On my 8th day in the hospital, I was finally released. At this point, it was 2 days after our vacation was suppose to begin. We were suppose to travel to New England so our families could meet our daughter for the first time. After discussing this with my doctor, we still went. We were out of the hospital by 9am. We then went to the store to get my prescription filled. Then we went home so I could finally take a shower. (8 days without an actual shower and just "washing up" at a sink makes a person feel really nasty). At this point, I was starting to feel tired. The one major side effect was that I got/get easily fatigued. While I was in the shower, my husband threw clothes together for all 3 of us and loaded the car. We then took off for the 10 1/2 hour drive to Massachusetts.
People called us crazy for doing this but we knew we needed to go. It was also helpful since we have no family that live near us. This provided other people help me take care of baby. It also relived some stress off of my husband since he now had to take care of 2 of us. While we were there we went to visit my husband's grandmother in the nursing home. We got a great picture of her with my husband, father-in-law (his mother), and baby. This is the only time she got to meet her great granddaughter. She passed that year right after Christmas. We also took the 6 hour trip up to Maine to visit my grandmother. My mother and her husband were there too. We got a picture with me, my mom, my grandmother, and baby. This was the only time my grandmother got to meet baby she passed the day after Thanksgiving in 2011.
Here is the big thing that changed right after my stroke. My stroke was on July 3, 2010 and I started nursing school August 17, 2010. Now I am easily fatigued and my memory has greatly suffered. I have a memory but trying to remember things short term is difficult and take me longer than the average person. I am not getting A's but I am mainly passing. I try really hard and there are days I know I am meant to be in school. There are also days when I am really trying to figure out what on earth I got myself into. Some days I don't feel like I belong.
I study hard and read and then I read some more. I now my friends get annoyed with me asking so many questions but I try. I try to understand and some people just give me the "you are an idiot" look. Every class has their "genius", clown, failures (they are pretty much gone since it has been 3 years) but I am the not-brilliant-and-tries-really-hard- but-it-doesn't-seem-to-help student.
This is my way of getting it all out. I need to tell my story of what has happened to me. Most people do not understand what it feels like to desperately try and still do miserable.
One of the major struggles me and my family have had is the financial aspect. Hospital bills are still outstanding. We have been trying to pay them off. We hope to with our tax refund this year. It was really difficult for us since we did not have health insurance at the time. We ended up on food stamps since my husband lost his job Sept.1st right after my stroke. I could not work as much since I got fatigued and my coworkers were terrified to work with me. They thought I would collapse at any moment. I was out of work for a month right after my stroke. All of our bills were behind and we tried so hard to get them caught up. We eventually did but we still have rough months (like anyone). I started couponing to get extra "supplies" (hygiene products, paper products, food, etc.). We just started buying soap again. I tried to get a 3 year stock pile so we didn't have to worry about it while I was in school.
Right now, we have to some how save money to get enough to pay for a class I have to make up. With my hours slow (I work in a restaurant and Christmas does not bring us extra hours), we have been paying everything up and trying to get extra groceries in the house. We recently (tonight) shut off our satellite TV and went to streaming ($55 down to $8).
Maybe tomorrow I will tell you what happened to my husband during all of this. It make our story even more interesting :)
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