Continuing with the two-year anniversary reminiscing theme, I asked Polly what was going through her mind during those first weeks after my stroke when she thought I would not walk again. As seems typical after stroke, no one told us much of anything, I guess because no one knew anything. When I was in stroke ICU, she could see that I wasn't even capable of sitting up, but she wasn't that upset, because she thought that when I got to the inpatient rehab facility, they would get me up and running laps around the hallways. But after a week there and I still needed two staff to help me transfer from the bed to a wheel chair, she drastically adjusted her expectations. Especially after the staff discussed with her that I might be a better candidate for a nursing home than a rehab facility.
Polly said that as she pushed me in my wheelchair around the hallways, and outside if the weather was nice, "I just kept repeating to myself that I can do this. If this is what the future will be like for us, so be it , I can do this." Polly believes in the power of prayer, so she said she prayed, "Please let me bring him home, in whatever condition he is in, just please let him come home so I can care for him."
Polly was prepared to be my caregiver, no matter how hard, no matter how long, no matter the cost to her. But thankfully she didn't have to face that future. I attribute my rapid recovery to characteristics of my stroke: hemorrhagic, small in size, no vital areas of the brain affected, but she believes that God intervened to deliver me from living out my days lying in a bed. I know what I believe, but I would never claim that I know the absolute truth.
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