Friday, July 12, 2013

And Again

A post about spasticity again.  It is the bane of my life.  I would like to ignore it, but can't.  It makes itself known as soon as I get up in the morning and doesn't release me until I lie down at night.  I try to ignore it during the day, but it will have none of that.  That makes it mad.  It's obsessed with me, and determined to make me acknowledge its existence.

Tuesday was a sunny day here and I went outside and stretched, and exercised with my 10 pound weights. Then, in the evening Polly and I swam laps at the Y.  And how did the spasticity respond to all that?  Tuesday night I could barely move.  The spasticity was so bad on my left side, my right side was affected.  I could feel it on the right side of my neck and shoulder.   Regardless, though, I had to get up early Wednesday morning and drive to Frankfort.  I had a training on some new software Wednesday morning, a meeting with an architect who is preparing some rental housing designs for us in the afternoon, then a teleconference with a D.C consultant until 6.  I stayed overnight in Frankfort Wednesday night, then attended a meeting of the state Behavioral Health Planning and Advisory Council from 10 to 3 Thursday.  Then back to KHC to take care of a few items, then a two-hour drive back home.    Today is another work day with follow-up items from the meetings of Wednesday and Thursday.  Later today, Polly and I are going swimming again, then maybe a relaxing movie night if either of us can stay awake.

My co-workers at KHC seem to have forgotten that I had a stroke and they don't hesitate to schedule me for as many meetings and expect the same amount of work as pre-stroke.  They don't realize how fighting the spasticity tires me, because I won't let them see it.   But that has been my goal all along so I won't complain.  The way I see it, I have a decision to make about the spasticity.  I can give in to it and stop exercising and focus on relaxation and maybe some light and slow stretching, or fight it and continue to work out and swim and try my best to live the same life as I did before.  My decision is the latter.  I will fight it, knowing that it may win and some day I may become immobile and may have to quit work and adopt a whole new lifestyle.  But fighting is the only option for me.  We have to be true to our nature.

2 comments:

  1. I'm still struggling to understand the difference between spasticity, contracture, and synchronous movement. I know what the definitions are, but the feeling in my body are all mixed up! Maybe you should write to Peter Levine, because I'm guessing that he would say you are struggling with contracture.

    I talk to my family about spasticity, but I can see they have no idea what I'm talking about--not by lack of sympathy, but it's just hard to explain.

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  2. I don't really understand the differences either, and you may be exactly right, but from what I understand about contracture, I don't think that pertains to me. Even as what I'm calling spasticity got stronger on my affected left side over the last year, I continued to stretch, work out with weights and swim. So that now I have about the same strength and range of motion on my left as my right side. I don't believe that would be the case if contracture was the issue. I freely admit that I could be completely wrong.

    Below is a link to a Peter Levine artice that I believe applies to my situation. The article is actually about measures of spasticity, but it describes spasticity as varying in strength based upon the speed and frequency of movement. And that describes my experience with it and that's why I say that if I fight it, it fights back with equal or greater force. And my experience with family members is the same as yours. Recently, after describing my spasticity to Polly, she shook her head and said, "I just don't understand." My reply was, "I don't either."

    http://physical-therapy.advanceweb.com/Article/Testing-Spasticity-The-Modified-Ashworth-Scale.aspx

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