Pushing myself

The last week I'm been pushing myself to do new things. And the side effect of these new adventures is usually nauseousness during then exhaustion afterwards.
It feels good to get out and do some of the regular things I did before.
Tuesday I went to the mall play area to help celebrate a friends birthday. I got a ride both ways-it's too far for me to drive right now. It was alot of fun and I felt great the whole time there. I even went into Old Navy and got myself a new sweatshirt. I didn't get overwhelmed by the kids running around or noise. The next day I was toast though. I ended up taking a nap and stayed in my pj's for a good chunk of the day.
Today I had my LAST physical therapy appointment!!! WAHOO!! Seven weeks & 1 day since my stroke and I've advanced so much that there isn't a lot I can do there anymore. We reviewed things I could do at home to further my progress. My large motor skills are doing good. It's the fine motor skills I still need to improve. I'm struggling with getting my credit card out of my wallet, paying, signing, then putting the card back. I feel very uncoordinated and clumsy whenever I check out at a store. I struggle with signing my name and I'm not completely sure why. I'm not sure if I get physically tired or if it's a mental block, or a combination of both. My right hand sometimes still curls up into it's self in an unnatural position.
I get nauseous driving, just not as much as before. I can drive and have been expanding my range this week. I'm having a hard time backing up. I don't like to turn my head so I need to turn my whole upper body, and I get dizzy from turning my head. I've learned to park farther away from other cars, so I can pull through or having more room to back up.
After physcial therapy I went to my 1st store alone. It went good. It was a small quiet store so I was able to walk down all the isles and not feel overwhelmed. I went to Goodwill to drop a few bags off and to look around inside.
Going to the grocery store is harder for me to do. We went down a few isles and did great then I started to feel so overwhelmed. I needed to put my sunglasses on and get out of there as fast as possible. I helped Rebecca get into the back of the cart, but by the time we were done I was so tired. I ended asking a worker to pick her out of the cart for me. I'm grateful our store will load your groceries into your car for you, because there was no way I was going to be able to push the cart out and load them myself.

Medically-I'm struggling with my neurologist. She minimizes everything I talk to her about, or finds another thing to put them onto. I'm struggling with hyper-sensitivity to light. She says it's from my migraines and I don't need to see a neuro-ophthalmologist about my eyes. I haven't heard anything about seeing the headache clinic so I asked her about it. She told me the doctor moved out of the state so I should do a 1 day study and see if that helps.
I was feeling frustrated being so pushed aside from her that I went ahead and emailing the headache clinic and the neuro-ophthalmologist myself. The headache clinic told me I'm on the waiting list and the wait time is 6-9 months! Yikes. I need to do something before 6-9 months or I might just end up back in the same boat I'm in now. I sent the neuro-ophthalmologist a long email telling them what had happened after the stroke with the blind spot & zig-zag lines and that I'm still dealing with some blurriness in my left eye and hyper sensitivity to light. They took me seriously and got me in on April 21st. I'm grateful they took my concerns seriously.

Mentally I still need to take it slowly. The kids are learning to repeat, repeat, give me more back ground info, repeat again and to show me things rather then just tell me and to be more patient with me. We've been blessed with some pretty great kids!

Everyday I'm moving forward and feeling confident in my abilities. I'm so grateful for the progress I've made this far.