tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50208365402115822572024-03-05T05:37:42.937-07:00From the Planet AphasiaDo you ever feel like you are living in a parallel universe?
Can you see and hear the 'normal' people but you're not sure if they see or hear you?
Welcome to my world!Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-49925762044764213642023-11-10T05:48:00.001-07:002023-11-10T05:48:03.738-07:00I'm Still Here This blog was written when my husband and I were dealing with his
severe language disorders due to a massive stroke. We went through a lot
of emotional ups and downs with speech therapy and all the other
changes a loss of language brings to your doorstep. Treatments may (or
may not) have changed since we went though this part of our lives, but
these posts still might connect with Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-38439596442653527062022-04-11T06:31:00.001-07:002022-04-11T06:31:10.706-07:00Funeral Crashing Aphasia Style My husband, Don, is an obituary clipper.
It’s not a hobby that he picked up since becoming a ‘certain age’ like
most people would assume of old people who have a box full of newspaper
announcements of this sort. He’s been doing this for at least
thirty-five years. Don has a memory like an elephant and he also knew a
lot of people, so his collection of clippings was huge at the time ofMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-20011952549210935122014-09-14T06:35:00.001-07:002015-03-12T19:24:10.242-07:00Welcome to The Planet Aphasia!The posts added to this blog in 2014 are out of order from those posted in earlier years. They were transferred here from a now-defunct site because I wanted to preserve the documentation of my husband's and my funnier experiences in the world of dealing with his aphasia, apraxia and agraphia. The rest of the blog is still a documentation of our lives in the post-stroke years but they were Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-66625553542627470212014-07-16T17:36:00.000-07:002015-06-14T07:00:58.245-07:00He's in the Dog House Now!The
atmosphere here on the Planet Aphasia is warping my waffles. Don't ask
me what that means. If your waffles are warped too, you'll understand.
If not, trust me when I say that it's not a good thing here in the city
of Caregiverville.
Every year there are eighty thousand new cases of
the language disorder, aphasia, and I get a singer. Headline: Giddy
Little Husband Tools Around In His Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-7069730642690197542014-07-16T17:28:00.001-07:002014-07-16T17:30:33.237-07:00Baby Gates or How Not to Help an Old Lady in a Parking Lot
The
scariest phrase in the English language, according to the dog, is 'baby
gate.' He's on a diet so those words come up often in our
conversations. All I have to do is say 'baby gate' and he goes off
running with his tail between his legs, his little toenails clicking on
the linoleum. Since I started working on the internet, the dog has
gained three of his nineteen pounds. A lot ofMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-59145664281559502472014-07-16T17:24:00.000-07:002014-07-16T17:24:13.478-07:00MacArthur Park: Lamenting the Loss of Language
"MacArthur's Park is melting in the darkAll the sweet, green icing flowing down...Someone left the cake out in the rainI don't think that I can take it'cause it took so long to bake itAnd I'll never have that recipe againOh, no!"
I could throttle that guy---Jimmy Webb----who wrote those lyrics. I've
spent so much time in my life trying to solve the mystery of 'who left
the cake out in Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-7501201899071416632014-07-15T18:29:00.002-07:002014-07-15T18:29:45.484-07:00The Fall: Dateline: Caregiver City, Planet Aphasia This article was first published by at Yahoo Contributors but they
are going out of business and the rights have reverted back to me. So if
it seems out of order to the rest of the content here, that is the
reason.
There
is nothing else in a house that sounds like a body hitting the floor. I
heard that kind of thud today and from the kitchen I took off towards
the bedroom in an old Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-19683492805005577362014-07-15T18:24:00.000-07:002014-07-15T18:24:01.326-07:00Table Talk: Caregiver City, Planet Aphasia
There's
a line in a 1960s movie that is engraved somewhere in the space between
my ears. In 'Two for the Road'---while eating a meal on the French
Rivera---Audrey Hepburn asks Albert Finney: "What kinds of people sit at
a table and don't talk to each other?" Then they both burst out
laughing and say in unison, "Married people!"
Before my husband's
stroke, Don and I never lacked forMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-81899467429220869602014-07-14T19:57:00.000-07:002014-07-14T19:57:12.566-07:00Taming the Shrew, Caregiver Style
The
dog needs his own alarm clock. I'm sick of fighting with him to see who
gets to pee first in the mornings. My bathroom is at one end of the
house and he needs to be at the other end and I can barely run fast
enough to service us both. One of these days I'm going to pee my pants
trying. If Cooper could just get himself up fifteen minutes before I do
he could let himself out, trekMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-69347364557034311052014-07-14T19:42:00.003-07:002014-07-14T19:58:30.650-07:00Bobsledding the Staircase Dateline: Caregiver City, Planet Aphasia
It
snowed last night. Oh, goodie! That means we'll get company later
today. Last time it snowed the little girls next door came over and we
made a deal. They'll shovel our front side walk and I'll pay them. But
negotiating the price was a bit hairy. Some where during our corporate
meeting, Girl Number One said, "We don't care what you pay us. We just
want to help old people."
I wasMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-50699832972989154922014-07-13T17:35:00.002-07:002014-12-25T20:55:16.297-08:00The Shower Stall Mystery Dateline: Caregiver City, Planet Aphasia This article was first published at Yahoo Contributors but they
are going out of business and the rights have reverted back to me. So if
it seems out of order to the rest of the content in this blog, that's the
reason.
I wonder if there are any statistics on how many female caregivers stop
shaving their legs when we have to start shaving our husband's faces.
