Dunham Family and My Stroke Story!

20 years ago today, our Dad’s funeral was held. It does not seem possible that it was so long ago. Yesterday, I went to his grave to honor him. The brass plate on his “niche” is faded now, but the memories are still fresh. I remember the funeral like it was yesterday. It was packed, and so many old “Buttrey Food’s” colleagues were there. It was a testament for our dad who every liked. After my second stroke, when the nurses were rushing me to the MRI room, I remembered that dark hallway. It seemed like they would never get to me even though I know they were swiftly hurrying along. At that point, I felt that my Dad was saying to me, “You will be OK.”  Who knows if that was true or if it was a figment of my imagination? But, Dad helped me in those dark hours. Just the thought of my Dad helped me so much.  Thanks Dad. Dad was a great friend, a cool guy, smart, funny, and irreverent.  

“I read a book.” The fact that a read a book seems trivial until you realize that I haven’t read a book for two years because of my strokes. Reading was my hobby, and that fact that I could not read anything is demoralizing for me. It took me several months to complete the book. I often thought I would not do it. But, I had incentive because a long lost relative gave a book to me hoping it would give me incentive to read a certain book called “Wish You Well” by David Baldacci.  First published in 2001, the story starts with the Cardinal family moving from New York to California due to money problems, then shifts to the mountains of Virginia after a car accident leaves the father dead and the mother paralyzed. The time period is in the 1940s. It was incredibly difficult for me to read that book. I used to read so fast. Now, I do reading therapy, but I still get frustrated. To read at all, I need to have no distractions and I need to read very slowly. I have to read ever

One of our favorite movies is “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Every year, my wife and I watch it, and the story of a man who is so hopeless that he contemplates suicide until an angel shows him what the world would be been without him. Last night, when we were watching this holiday favorite, my wife said in a nut shell, “You have a wonderful life, and you have helped so many people. You should know that. The thread of your life has helped countless people. You are George Bailey.” Sometimes when I feel sad and lonely because of my strokes, iut is reasonable that I feel sad. In darker moments when I wonder what my future holds, I do harbor the notion that if I was never born, it would not matter at all. Of course, those moments are fleeting because I love so many people. I could not imagine not being part of my world and life.    I do try to help other people. I have tried to mentor people. I volunteer a lot because I think I make a difference. When people ask me why I care for so

It was a shock. It was a routine surgery on her knee and, in the middle of the night, a blood clot ended her life. I was not a close friend, but she was a vibrant person who knew everyone. Her laugh was infectious! I went to the funeral because I needed some closure. “Closure” in the sense that she is really gone.  A bright light is gone.  She was alive and now she is not. How does that happen? Why?  Another friend of mine had a stroke several years ago.  Now, she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Another Facebook friend just told her contacts that her brother had a stroke 3 months ago, and he had another one this week. I had an appointment this week with a therapist, and he told me that one of his other client's has a son who has colon cancer…terminal. The common denominator is they are young. Like me. In the 90’s my father died and I got divorced. I was despondent. I great friend sent a book to me:    “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” i

St. Al's is a local hospital in Boise.  When my first stroke happened, we went to St. Al's. I was honored that St. Al's used my stroke story for the annual Festival of Trees, a huge fundraiser the raises money for specifics projects. This year, the focus was their ER services. Here is the four minute video:   Mark Dunham at the Festival of Trees Even now, this video is surreal. It seems like this is another person's story.  The goal for me to agree to relive this bad experience was to help other people. I know that other stroke survivors often feel that the have no hope. My hope that this video will help people about recovery and possibilities.  Never give up. 

