Challenge 7: Remembering Piano

Not long after I came back from Spaulding, I sat down at my piano. I wasn't sure if I could play anything at all, but I tried to think of the piano as a therapy tool--both physical and cognitive.

From time to time, I've been going through my sheet music for my favorite pieces. With some pieces, I've tried to pick out the notes. Sometimes I listen to recordings and follow along with the sheet music. Other times I just listen.

But there was one piece that I couldn't find in my music books, and I also don't have a recording. It was a slow Scott Joplin piece called "Solace" that I've been playing by memory since middle school, and it was one of my show-off pieces. But when I tried playing even a few notes by memory, I couldn't. My left hand waited for cues from my right hand, while my right hand sat on the keyboard, useless as a dead fish.

So my challenge was to drive to the music store, track down the music, and hopefully pick out some of the melody, in any way possible. After thumbing through anthologies, I found the song. To my dismay, the music didn't look like anything I remembered. Did I confuse the name of the piece? Were my music-reading skills affected by the stroke even more than I realized?

I was never the most talented pianist, but that was beside the point. I loved making music. And now one more piece of myself was lost. This really sucks, I said to myself.

I bought the music book anyway. When I came home I googled "Solace," and found a video clip of someone playing the piece. Halfway through the clip, I recognized it. It was "Solace." But I had always skipped the first two movements, and even forgotten they existed. And I don't think it had anything to do with the stroke.

Afterwards, I tried to play a few lines. It didn't sound much like music, and I'm not sure it ever will. But at least I now can tell you: I used to play this Scott Joplin song called "Solace" for decades; I always skipped the first two movements; and that was part of who I was.



Here's a post by Marcelle Greene about ragtime and stroke. Here's a video clip of a performance of "Solace" (with a lot fewer mistakes, of course, than I used to to make. The parts I used to play start at 3:37).

Challenge 6: The Mall

I drove to the mall for the first time. I went in, had a sandwich, and went home.

I've never been that much into shopping, especially at the mall. I'm not, in general, a triumphant shopper. And over the last three years, I've gotten really good at ordering things online.

And yet, going to the mall--either alone or with my kids--is one of these ordinary experiences I wanted to try. Not because I enjoy it that much, but because of all the other things in it that make me feel like a semi-competent adult. Dealing with traffic, parking, food, crowds, fast-talking sales people--it's all part of rehab.

Challenge 5: Walking Barefoot

Sometimes I think of my right foot as a patient who has been forgotten in a back ward of an old hospital for years.

In the first summer after the stroke, my PT encouraged me to walk on the beach without my brace and without shoes every so often to stimulate my feet. I tried it one or two times, but I gave up after realizing how many challenges I would have to overcome: the weakness in my ankle; the crushing fatigue; getting my shoes and brace off and on with one hand; etc. I also experimented briefly with walking barefoot in the house, until I had a few near misses with cans and knives in the kitchen.

Now my feet are usually are hidden away in thick shoes every day, except for bedtime and naps, and also for leg exercises on the living room rug (my yoga teacher has tried to coax sensation and movement, with some success, from my right toes).

So this was my challenge last week: to putter around the house barefoot for more than an hour. With bare feet, I unloaded the dishwasher; made lunch; sorted papers between the pile in the kitchen and the pile in the dining room.

It was tiring. Partly because spasticity can make feel as if I will topple over without the steadying influence of my shoes. But mostly, my right foot and toes seem to be terribly disoriented and confused. They ask: is the floor really cold? Or is that pain? Are all the toes pointing up or lying flat? And where, exactly, am I?

I know I have to walk barefoot more often to stimulate my foot. But right now, it feels like an act of faith, rather than an exercise.

Grief

I am so sad about the events at the Marathon.

I will resume my blogging next week.

If you can, please join me in giving to this charity: The One Fund.

Challenge 4: Highway Driving

I'm feeling more confident about my driving now, but still I haven't done much highway driving. I've done a few three- or four-minute trips, but I wanted to go further.

Specifically, I wanted to drive to Lincoln, a town that's about 15 minutes west from my house. I can imagine Robert Frost composing poetry while strolling through the woods and the small, rolling orchards of Lincoln (although I'm guessing that he--like me--wouldn't be able to afford a house there). The landscape is beautiful, but the bigger draw for me is chance to visit farm animals there. I used to take the kids to see the cows, pigs, and sheep at a community farm, but I confess: it was mostly a good excuse to do something that I wanted to do myself anyways.

So I drove in Lincoln and back on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I knew that the driving would be very tiring, so I didn't actually do anything there--I pulled over in a parking lot, rolled down the windows, and breathed deeply for about 5 minutes. And then I turned around and drove home. I'm looking forward to driving there again, and getting out to visit with the animals.

Challenge 3: Personal Landmarks

There's a water tower in my town that looks like the pantheon. It's on top of one of the highest hills in the town, and it's about a half mile from my house. I hadn't walked to the water tower since the stroke.

When my kids were little and I couldn't stand one more trip to the playground, I would trudge up the hill with the kids in the double stroller and go to this small circular park. It has great views of Boston. It also has crabapple trees, which are just right for little kids to climb on, and the grass has tons of dandelions to pick. My kids were also intrigued by the series of manholes in one area of the grass, and we would hop from one manhole cover to the next.

Last Sunday I asked the kids if they were interested in walking up to the water tower. My son--who's acting more like a teenager every day--had other plans: hanging out with his friends, playing Mindcraft, and going to the hardware store with his dad. My daughter--who sometimes begs me to go on a walk--of course had no interest in walking that particular day.

So I walked up there by myself. Afterward I was pretty exhausted. According to my pedometer, I took about 2800 steps. I've been on longer walks, but not by much.

Maybe I can bring grandchildren there one day.

Challenge 2: Banking

Neal and I used to share many of the tasks related to money. Like many people who have aphasia, my math skills were affected. Neal took over all the financial chores after the stroke. My math skills are much better now and I don't have problems handling money on a day-to-day basis, but I still don't do much of the household bookkeeping.

But the other day I realized that I hadn't deposited a check for more than three years, and that banking is a life skill that I needed to reclaim. Since we had some miscellaneous checks at the house, yesterday I endorsed the checks and drove to the ATM. The procedure for depositing checks had changed since the last time I did it. I didn't need to fill out a special envelope now: I fed the checks into the ATM, they were scanned right a way, and I confirmed the amounts. Neal had warned me about the changes, so I was prepared. It wasn't a big deal.

But still, afterwards I had a fleeting sense of disorientation--as if I had just returned home after being in a country for a while where time seems to pass more slowly.