Days 152 to 156 - Good and Bad Days

Almost every site I read about stroke recovery has mention somewhere in it about good and bad days. Of course that is something which, if you take time to think about it, is bound to happen. When they do happen though, the bad days often take you a little by surprise. They even take cleo that way too, because she (often) doesn't expect them either, and the very nature of the bad day is that it's emotional and to some extent irrational.

The weekend was fine, at least as fine as they can be when I am at work though cleo did say she had a bad night on Sunday and hadn't slept much, which meant that by Monday she was tired. WE had no physio for Monday and so that enabled us to relax, which we did, and we ordered pizza for Monday evening, which was nice.

Cleo has a bad toe! She has a slight ingrowing toenail on her left foot, and because she cannot cut the nail properly it has become painful (I think there might be a slight infection). It is too tender to try and cut the nail with just a pair of scissors or clippers. So today we called a local chiropodist who has agreed to see cleo on Thursday morning to sort it out.

Probably because the sore toe was hurting too, cleo was having a "why me?" day today. Rather emotional and a mindset that said "I don't know if I can be bothered with all this". Now, it's interesting that someone left a comment on the blog a few days ago, a part of which I quote here:

Does cleo feel that, in the hectic schedule of rehabilitation, she has yet had sufficient space in which to begin to grieve properly?

In one sense it's a valid question, although I honestly believe that without us all to push her along she would never have made the huge strides she has so far. We have touched on the grieving issue before with Ann Lewis from the Stroke Association. What I also believe is that if a stroke survivor (and many others in a similar situation too) are left until they feel the grieving of the loss of whatever it is has passed then their rehabilitation would take much longer. We are some 5 months since the stroke and while I accept that some days cleo is best not pushed too far, it would be all too easy to do very little and see her fall into despair. I could not, and will never, allow that to happen.