“Sybil” is a 1973 book by Flora Rheta Schreiber about the treatment of Sybil Dorsett (a pseudonym for Shirley Ardell Mason) for dissociative identity disorder (then referred to as multiple personality disorder ) by her psychoanalyst, Cornelia B. Wilbur. The therapist called the woman " Sybil" to protect her privacy.     Originally in treatment for social anxiety and memory loss, after extended therapy Sybil manifests sixteen personalities.  I loved the book when I read it in high school, and I loved the miniseries. I never really thought about my brain. You take your brain for granted. It is a bunch of complex cells, but I  didn't  comprehend how much a brain really “does.” In school, I had to study the brain.  I took psychology and biology. But the concept of a brain was so clinical. The structure of the brain was a just a topic to study. When my strokes happened, it galvanized my thought process. This is my brain. Something is wrong with my brain. Wha

Today, my son and I saw a movie, "Thor." My son and I have seen so many movies on the big screen since my stroke. This is our tradition. This is my recovery. I love my son. Watching him grow his heaven to me.  Sometimes I just watch him sleep. I watch The curve of his face. I watch the color of his brown hair that reminds me of my father's hair. The best times for me, is on a Saturday morning. Though he's almost 9, he snuggles up to me. I stroke his hair. I look at his eyes seeing the same green as my wife's eyes. He has the same eyebrows as I had when I was a kid. He has subtle dimples. He has dark eyelashes that are long.  Funny? He's incredibly funny. He is irreverent even though he doesn't know what that means.  He dances around the house  in the morning and when he's getting ready for bed. I want him to keep dancing through his life. I watch him so closely because I almost lost him because of my strokes. I concentrate so m

"Rehabilitation Easy Street" is on the third floor at St. Alphonsus Hospital in Boise, Idaho.   “Easy” is a misnomer for me. Nothing was easy about my rehabilitation in the early days. My room was on the fourth floor, and my therapist told me that we had to walk down one floor to “Easy Street” on the stairs. I had to use a harness so I wouldn't fall. On “Easy Street,” there is a general store sponsored by the Albertson's Corporation.  In reality, there are shelves and plastic products. My therapist told me that I should look at item on the store shelves. What is toothbrush? Deodorant? Envelops? Fruit? I was dumfounded. I had no idea what those things were. Of course I had no concept of an alphabet.  I could not remember my name let alone saying obscure terms like deodorant My therapist told me that I needed to concentrate on the plastic fruit.  I would look at an apple. I had no clue what “apple” was. The therapist said,  “what is the color of an app

Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands.   When I was in college, I used to study and listen to Pink Floyd. One of my favorite songs was “Brain Damage.” “The lunatic is in the hall. The lunatics are in my hall. And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too I'll see you on the dark side of the moon. That song resonated even before I had two strokes. Now, “Brain Damage” is very ironic considering I do have brain damage!  The lyrics are fitting because my head exploded with dark forebodings that scared me so much because I thought I would die. It is hard for me to realize that I do have brain damage.  In some obscure way, even now, I do not think this is me. But it is.  About 20% of my brain is gone. I am so grateful that I have the tenacity to try anything that will help me recover. In the hospital, a therapist told me that I would never drive again because of double vision and limited vision on my right side.  A doctor told me that I could never work a

I have blogged about apraxia before.  The clinical definition is: “ Ideational apraxia (IA) is a neurological disorder which explains the loss of ability to conceptualize, plan, and execute the complex sequence of motor actions involving the use of tools or objects in everyday life.   Ideational apraxia is a condition in which an individual is unable to plan movement related to an object because he has lost the perception of the object's purpose. Characteristics of this disorder include a disturbance in the idea of sequential organization of voluntary actions.” When my strokes happened in January, 2012, I was paralyzed in my right arm. My right arm was useless. It came back quickly, but in the hospital, I would look at my right arm and it seemed that it was NOT my arm.  Over and over, I would move that phantom arm because, it did not seem like it was attached to my body. It was like “Thing” from “The Addams Family.”  A hand with a life of its own. When I got out of th

When my strokes happened, I was not thinking about my vision.  When you dodged a bullet and you thought you would die, the last thing I thought about was my eyesight. During that awful 18 days in the hospital, I had so many tests. To say that I was poked and prodded is an understatement. There is no shame and no privacy in a hospital.  When my strokes happened, I was a zombie. Test my blood pressure. Sure! “What is blood pressure?” Of course, I could not even say “blood pressure” because I could not speak! “How is your vision” the doctors asked? How would I know! I had double vision and I was very groggy.  Afterall, I almost died! It became very clear that I had some vision issues.  One of my therapists put me in a small room, and hurriedly told me that I needed to do this test called “Dynavision.”  I have always been a skeptic. I need to be shown rather than follow blindly without an explanation. That was a major problem for me at the outset because the ju