Time constraints are as Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-38061372827786937912014-07-13T17:29:00.001-07:002014-07-14T08:46:46.239-07:00The Ambassador from the Planet Aphasia This article was first published by at Yahoo Contributors but they
are going out of business and the rights have reverted back to me. So if
it seems out of order to the rest of the content here, that is the
reason.
Today was get-out-of-the-house day. We've been snow bound. Oh, not
really but it makes a better story than saying we had no place to go
since Friday. Today was different. Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-28163132111047234362014-07-13T08:52:00.001-07:002014-07-13T16:58:44.427-07:00Universal Design: Building a Wheelchair Accessible Home
This article was first published by at Yahoo Contributors but they
are going out of business and the rights have reverted back to me. So if
it seems out of order to the rest of the content here, that is the
reason.
For
most of our adult lives my husband and I had wanted to build a house.
It took his stroke for us to finally take the plunge. We really had no
choice. The two houses thatMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-46587076236699251432014-07-03T06:54:00.000-07:002014-07-04T12:14:46.683-07:00How My Husband's Stroke Changed my LifeHow My Husband's Stroke Changed my life: Redefining Our Relationship was written back in 2007 for a contest on a site that is now pulling all its content off the web and giving the rights back to the authors of the articles. I won the contest and wanted to preserve my article, so I've moved it here.
----- ----- ---- ----
My husband had a massive stroke that left him right side paralyzed andMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-85717207015312778372014-02-12T12:02:00.001-08:002014-02-12T12:02:34.554-08:00UpdatingIt's been just over two years since Don passed away and he is still very much missed. Since then, I've been at my other blog---The Misadventures of Widowhood---over HERE.Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-89325225309414469162012-01-29T07:37:00.011-08:002013-11-10T06:50:23.103-08:00A Good Man Dies<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if !mso]> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4ptMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-84444593351900485562011-12-23T15:57:00.002-08:002011-12-23T16:01:39.175-08:00Christmas Letter to Family and Friends<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-1406933746210163072011-10-21T09:43:00.004-07:002011-10-25T19:50:28.375-07:00From the Caregiver KitchenThe house is quite. For now. Within the hour Don will be up and he’ll be bellowing out, “Jean!” every few minutes. Can’t get his foot started in his pants. “Jean!” Got his arm caught in his shirt. “Jean!” Can’t put on his sock. “Jean!” Of course I could save myself a lot of walking back and forth if I just stayed by his side and helped him get dressed but that would enable him to be even more Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-14033697801713175102010-12-17T20:21:00.002-08:002010-12-17T20:26:15.898-08:00Christmas Time on The Planet AphasiaGreetings! 2010It’s that time of the year again when thoughts of sugar plums and Santa’s elves and of scoring that great gift at Macy’s fight for space in our dreams with the real meaning of Christmas. We put trees up in our living rooms, deck the halls with holly, and hang Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-56854690381285604522010-06-27T09:38:00.003-07:002010-06-30T08:58:47.085-07:00Lint for BreakfastWhy do old people pick at lint? When my husband’s mother was in a nursing home she would walk the halls and pick up every piece of lint on the floors. It was a hobby or an obsession, I could never figure out which. Now, my husband is doing the same thing. Where ever he sees lint, he picks at it….usually when he sees it on me. Okay, so I’m not the queen of good laundry habits. I forget to Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-2700101372054190392010-05-30T08:24:00.005-07:002010-05-30T09:29:13.087-07:00The Joyful Living PartyDon's 'Ten Years of Joyful Living' party was a week ago today. The flowers that one guest brought and the others we had scattered around the house are fading but the glow of happiness is still hanging around. It's been ten years since his stroke and even with all my husband's physical issues, he's still happy to have beaten the prognosis of two neurologists that he'd be a vegetable for the restMisadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-77630314083334448572010-05-17T18:56:00.009-07:002011-10-21T12:53:36.727-07:00Sourpusses and Something to Laugh AboutFor the past three or four years I’ve been telling everyone that I’m almost seventy when, in fact, I’ve still got two years to go before I effortlessly float into Septuagenarian Land like a feather on the wind. At least that's the plan and, no, I don’t have a propensity for lying. I’m just trying to avoid the depression of achieving that benchmark that my mother went through on her 70th birthday.Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-58533606396052316512010-03-03T06:35:00.004-08:002010-03-03T06:58:13.320-08:00Word Count in the Land of AphasiaThe sun is shining; my husband is singing songs with made-up words. He and the dog are both sunning themselves in the strong light filtering through the windows in the dinning room. Hopefully, the snow will melt this week and spring will flirt its way into our lives. It’s been a long winter and a long time since I’ve cataloged all the words Don is able to get out in a day. I do it with the Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-60291991542316772762010-02-14T21:06:00.007-08:002010-02-17T13:03:07.972-08:00Voices Inside my HeadSometimes I swear Levi, our dog, can telepathically talk inside my head. This morning I woke up to someone calling my name and when my eyes opened all I saw was my husband sound asleep. I listened for the voice to call my name again but the house was silent. A dream, I thought, but it was so real---and so annoying because it’s a common way for me to wake up. I rolled over and there he was, Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5020836540211582257.post-81353993214866512642010-01-31T18:35:00.011-08:002010-02-01T06:05:21.223-08:00Lunch in Aphasia LandIt was a cold but sunny and beautiful day when we backed out of our driveway. Destination: out for lunch and to the post office. I asked my aphasic husband where he wanted to eat and as he often does he replied by using hand gestures to indicate the turns I’d have to make on the way to wherever it was he wanted to go. Those turns with varying lengths of straight-aways all gestured with Misadventures of Widowhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17262709452281226620noreply@blogger.com3