TheHealthReverend

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Hello Again, Everyone!

Hello, It's Me Again!
How Have You Been!

Yes, indeed, it is me again, and I am feeling so much better. In other words, feeling more like myself. I looked at my various interests and other things that motivated me previously. For a long time, I only had some slight interest in returning to them.

My recovery continued. The way I could tell: at various stops along the loop, I felt more like myself. I felt more focused, more interested, more motivated, to move. Moving may have many different meanings for anyone using that word. For me, it means, live.

What the heck am I talking about? I know you could have forgotten: in April, 2016, I had a stroke. I actually was living with an aneurysm on my brain, for many years. The aneurysm ruptured, blood flow to my brain was interrupted. Then the stroke happened. I experienced emergency brain surgery. Four weeks later, I was released, without any memory of the stroke. There are a great list of posts attendant to this experience. They are sure to come.

Along with a short explanation, I must also say: I am glad, grateful, happy to return to my BlogSpot. I don’t have hundreds and thousands of readers/followers. I am, however, still working toward that end. These days, I have much more to discuss, while trying to help others live well.

I am also glad, grateful, happy to return to the wide world of technology. I just lost/found my phone. While it was missing, I replaced it with a newer one. The replacement was cheaper, lighter-weight, more direct in its functions and I really digit.

I sincerely trust today finds you well and happy about anything, really. A reason for happiness and pleasure are not important. Important to me, is how often we encounter these feelings and sharing them with others—that’s important.

I am grateful for my ability and energy and returning focus.

I am fully grateful for your time, your attention, your happiness and for sure, your health.

LiveWellToday.

DrinkTea AllDays!

Sandra d – thehealthreverend

Please remember to share this post on all your sites! Thanks so Much!

Recall, Recollection Recovery [Again]

Hello Everyone, Happy Sunday Evening...

I don’t mean to speak and write non-stop on the topic of Recovery. I don’t want readers to become bored with what I have to say. I am working to Recover, and do it well and fully. But, on the other hand, I am—remember—an ordained, seminary-educated minister. My ministry’s motto is ‘Helping People To LiveWell.’ Not only that, I am southern born-and-bred, African-American, female. The total of all this: I am supposed to help people.

In that vein, I am obligated to write.

I know I asked this question once before but ...

Have you or anyone you know and love ever had a Stroke, and survived.

Just a few more...

Do you or someone you love and trust, understand Stroke?

Do you know the signals of Stroke?

Are you responsible –or ever been—for a Stroke survivor?

What do you consider the most important of Recovery?

Thank you, everyone for your responses. You are being very helpful.

Anyhow,

In my Recovery experience thus far, I have had great physical Recovery. I continue to work a with a few remaining minor challenges, but only a few.

Luckily, none of them scares me anymore, like they once did.

These days, I can jog, jump on my rebounder and balance on one foot, without wobbling. I don’t wobble from dizziness if I bend over to pick up something. Yes, I do have an almost daily headache. Daily, but minor.

The greatest step of all? I can remember stuff. Recall, Recollection may not all come in one big ball, but I can recall!

I am just ever so thankful.

Remembering an experience is as close to re-living it as possible. I live alone in a small town.

Loneliness is just about to become my roommate. I don’t her to, but she is quite steadfast and stubborn. I sit down about dinner time daily, with her. She always brings to me, a recall of a happier time. That makes me sad for a bit.

But not today!

These days, recalling is more of a pleasure.

These days, I understand my Recovery memories much better.

I am very grateful that my sister told me to keep a daily journal, because it would help me to recall more information.

On some days, I don’t do it, but when I do, I am ever so grateful.

Tonight’s blog post is dedicated to my elder sister, the fabulous woman with a beautiful smile, dreadlocks down to her knees [nearly]. She is a great dancer and easy laugh-er. She is a semi-retired college professor, and often gives me suggestions/instructions and direction into behavior and habits that are definitely wholesome and helpful. I stayed with her for a while earlier this year. A group of siblings is a grand prize.

Livewelltoday, Everyone.

You may know that one of my other ‘callings’ is health-enhancing Tea. I have come to know, use, love and yes, share, many of them. It is my intention to end each blog with some mention of Tea.

The present approach to daily Tea is Green with breakfast [or Black is more punch is needed] and herbal [Fennel, for one] until evening. Then, I switch to a sedative sort, and stay with it until bedtime.

I use this approach because amnesia is also one of my Stroke hang-ons.

DrinkteaEveryDay!

SandraTeresa Davenport, your friend.

www.thehealthreverend.com

Enjoy!

500 Well-Chosen Words

My Favorite Thing - The Red Podium

I am now embarking upon a different plan of writing.

ASIDE: along with writing more and writing consistently, I also need more, more and more interested readers. I have a great deal to learn about a successful blog, and I will, you’ll see.

Today is Wednesday, May 3, 2017. I wrote this post out of the house because of cabin fever. It would likely be easier to endure if I could just walk outside and to the corner and be off. Cabin fever is what happens when a person just can’t possibly stay inside the house any longer. Then, the person will go just about anywhere and do just about anything.

If I do that in my previous hamlet [Cornelia], I’m off to a good stroll.