When I started my blog, it was to be somewhat like a journal about my son.  For several years, the focus of my blog was my family. 20 months ago, the focus changed because of my strokes. Nevertheless  sometimes I go back to my original  idea and I  post "stuff" about my son.    One evening when we were getting ready for bed, I asked him what he would want for breakfast the next day. He said, "Corn puffs."  I said that is not a good breakfast. He said, "Dad! This is a complete, wonderful breakfast." I reminded him that when I was a kid it was called "Sugar Smacks" and the new name is a marketing ploy. Ethan responded saying, "Well, Daddy, your are old and they are very new nutritious." I was watching a PBS show called "Rick Steve's Europe." Ethan said, "What is that show? Torture?" I never told him about "Lawrence Welk" which was torture when I was a kid! Heather commented that she pulled

Last June, a year ago, I went to the Idaho State University's aphasia group for a two-week intensive therapy session. There were eight participants and we all had varying degrees of difficulty with communication and other things. For two weeks we all heard our stroke stories. We shared tears and joy. It was heartwarming and heart wrenching at the same time. So what is aphasia? Here is a very good definition: Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or from infections. Aphasia can be so severe as to make communication with the patient almost impossible, or it can be very mild. It may affect mainly a single aspect of language use, such as the ability to retrieve the names of objects, or th

When I was a child, my parents divorced, and my dad moved from Twin Falls, Idaho to Boise, Idaho.  I think that I have travelled back and forth at least 500 times….maybe 1,000 times.  A very small town called King Hill was about the midpoint. King Hill was called “King Hill” I assume because there is a large plateau that resembles a crown. Maybe that was just my analysis. But, I always assumed that town was called King Hill because of the prominent  plateau.    The concept of a therapy plateau was always a consideration. Even when I was in the hospital, the doctors and therapists cautioned me about that. At that point, I wondered about they were talking about. To have a plateau, it seems that you needed to start before you could plateau. I thought a lot about King Hill because, in my head, I was so concerned that I was going to plateau. That desert plateau represented my journey.   One of my favorite books is “ The Myth of Sisyphus.”   Wikipedia describes the book in thi

I had another round of vision therapy today, and it is very interesting. Here is the description: A Brock string (named after Frederick W. Brock ) is an instrument used in vision therapy . It consists of a white string of approximately 10 feet in length with three small wooden beads of different colors. The Brock string is commonly employed during treatment of convergence insufficiency and other anomalies of binocular vision . It is used to develop skills of convergence as well as to disrupt suppression of one of the eyes. During therapy, the one end of the Brock string is held on the tip of the nose while the other is tied to a fixed point. The three beads are spaced out at various distances. The patient is asked to focus on one of the beads, while noting the visual input of each eye and sensation of convergence. Techniques may be made more difficult by bringing the beads closer to the nose and by employing lenses and prisms . Here is a video that you can watch:  www.yo

  I found an eye doctor who specialized with stroke and vision. I sought a doctor because I am a voracious reader, and because of my stroke, I have great difficulty reading.  Reading was my hobby, and, for work, reading is key. So, I have started a new round of therapy. I started last week, and I anticipate that it will take 6 months, two times a week. Dr. Scott Lewis describes his practice in this way:   “ What is vision therapy? You can think of vision therapy as physical therapy for the eyes and the brain. The neurological aspect is very important because the eyes are direct physical extensions of the brain. We see with our brains and minds, not just our eyes. There are plenty of web pages which give accurate definitions of vision therapy .    Here is some related information about reading and stroke:  People who have suffered a stroke can sometimes see the reading impaired. Calling this kind of alteration Acquired Dyslexia. This disorder can occur in conjuncti