Today has been a “reminder of Karen’s stroke” day. It’s not been a bad day, don’t get me wrong, but a few stroke related things have popped up.

kp got up early today, about 10am. I was amazed, but pleased.

We had our usual breakfast outside. kp buttered her own toast today, but she doesn’t like doing it, because it reminds her how hard it is with only one controlled hand. What is interesting (to me) is how she cut the toast. Bear in mind, kp neglects her left field of vision. She doesn’t see 1/8th (of the left) of what we see. It shows itself in her cutting of the toast.

She would think she cut the toast in the middle, but as the picture shows (which she has no idea I took), she was quite a bit off. She thinks the left hand side of the toast is closer to the right than it actually is. Notice also the butter on her left finger (highlighted). I only spotted this just now when I am writing the blog, but I guarantee that butter is probably still on her finger, or all over the furniture, because of the reduced sensation in her left arm/hand. It’s something the family is aware of and we look out for certain things from time to time, but these are shareable examples.

Today, she wasn’t quite herself however.

During our breakfast conversation, she was trying to get a sentence out, but couldn’t find the word “depends”. She could say the sentence in a different way, but it was really frustrating her that she couldn’t pick the word out.

kp:- I feel like everything is in slow motion.

So, after breakfast, on my suggestion, she went back to bed to get some extra zzzz’s. She got up about 3pm and we have had a nice afternoon doing very little.

That’s it for today.