I’m Returning Home Today!

After three very challenging months, later today I will be back at home. I still have a lot of rehab to do in order to be back where I was prior to the stroke but that will take some time.

For the past nearly two weeks I have been “independent in my room” meaning that I was free to walk to the bathroom and to do my own transfers from the wheelchair to the bed and back. For several days now I have been “independent on the floor” which meant I could walk to the dining room for floor without a staff person at my side.

I still have some anxiety about being on my own again after having so much excellent help. Still I have managed to overcome great adversity these last three months so I know that I have the willpower to meet the challenges that I will soon face.

A couple of days ago I uploaded a new video to YouTube. It’s only 20 seconds but it shows me moving my left arm. My left hand is wrapped to a table top device they call the bicycle which you pedal with your hands. I’m able to use my shoulder to pull my arm back to my side — keeping this up allows me to rotate the pedal over and over.  Check it out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccGh0rTGinE[/youtube]

I have a loaner wheelchair until I get my own in June.  Around the house I will be walking with my cane but the loaner chair is motorized so that will give me the freedom to run around downtown with ease.  It will also let me get to the bus and MetroLink.  I’ve got a folding cane ordered so I might use the power to get somewhere and then walk at that point.  The longest I’ve walked since the stroke has been about 600 feet — half a block roughly.
Sadly it will be some time before I’m back on my Honda scooter so I am reluctantly car shopping.

In packing up my stuff yesterday I realized this was the longest I had been away from the City of St. Louis since I moved here in August 1990 at the young age of 23.   St Louis is my adopted home and despite my criticisms of it’s flaws I am so looking forward to being back.

I want to thank my blood family as well as my St Louis family of close friends for being there with me on this journey — I could have not survived without them — literally.  In the coming months their help will again play an important role in my life.   Thanks to all of you sticking with me here at UrbanReviewSTL these last few months.

For the moment it is just so exciting to be returning home.