Saturday News

Contents of This Week Saturday News June 27th / 2015

• Definition: Solitude

Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, loss of loved ones, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation (see castaway). Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired for the sake of privacy. A distinction has been made between solitude and loneliness. In this sense, these two words refer, respectively, to the joy and the pain of being alone. A longer definition comes from Wikipedia.

• Video: Solitude

               -- Transforming Solitude: Trevor Weltman at TEDxUofM

               -- Two Solitudes Meet - Swimmers (With English Subtitles)

               -- 7k Early Morning Jog in Sveitsi Forest

               -- Fall Canoeing in Algonquin: Boot Lake

               -- Whitewater Canoeing - Petawawa River, Algonquin Park

               -- Kayak Solitude

               -- Pogo 6.50 (21’) "Solitude"

               -- Catrike 700. The Fastest Production Recumbent Trike in the World.

               -- Snowshoes And Solitude (2014) - (Documentary)

• Headline Blog: Solitude
• Self-Maintenance
• Home Alone: Solitude Might be Dangerous for Stroke Patients
• Compassion

• Eclectic Stuff: Many articles from many Guest Bloggers about Stroke
• Article
• Exercise as a Treatment Following Stroke
• A Stroke Turned Me into a Lizard
• The Relationship Between Surgical Procedures and Blood Clots
• Making Sense of Things
• Interview with Dr. Garnet Cummings on 630 Ched Edmonton
• Dummy! Or, Stupid is as Stupid Does

• Weekly Columnists
• Musing: The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People
• Sunday Stroke Survival: Courage? Retrospect!?
• Caregiver: Then Bob Falls Under The Porch
• Tadpole Update: Reported to June 26th
• Jester: Mental Fitness Evaluation
• TED Talks - David Epstein: Are Athletes Really Getting Faster, Better, Stronger?
• Rick Mercer Report: Rick and Paralympic Sailing
• Laid-Back Admin: Reduced Summer Holidays

• Daily Comics: For Better Or For Worse, Dilbert, Mayes, Doonesbury

• Future Topics in SSTattler

Saturday News | Future Topic
--------------+----------------------------------------------
Jul-Aug/2015  | Summer Break 2015 (articles ordered by date)

Definition: Solitude

Solitude From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

Solitude by Frederic Leig

SSTattler: 
      a) This summer holidays, July thru August, I will take a little bit of relax and reduced published every week Stroke Survivors Tattler.  See Laid-Back Admin: Reduced Summer Holidays for details. This article, Definition/Video Solitude, is mostly for me but useful for, at least some people, that is Stroke Survivors.
      b) For me it is long distance exercise e.g. swimming laps -- your mind is in a different space, like solitude, and you can concentrate for think about anything, very important to the trivial. Meanwhile, your physical body is on automatic - kick, stroke, breath, flip turn, ..., again,... BTW after my “stroke”, my stroke/kick/... is just a lot slower but good exercise anyway and my thoughts go from ridiculous to sublime.

Solitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, loss of loved ones, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation (see castaway).

Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may work, think or rest without being disturbed. It may be desired for the sake of privacy.

A distinction has been made between solitude and loneliness. In this sense, these two words refer, respectively, to the joy and the pain of being alone.

Health Effects

Symptoms from complete isolation, called sensory deprivation, often include anxiety, sensory illusions, or even distortions of time and perception. However, this is the case when there is no stimulation of the sensory systems at all, and not only lack of contact with people. Thus, by having other things to keep one's mind busy, this is avoided.

Still, long-term solitude is often seen as undesirable, causing loneliness or reclusion resulting from inability to establish relationships. Furthermore, it might even lead to clinical depression. However, for some people, solitude is not depressing. Still others (e.g. monks) regard long-term solitude as a means of spiritual enlightenment. Indeed, marooned people have been left in solitude for years without any report of psychological symptoms afterwards.

