Are you Better Yet?

Me no still the same after 7 years , but I haven't given up hope , just became accustomed to my health , but am sure you will improve . 

Hi Bonnie.  How do we access your composition?  I can't seem to find it on Enable Me, or am I looking in the wrong place?

Hi Ray, I haven't yet performed it myself, yet. The 'composition' simply refers to the instructional image I have posted. I would love to see/hear other peoples interpretations though :)

I am the nine month mark for my hemorrhagic stroke. While I hsve made progress and gains in mobility and function, I continue to struggle mightily with finding my normalcy, who I still am but in a lesser form. This has been a major chslllrnge to my 48 year marriage. My husband started out amazingly, but he is now dealing with me with "tough love" and abject refusal to help when asked, me feel Sno ot because he fears he will be enabling me to stay in my dependent state for the rest of my life. This is causing me deep depression and a feeling of futility about my full recovery. I feel do abandoned and alone, and I long for those who hsve experienced this to come alongside to encourage and advise me, as well as give me hope that I can snd will ultimately recover fully.

Please forgive my many typos, which are new and prolific since my brain bleed. This is hard for a wordsmith such as I!

Hi Bonnie

Like you I suffered an ischemic stroke, affecting mobility to my right sided limbs, requiring intensive, and ongoing exercise, to restore lost mobility and function. I agree, physical recovery is neither linear, nor predictable, and wellness requires redefinition, as we seldom—in my experience—recovery everything. 

I embrace art (journaling and poetry writing) as well as communing with nature (walking, gardening, sit spotting) as creative practices, to deal with my new reality ie not being the person I was (physically) AND having to live with the person I’ve become (compromised in some way), yet desiring to be whole. 

Your artwork, with two circular arrows, a central empty space, and words: ‘Repeat a single phrase or action continuously for an unknown duration, until it can no longer be maintained. Are you better yet?’, stimulates the following reactions in me:

It’s a description of physiotherapy. Constant repetition of a physical action to prompt reigniting neural connections to restore function. If too easy, make it more difficult. Repeat, repeat, repeat ………. “Are you better yet?” 

What is better? That you can repeat the action better than yesterday or an hour ago? Or, you’re “better”—healed, lost function is restored?

What if the function is not restored? Do you give up or repeat the action? 

The stroke survivors dilemma—keeping sane in pursuit of restoring function while living with our new modified versions of ourselves.

What happens if your favourite tree, flower, pet, friend, or lyrics from a likeable song, fills the space between the arrows? Becomes your focus point?

The dynamics of the question “are you better yet?”, changes. Finding personal attributes to reframe the question, encourages wellness ie ‘x, y or z help me grow’. Momentarily, they make me FEEL BETTER. That for me is the important ‘better’, the one that makes us feel a little better, just a little.

Go well, with your betterment practices, Thanks Tom

Hi Blad to hear you are starting o improve . For me it's been 7 years from my last stroke , but no  improvement at all ,  but I am not as lucky as you , yes and lucky that I accept the limitations , , working out it better to accept your limitations rather than not accept them at all . Hope fully you will recover enough to lead a normal life and all the best .