Michael had just gotten a job at the Menifee School District as a music teacher. He visited the doctor's office, where I worked, for his required TB test. He caught my eye, so I made sure I talked with him when he returned two days later to have his test read. (negative...I made sure...lol)  Since he had just moved here from New York, I offered my services as his personal So Cal tour guide. Being bold pays off, I guess. 😉 Anyway, the rest is history.   These past 15 months has been difficult, to say the least, but our love has grown stronger. We appreciate every moment now. We get to spend more time together than we ever thought possible. But truly, we like it that way. 💓 To celebrate, we took a bike ride around the neighborhood, (I rode my bike. I usually trail him in the cart) Then went out for an early dinner and took ...

Things are going well. I haven't posted in a couple of weeks because there are not many changes, really. M continues to hone his skills and is still moving forward. He has not had any "plateauing" which sometimes happens. If plateauing should occur, be assured we will just up the goals. He is still determined to improve as much as possible and his attitude is amazing! It's been exciting to see his progress over these 15 months, so posting has been easy until now. Therefore, I will begin publishing an update on the first of the month and post photos and anything exciting that's happening. That way we can still keep updating our friends and family who continue to check this blog. In the meanwhile, feel free to email me if you'd like to check in.  ⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕ Father's Day with Ben and Jake was fun. Jake and M went to the putting green and I got this super cute pic of them.  Happy Summer to you all. 💗

For my birthday last weekend, Ben and Jake treated M and I to a movie and dinner in Newport Beach. The theater was very neat as it had fully reclining seats. We saw John Wick 3. It was awesome being with the guys and we had a great time. (thanks Ben & Jake!) M is walking quite a bit better recently. As a matter of fact we saw some neighborhood friends while out this week and they did not even recognize us. That's a huge compliment! Lol I haven't had to purchase liquid thickener now for about 6 months. M will still choke occasionally with water, or any other liquid when his head goes back too far or he swallows too much air. But it seems his swallowing issues in general are a thing of the past. Yay! Here is a pic of all of the measuring spoons we used for the thickener liquid. Each spoon was in a huge container. Wow! He was getting so sick of that stuff. I have been looking back at photos and blogs from a year ago. It's amazing how much progress he has made...

Time continues to fly by! We recently returned from a 2 night trip with my mom to Riviera Oaks Resort in Ramona (just northeast of San Diego in the hills). We had a great time visiting with her and my brother, Greg, who lives in San Diego and came up and joined us. We were especially happy to see our niece, Tabitha (Greg's daughter) who drove up from Murrieta to spend the day with us. We took some great walks and we played pool with Greg & Tabitha. M used to be quite the pool shark prior to his stroke. Wanting to play was unexpected, really, but I was so happy he gave it a go. Well....in his usual form, he sunk a few balls in a row. He says he "sucked" but he is STILL much better than me. Before Greg headed back to San Diego, he told me that he and Tabitha were discussing "Uncle Mike" and decided he is even funnier than ever. And he could see that M was much more understandable than ever. Both of those observations made me so happy. I know M has be...

We had a nice week of activity here in Four Seasons. We went on a couple of 1.25 mile hikes and capped the week off with a 2.2 mile through the cottonwood trees. You can see the cottonwood seeds floating through the air and landing on the ground. Here in the first pic they were backed up against a retaining wall looking a lot like snow. Luckily we don't appear to be allergic to them. M and the cottonwood seed "snow" Just another beautiful path in Four Seasons.

Playing the guitar has been a bit intimidating for M to do because he was worried he could not do it. His right hand seems to improving in becoming more responsive and quicker (remember, he has strength, it's a coordination issue on the right side). Well, a couple of days ago I brought out the guitar and asked him to give it a try.  He used a pick and was able to strum out some pretty good sounding tunes. It's a start at least. 😃 His biggest complaint was that his left hand fingers hurt due to pressing the strings to create his chords. He used to have callouses there, but after over a year of not playing he's back to soft fingers. Hopefully he will want to keep trying and get back some of the ability he had before the stroke. He was really awesome! 🎵

This week we ventured to the high desert and visited Big Morongo Canyon Preserve for a hike. We had never even heard of it before, but our friend Jeff, had been up there a few times recently. What a surprise to see this pretty oasis. We heard more birds than we saw, because the trees are all leafed out, but did see a Summer Tanager which has pretty red feathers. I didn't get a very good picture of it. (see below) Nice tail feathers tho. LOL  While up in the high desert we went to Pioneertown . It was really an interesting and cute old western town built in the 1940s to look like an 1880s town. You can click on the link to see more. It was fun wandering around for a short visit. Today, May 2, is our one year "homecoming" anniversary. The day Michael came home from the hospital and our post-stroke life began. He has come a long way. We BOTH have come a long way, actually. ❤ Such a beautiful day for a hike in the high desert! M and Jeff. The Summer...