Enforced loneliness (solitary confinement) has been a punishment method throughout history. It is often considered a form of torture. In contrast, some psychological conditions (such as schizophrenia and schizoid personality disorder) are strongly linked to a tendency to seek solitude. In animal experiments, solitude has been shown to cause psychosis.

Video: Solitude

SSTattler: I used as a adult for exercise & enjoyment and after my stroke, I can do it, but just slower and usually with absolutely Solitude!

Transforming Solitude: Trevor Weltman at TEDxUofM

Published on May 1, 2012

Trevor Weltman is an undergraduate in Asian Studies. A fluent speaker of Mandarin and a student of Hindi, he has traveled and lived extensively in China and India. Most importantly, Trevor is a certified meditation instructor who—in line with his teacher's belief that spirituality be made available to all those who seek it regardless of class, caste, color, or creed—teaches meditation for free.


Standard YouTube License @ TED

Headline Blog: Solitude

Definition: Blog (noun). Add new material to or regularly update to a blog. (Origin 1990s: blog shortening of weblog)

Self-Maintenance

Pamela Hsieh
Rehab Revolution

27 April 2010

I've been thinking about what makes me such a strange case in what we'll call the history of stroke rehab. I don't presume to claim to be superspecial, because that's arrogant and would probably step on the feet of those who've been on this boat and prevailed much more impressively than I have. But anyway, whenever I step foot back into a medical setting for people like me, say, back at my old rehab facilities or hospitals, I always feel strangely detached.

It's a detachment probably spurred by the number of years that have passed since my injury. While I'll never forget having lived this, the freshness of the memory of being in the hospital and being completely dependent on medical staff and my friends and family fades a little every day. So if anyone following this blog ever feels that I don't address that initial stage after injury enough so, I deeply apologize. This is for anyone who needs to overcome a tremendous life setback, no matter at what point, but the greatest improvements always come the quickest -- shortly after onset. And that's when the blow hits you hardest, when your heart is heaviest. It's the most obvious time to feel the pain of such a sudden change, and I would like to be sensitive to that. The rehab journey often is a very solitary one, but it's more widespread than people like to think. Think of it like a clear night sky -- the stars are separate but numerous, each with its unique ability to shine.

Home Alone: Solitude Might be Dangerous for Stroke Patients

Jeff Porter
Stroke of Faith

Thursday, January 29, 2015

I can see lots of reasons that it might be true that, as one study finds, male stroke victims are at a greater risk of premature death when living alone:

▶ Excess mortality was found among 36 percent of the patients living alone, as opposed to 17 percent of those with partners who died within 12 years after a stroke. The gap was also heavier among men at 44 percent to 14 percent. 

▶ "Among the conceivable causes are that people who live alone lead less healthy lives, are less prone to take their medication and tend to wait longer before going to the emergency room," Dr. Redfors said, in a news release. "For the healthy controls, excess mortality was also greater among men, particularly those living alone."

Now, does that mean single men need to find someone now? I'm not sure about that. But it would make sense to designate someone to act on your behalf if needed, in addition to the cautions the news release cites.

See the original article:

Home Alone: Solitude Might be Dangerous
for Stroke Patients

in

Stroke of Faith

Compassion

Steven H. Cornelius
Music and Stroke

Posted on May 27, 2012

During my week at Mass General and the following three at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital I had many visitors. I enjoyed my friends’ company and looked forward to their visits, but had trouble understanding why they came.

I was content with solitude, even told Sharan not to come every day.

She and my friends were wiser than I. Only recently have I begun to understand how their compassion healed.

They reeled me in and brought me back from the abyss.

See the original article:

Compassion

in

Music and Stroke

Eclectic Stuff

Definition: Eclectic(noun) a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources

Article

Amy Shissler
My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

April 15, 2015

I was blown away by this article and wanted to share.  (Credit to Barb, I read this because you liked it on Facebook)

The norm sure as hell ain’t always better, or even good. At all.

