This blog was created to document our experience dealing with Bailey, our 16 year old daughter's stroke. Until September 15th, she was a perfectly healthy, active teenage girl. She is a junior in high school this year. She has a part time job, many friends and a busy social life. She is involved with the marching band, cross country skiing and the school theater group. Her class schedule reads like that of my nightmares - Honors classes, Advanced placement classes and even a "college in school" physics class. She has a smile that shows itself with the slightest of provocation. She is happy, easy going and a bit goofy. Generally, there was no reason to expect any health issues and definitely we would not ever have even thought a stroke was a possibility.

So, this is our story. I am hoping it will help others who experience this sort of misfortune to understand they are not alone. Maybe they are feeling the way we do and will take some comfort our story.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Exhaustion

We have been trying to not push the limits of Bailey's physical abilities but it is becoming more and more difficult to talk her out of doing things. She wants life to be normal and she wants to do all the things she used to do. Well, unfortunately she used to be busier then the average teen and pretty much never sat still. Her body just can't handle this type of things anymore.

Today was proof of that. She had a very busy weekend with lots of socializing and lots of sort of "catch up" sleep. We all know that you can't catch up on sleep once you have missed out on it so no matter how much she rested her body just didn't recover. Today we had an 8:30 appointment with her primary doctor and then the plan was to go to lunch and head to Sister Kenny for rehab. We made it to lunch and on the way to SKI she asked if we could call in sick to therapy today. Of course I said no, that therapy was necessary and that we needed to go. She managed to hold it together through OT and then about 25 minutes of PT before she broke into tears and said "I just can't. Take me home, please." When I looked at her and saw that the right side of her face was showing a slight droop and then watched her walk like she had no balance I knew that home was where we were headed.

So off we went. We walked in the door at about 2:45 and she was asleep by 3. She slept all the way through until dinner at 7 and then took a shower and got back into bed. She is just drained. I wonder how tomorrow will be.
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1 comment:

  1. Kelly LNovember 17, 2010 at 11:25 PM

    Therapy is hard work. Physical and emotionally - some weeks the emotional "bumps" are just too big.
    Just remember that this is a long road - it's ok to modify or ask to modify what Bailey can do. A delicate balance of effort and exhaustion.

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