On Tuesday I was away on business while my parents stayed over. During the night a storm cut the power at home so I knew Amanda would wake up to her digital clock flashing some random time from several hours ago. When I got home I checked the clock. It was correct. To the minute. […]

This week – a road trip to Christchurch, a sad cat and more…

This week – physio reaches a finale, and there is a significant improvement – grief.

I’ve been joining a few Facebook pages to learn more about stroke recovery, find out about the experiences of others and promote this blog. As a result it continues to get more readers. The graphic on the left shows the views and countries so far. People from 75 countries have viewed this blog more than […]

A few weeks ago we were offered a couple of sessions with a neuropsychologist who would be able to properly identify which cognitive functions have been affected by Amanda’s stroke. After completing an initial visit followed by a written questionnaire (which had a version for me and a version for Amanda), the second visit was […]

Most evenings, about 90 minutes after our meal, Amanda gets peckish for something sweet. I usually offer her fruit and yogurt; sweet but usually healthy. In the past few weeks I’ve been making cakes so she can have something home – made with her morning and afternoon tea. So on Monday, she knew there was […]

I managed to capture a couple of milestones on video this week. More later! First, another example of the ’emotional blunting’ I mentioned in my last post. Amanda was watching an episode of ‘Offspring’ –  familiar to Kiwi and Australian viewers. A mother was giving birth to a stillborn baby. All the actors were in […]

This week has been a busy mix of mental and physical improvements. Monday We now have a regular weekly visit from the language therapist who sits with Amanda for an hour each Monday morning and helps with the (for me) mystifying and frustrating effects of aphasia. Slowly but surely she is re-learning to write, spell […]

For the first few weeks Amanda recommenced eating food from a plate instead of through her nose, she had severe right – side neglect. Basically her brain had forgotten she even had a right side. The occupational therapist taught her the trick of rotating her plate, so all her food would eventually come into view. […]