Hi Roger
Thanks for the suggestion. Obviously you would not have been aware that at the time that Jen had a stroke on 6th July, I opened my heart on the Beehive prayer pages with a daily diary of what was happening how I was feeling and how both Jen and I were dealing with it. The frustrations of not being able to go to hospital with her, the ban on visiting and being basically a delivery driver going to an fro from the hospital with clean linen, and things she needed. Initially, her speech was affected and talking to her was full of misunderstandings. Once I managed to get the two way video function operating on her phone operating and we could at least see each other face to face, her with a tube up her nose as she had lost the swallowing reflex for three weeks.
There was also the communications problems, she was at first in an acute unit at one hospital, which specialises in the initial treatment phase, than another more local hospital, still some distance away for rehab. In total she spent 29 days in hospital and another four weeks at home with daily visits by therapists of one sort or another to get her back on her feet.
Fortunately, she has made a very good recovery and actually was fit enough to return to work, part time, two days a week from the 2nd of October. She is still unable to drive until an assessment some time in the new year, so despite regaining about 80 percent of her former independence, she is still reliant on my taking her anywhere for follow up appointments.
I love her dearly and am not resentful about it all, we've been married 31 years, happily and while she has changed physically, she has retained her memories, her sense of fun and her personality is unchanged. Her speech remains slightly impaired, particularly if she has to wear a mask, but I thank God for answered prayers, as she has described the condition of many others on the stroke wards with her, who had lost enormous physical and mental capacity and whose long term prognosis was poor, and two of whom died while she was an impatient.
But the stroke highlighted ongoing health problems, particularly with her heart and she is now Extremely Clinically vulnerable to the virus. So while not locked away, she is shielding and avoiding going out and mixing unless necessary, i.e for work or medical appointments.
She never complains and she does all she is advised to do, and walks quite a bit in the garden and park behind our house. We go together, but she put her foot down about her being able to go to the shops for necessities she needs, without me. Luckily this is about three hundred yards down the street so not to far.
We walk slowly and carefully, with her unaided (no stick needed) and that it the future. She has no problem with stairs and we have a couple of hand rails installed on the steps to the front door and a step in the garden and our bathroom has been refitted for her with several grab handles and a shower.
So, here you have a short diary of her frailty, I could write one every day, but the bits of the story she shares are already know to her and we have talked about the bits when we were separated in hospital.
I pray for her daily in thanksgiving that she is still with me.