See: Why the World Needs The Mentally Different.

See the original article:

Article

in

My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

Exercise as a Treatment Following Stroke

Bill Yates
Brain Posts

Posted 20th February 2014

Exercise appears to be therapeutic in treatment of a variety of medical conditions.

However, the relative magnitude of the effect of exercise is less well documented.

Comparing the magnitude of the therapeutic effect of exercise with that of common drug interventions can be quite informative.

Such comparisons provide insight into the relative value of exercise and the role of exercise in comprehensive treatment planning.

Huseyin Naci and John Ioannidis recently published a study of the comparative effectiveness of exercise in the British Medical Journal.

A Stroke Turned Me into a Lizard

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

June 16, 2015

I used to be a warm-blooded mammal who could regulate her body temperature - sweating when hot and generating body heat when cold.  A stroke turned me into a cold-blooded lizard whose body temperature is controlled by my environment.  There are many centers that control body temperature so I will never know what is out of whack (e.g. the hypothalamus in the brain that monitors body temperature, epinephrine excreted by the adrenal gland that increases body heat, etc.).

In late May and early June temperatures fluctuated between 40 degrees (F) at night to 80 degrees during the day.  This is not normal spring weather for New Jersey.  If I forgot to switch from air conditioning (AC) to heat at bed time I would wake up shivering.  I was covered by an extra blanket, but the cold air around my head was enough to lower my body temperature.  When I got up to turn on the heat, my house was 62 degrees.  My Scottish ancestors lived 700 miles from the Artic Circle so I used to have a body that was genetically engineered for cold weather.  When it got to 80 degrees my body overreacted on the hemiplegic (paralyzed) side.  Sweat started pouring from my temple on the hemiplegic side of my face, but not on the sound side.  I wiped off the sweat repeatedly so people would not see sweat streaming down my face.  My hemiplegic foot became red and hot.  It was scary to know my body could not cope with these drastic 24 hour fluctuations.

Bottom Line: Poor temperature control is like fatigue - an invisible deficit I have to manage.

See the original article:

A Stroke Turned Me into a Lizard

in

Home After a Stroke

The Relationship Between Surgical Procedures and Blood Clots

Joyce Hoffman
The Tales of a Stroke Patient

Jun 21, 2015

Wake-up time. If you're going to have surgery in the near or distant future, please read this post. As common, a little history first.

Blood clot

Blood clots are a solemn reminder of just how fragile the human body is. Blood clots usually appear in your legs and are called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), the most common type of blood clot after surgery. They typically remain in the legs, but can break free and begin to move through the blood stream, like to the lungs or brain, known as an embolism. I had two blood clot experiences as a stroke survivor, and with both, the hospital kept me for a week each time. You might think that doctors and nurses are obsessed by blood clots, but this event is serious business. And the obsession is valid.

Blood clots can lead to a stroke, another name for an embolism that travels to the brain. Strokes can result in long-term disabilities including slurred speech, an inability to speak, one-sided weakness, and facial drooping, for example.

Pulmonary embolism

A pulmonary embolism means one clot landed up in your lungs, causing possible pain and severe shortness of breath, resulting in death for 30%.

Clots are often associated with surgery. The reason is, the person is lying still during the procedure and potentially for many hours post-surgery. (Blood clots, as mentioned in my blog, can also form when an person is motionless for long periods of time, such as during airplane ride a long car trip. http://stroketales.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2013-07-01T00:00:00-04:00&updated-max=2013-08-01T00:00:00-04:00&max-results=2)

Making Sense of Things

Sas Freeman

June 21, 2015

5o shades

Firstly I would love to say a huge thank you to all my lovely Twitter friends, for their kind thoughts and messages whilst I’ve been in hospital, I really appreciate them. I’ve missed you all. I’m home now, as Nick mentioned, but due to much switching of medications, I’d be fibbing if I said I was feeling a lot better. Sometimes I think I do, then I try and stand in one position and I still experience the same bad symptoms as before. That said we are getting there. I’ve had a clever device fitted which tells my cardiologist, what the heart is doing when I experience these episodes. My meds have increased by 12 extra tablets a day so now it is such a huge quantity four times a day, remembering those with stroke brain is a task in itself  back to notes everywhere and as they keep changing you can imagine the muddle we get into, you have to laugh!

