Re: Calling in for sickness

[Bockett Hunter]

Attitude in rehab really matters.  My father-in-law had a
stroke at about age 80 and went into a really good rehab program.
He did much better than some lads in their 30s because of his
determination.

Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery!
And, of course, thank you for all the good work on LilyPond!

On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 1:11 PM, Graeme St.Clair <
address@hidden> wrote:

> Stroke: been there, but I think not so bad as yours.  Probably superfluous
> advice, but do take your rehab work seriously - when I was doing that, I
> saw so many people who just seemed to be going through the motions.  I
> found my right hand suffered the most (of course, I was and am r-handed!),
> so getting my writing hand going again was important, tho it took about 3
> months - my writing now has a bit of a tremor, but is recognisable again as
> my handwriting.
>
> One of the things that would have been useful, but was not exercised, was
> simply pouring - milk, coffee, whatever.  Also, grasping with the bad hand
> is OK, because you quickly learn to be careful, but letting go of something
> *also* needs care - I've lost count of the number of times I've nearly
> dragged something back off the shelf I just put it on.  Yes, you will
> likely need to use a handrail on stairs.  I've found it most convenient to
> walk around the house barefoot (my foot Dr doesn't like this!), but this
> does make steps a little tricky.  Some kind of footwear makes stairs a lot
> easier.
>
> The subtlest effect was on my voice - I can no longer whistle (! - and I
> used to be good at it), my singing voice (bass), which was pretty solid
> even at low volume, really now only sounds good at 'f' or above - lost 2 or
> 3 top notes too.  I should probably have paid more attention to the various
> tongue exercises that were given.
>
> HTH, with very best wishes for a good recovery, GFStC, Altoona, PA.
>
> -----Original Message----- From: David Kastrup
> Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2017 5:38 AM
> To: Thomas Morley
> Cc: lilypond-devel ; address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Calling in for sickness
>
>
> Thomas Morley <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Dear David,
>>
>> 2017-05-15 18:42 GMT+02:00 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
>>
>> l
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> had a sort of apoplexy and will not be able to do anything while
>>> recovering.  I am hospitalized at the moment, CRT and MRT did not show
>>> any specific anomalies but my right side is hampered and I cannot yet
>>> swallow or cough which is sort of inconvenient.
>>>
>>>
>> terrible news.
>>
>> I wish you all the best and I hope you'll get better soon.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hope this gets to you.
>>>
>>>
>> With one day delay.
>>
>
> I set the computer up to send the message on Monday and handed it over
> but wasn't successful at first attempt.
>
> Now out of the hospital for a few days, then I'll be into "Reha"
> (physical therapy) for some weeks.
>
> It was a stroke in the limbic region.  Mouth and left side are no longer
> temperature sensitive (and there is a loss of pain in some regions
> resulting in a loss of protective reflexes), motor balance is off (I
> keel to the right when walking, left when crawling), smile is more
> skewed than before, right face half feels somewhat rigid and numb.
>
> Swallowing is business now or things will get stuck.  Which is
> particularly inconvenient since coughing still doesn't work, becoming
> more of a wheeze.
>
> Walking is quite impaired, bicycling not yet back on the radar.
>
> Accordion works better than feared but the right hand cramps up when
> doing "weird" hand shapes typical for button accordion.  I'll probably
> need to practice scales a lot.
>
> I need to relearn some habits to deal with the changes: when walking
> upstairs the first time in the hospital I glanced at a magazine in the
> right hand and just went for the stairs without bothering about the
> handrail.  Wasn't thinking anything really.  Quite embarrassing to
> explain to the people bearing witness to the result.
>
> The day before yesterday, I shaved again with a straight razor.  With
> the reduced motor control, I expected the largest danger to be from
> cutting myself.  That part actually went without a hitch: but trying to
> temperate the water for making shaving foam got me to notice the
> complete absence of heat sensitivity in the left hand.  Fortunately,
> hospital bathroom water does not reach scalding temperatures.
>
> Retraining motor skills in order to regain some of the lost capacities
> is really exhausting, and there is a bit of competition for brain space
> after the small section shut down: as some things get a bit more back on
> track, others not obviously related take a hit (like the cramping-up
> business when playing accordion, also developing in some other
> departments).  So one needs to fool around a lot in order to keep
> capacity loss in check and balanced with ongoing interests and
> priorities.
>
> Hopefully I can be back soonish.
>>>
>>>
>> Please, take your time (_and_ some more) to recover, I don't want to
>> see you here before !!
>>
>
> Even now before formal physical therapy I don't have that much time I
> can spend with the computer since an hour sitting down is an hour wasted
> for getting the new brain stem configuration rewired before it settles
> down again.  And even if I considered computer work my top priority:
> I need to get enough physical capacity back in order to be able to
> integrate some exercise regimen into my daily life or the next
> comparable incident is bound to stop the computer work short as well.
>
> So in short: I need to ask you to hang in with me while I regain my
> footing here.  I won't likely be able to contribute anything timely or
> of significance until the end of physical therapy (facilities for that
> are far enough away that I'll have to sleep in).
>
> After that, I should at least be available again for some guidance in
> programming matters (I managed to glance over the user list yesterday
> and noticed several threads which might have warranted some reply from
> me in order to move to the best track for a satisfactory solution
> dealing with the users' needs but have to postpone for now).
>
> There are some things I want to finish work on, but I think that the
> next point will be for me to branch for 2.20: I think that even with the
> current situation, it makes sense for me to try shaping the final
> efforts once I am back at the desk.
>
> I'll have to take score of everything that has been done without my
> attention in place (which does include some past work) and decide which
> parts would be more prudent to revert in the branch for the sake of a
> stable release.
>
> So now would be a good time for documentors and translators to step up
> their efforts.
>
> Thanks for all your efforts, and for your understanding, for your words
> and deeds of support, and for your contributions in making LilyPond
> prosper as a great piece of Free Software for articulating beautiful
> music.
>
> --
> David Kastrup
>
>
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