Returning to the heading, should I be asking instead ‘ can anyone make sense of these recurring setbacks?’ Pre stroke day’s I used to be one of those people always on the go, juggling several things at once and never tiring always fitting in something else.

Interview with Dr. Garnet Cummings on 630 Ched Edmonton

Ramon Florendo
Life After a Stroke

Published on Jun 2, 2015

Dr. Garnet Cummings interviewed by Bruce Bowie of 630 Ched about Brain Injury and the upcoming Brain injury Awareness Kick Off Breakfast.



Standard YouTube License @ Brain Care

See the original article:

Interview with Dr. Garnet Cummings
on 630 Ched Edmonton

in

Life After a Stroke

Dummy! Or, Stupid is as Stupid Does

Tim Seefeldt
Brain Food Cafe for the Mind

Posted June 23, 2015

Brain buzz or no brain buzz, I can be a first class fool. And, sadly, I can’t blame it on sizzling my melon when I stroked out.

Last week I was cut off while driving.

“Idiot!” I shouted to myself in the car as I hammered on the horn. “Where do these people learn to drive?”

A day or two later, I cut somebody off. I figured it out when their horn sounded an attack. They went with a long first trumpet then followed with a series of short bursts. It sounded to me like; “Idiot! Where did you learn to drive?”

“Jerk,” I thought. “He must have been speeding. Where’d she come from, anyway? I bet they changed lanes. Where do these people learn to drive?”

It was only later that I pondered my reactions. What did I mean when I thought “these people?” I didn’t see the driver in either case. Man, woman, young, old, race, I had no clue. Did I have an unfortunate stereotype of what a bad driver looks like? My pondering made me uncomfortable, so I shelved it.

Weekly Columnists

Definition: Columnist |ˈkäləmnist| (noun). A blogger or a journalist contributing regularly to a blog or newspaper

Musing: The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People

Dean Reinke
Deans’ Stroke Musing

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

If we are going to solve the stroke medical problem WE are going to have to be incredibly creative. Does your doctor fall into these categories at all? Is your doctor a visionary or a caretaker? See the link The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People.

While there’s no “typical” creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.

1.    They daydream.
2.    They observe everything.
3.    They work the hours that work for them.
4.    They take time for solitude.
5.    They turn life’s obstacles around.
6.    They seek out new experiences.
7.    They “fail up.”
8.    They ask the big questions.
9.    They people-watch.
10.  They take risks.
11.  They view all of life as an opportunity for self-expression.
12.  They follow their true passions.
13.  They get out of their own heads.
14.  They lose track of the time.
15.  They surround themselves with beauty.
16.  They connect the dots.
17.  They constantly shake things up.
18.  They make time for mindfulness.

Fully fleshed out at the link.

See the original article:

The 18 Habits of Highly Creative People

in

Deans' Stroke Musing

Sunday Stroke Survival: Courage? Retrospect!?

Jo Murphey
The Murphey Saga

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

I was told I was very courageous a couple of days ago. My first thought was me! Courageous?? Funny, I don't think or feel that way. I'm down right miserable and terrified at times. I'm more like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.

I'm just getting by hopping troubles like a frog hops from water lily to water lily to keep from getting all wet. I actually had to stop and think what was I doing that could be considered courageous.

In the past few years I've had quite a few life altering events. My father's rapid onset dementia...what could be more challenging or heart breaking for a child? Granted I'm no little child on the outside, but deep inside, I still am. My stroke taking away half my body and my voice. Relearning how to do everything again or adapting ways to do 88% of what I used to do. My husband who was told by many doctors over the past thirteen years, "Any time now" finally reached the point of truly any time now. How I am still his caregiver.

Any one of these things could rock anybody's life off the tracks, but all at one time span of a year is insane. But yet I do realize that it can and does. And, it's happening to more than just me. I mean really, if I was the only one singled out to face all of this in the whole world... but statistically that would be like one person hitting the mega billion dollar lottery...it just doesn't happen. So somewhere out there is a family who is suffering the same life altering events or worse.

Caregiver: Then Bob Falls Under The Porch

Diane
The Pink House On The Corner

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The other night, I was talking on the phone with Bob's uncle and I was sitting on the back porch/wheelchair ramp. We were talking about the fiasco that Bob's "Celebration of Life" became after one of Bob's relatives acted out in a completely childish manner. I won't go into details, except to say that there has been a lot of strife in that family for many years and I would have hoped that, on this solemn occasion, certain people would have kept their mouths shut and paid a bit of respect to Bob's memory and the people he loved. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Anyway, I was talking on the phone with Bob's uncle, when I happened to glance down and notice that the little white bronze heart that contains some of Bob's ashes and that I now wear around my neck was gone!  So, I'm freaking out, checking the folds of Bob's t-shirt (which I am wearing) looking for the bronze heart and Chris (who had shown up while I was on the phone and sat down next to me) is looking at me curiously and I hold the empty chain up that is still around my neck and her mouth drops open and she whispers "Check your bra!"

So I'm reaching down to check my bra when I see, out of the corner of my eye, a little whitish thing roll onto the porch deck and plop right through the space between the floor boards and fall under the porch.

But I'm thinking that that's not the little bronze heart because whatever that was, was too small. And, to my relief, I find the little heart nestled inside my bra but to my horror the plug at the hole on the top of heart is missing and the thing is empty.

Now I'm really freaking out because Bob is gone. He fell right out. And the thing I saw roll on the porch deck must've been him, the tiny container that contained his ashes.

Tadpole Update: Reported to June 26th

John C. Anderson
Stroke Survivors Tattler

Rails to Trails Tour (aka RTT)

Albuquerque, New Mexico

to

Decpina, North Carolina

and back
(June 1st to September 29th)

Date           | Start           ✔︎ = DONE

3) June 11-17  | Denver, CO

               | CHATFIELD STATE PARK -- June 11-14            
               | CHERRY CREEK STATE PARK -- June 14-18         
               | ✔︎ The Clear Creek Trail - 20 miles
               | ✔︎ The Platte River Trail - 28 miles
               | ✔︎ The Little Dry Creek Trail - 10 miles
               | ✔︎ The Cherry Creek Trail - 40 miles
               | ✔︎ The High Line Canal Trail - 71 miles
               | ✔︎ The C-470 East Trail - 15.7 miles
               | ✔︎ Ralston Creek Trail - 13.7 miles
4) June 18  | Ft. Kearny, NE                                
               | ✔︎ The Cottonmill to Fort Kearny Trail - 17 miles
5) June 19-27  | Ashland, NE                                   
               | ✔︎ The Homestead Trail - 40 miles
               | ✔︎ Omaha's Big Papio Trail - 10 miles
               | ✔︎ The Keystone Trail - 15 miles
               | ✔︎ The MoPac Trail - 21.7 miles
               | ✔︎ Nebraska's Oak Creek Trail - 13 miles

Jun 22, 2015 - "Rails to Trails Tour"

We drive to Ashland NE where my bother Gene Z has Lake Cabin. Beautiful here sitting by lake! Today is RV cleaning inside, wash the truck, restock supplies. Tomorrow we ride The MoPac Trail!

Attitude is 90% of life, think positive! "Fins Up"
DanTrikeMan

-- Dan Zimmerman www.spokesfightingstrokes.org