There are small businesses, and shops, the library and yes, the dollar store. I tell you this: sometimes you just don’t realize when you’ve got it good. My present hamlet is missing a bit of that, here and there.

If you read my blog, over the last few months, you know I am a Stroke survivor. It happened a bit over a year ago – April 13, 2016. I came out of the facility in early May, 2016.

Upon leaving, I was taken to my #2 sister’s house to Recover. That was lucky. She’s a school teacher and was out of school for summer. Bless her heart. I became her spring-summer-fall project. It went along, reasonably well. I was there for six months, give-or-take.

There is, in my brain, no memory of the entire Stroke and/or surgery. My #1 sister told me several stories about my time in the hospital. I recall nothing.

Another good report is of the various people we know and love [and they love us] who came to the hospital to visit me. They have all told me themselves about the visits they made.

Some friends that I had before first grade, prayed for my Recovery. That is so very grand.

Just last weekend [May 1] I saw twin sisters who knew me at my birth. One was my uncle’s high school sweetheart. She lives in a different hamlet, near the one where we live. She told me that she came to the hospital to visit me and was not allowed in. She was told by the nurses that I was in too delicate a condition for visitors. Along with that, my condition required a great deal of sleep.

The things I have seen while healing, include ...

My Calling!

Hallucinations.

And, I have seen a lot.

Whew. There is a wide variety of these experiences. They are similar to visions, I suppose. Today, however, I don’t know much about either one. I am, however, learning about hallucinations. That is the one that I have. For the purpose of my typing, I gave hallucinations the short nickname hals. My hallucinations reflect the part of my brain that is injured.

One piece of information I may have left out is the way I was injured. I passed out in the local BurgerKing. I walked in, fainted and jarred the ground. Oh, the floor, actually. I awakened, said something about the heat, and passed out again. This time, the staff dialed 911 and it went from there.

When I hit the floor, I obviously bounced a bit, as I have several sores, cuts, etc. on the back of my head. They are all healing nicely.

I have circled 500 words around my blog posts. That means that I must go quickly and surely to the point, using the proper words, and giving you a reason to return again next week.

Thank you so much reading this post.

Please do share it with all your friends and family. Next week, I will continue.

Livewelltoday!

SandraTeresa Davenport

www.TheHealthReverend.com

TeaTime! Enjoy!

Final Sunday Post - Sort Of

Hello Everyone, Happy Sunday, Again!

I painted this, Myself! I'm so proud!

I don’t know who reads my posts or who writes their own. I don’t know how many of you kind readers are truly interested in my topic[s]. [I know. I know, everyone is J.] I have received precious few responses to my posts, via my website. That all matters. But in other ways it don’t matter, at all.

Why don’t it matter?

Because...

I am a writer. That’s right. And these days, I have an expanded topic of health and wellness to write about.

Seriously. Have you ever had a stroke?

Neither had I.

In fact, no one in my entire clan has ever had a stroke [that I am aware of].

I always thought of a Stroke as something that either killed the patient, instantly, or they recovered and came home. The other end is that the patient would come home and I would be able to see the extent of the damage done by the stroke.

Again, never was I related to any of these people.

Where am I going tonight? I’ll tell you.

I think about my posts constantly. I want them to be done well and orderly. I want them to be interesting to anyone who glances at them. From my posts regarding health and wellness, I want every reader to gather information that they can make use. It is my duty—and yes, my calling—to help people live well, daily.

Learning to prevent specific illness is a large and crucial part of living well. Of course, we want to be able to recover quickly, from colds, headaches, etc. There is no end to the list of approaches we can take to stay well.

Lucky for me, it is, as I said before, my job to help yawl do this.

You are still waiting to hear what I’m going to say, right? OK, Buddy, here we go: I am going to present my posts as chronological accounts of my Recovery. That’s right. There are and have been so many different pieces. This is a good idea. Each time I see a friend or relative who asks me how I am doing, I come closer to this decision. Their questions never stop and of course, my answering and ‘informing’ never stops, either.

So, while I was sitting and walking and doing the dishes and thinking about it, I got a simple instruction: ‘Just write it out, San. That’s the simple thing to do.’

Another problem with this shift is that when it is time to write, I won’t. That’s right. My fuzzy focus is left-over from the Stroke. I can work better toward a project’s end if I am away from home. In the library, I can do well. That is, if I get there on the right day, at the right time. I live in a small hamlet town and people around these parts just talk a ‘lot’ in the library, and lordy, they do talk loud. So that is no place for me.

Not only that...

My damaged brain is healing much better these days, in big steps. I can easily see that my focus is improving and so is my recall. Right now, it’s mainly my discipline that needs attention. Strictly speaking, I can’t blame the Stroke for that.

I think I mentioned this previously: my sister suggested I keep a chronological journal and rewrite my previous days. This would help me to recall details. I agree. The problem? Half the time I won’t do it, either. That is going to change, as I just gave you my word, and I am following instruction. J

Whew.

I sincerely need to sharpen my focus, yet again. I fully enjoy keeping the journal so I’m sure I’ll stay with it.

Thank you for your time in reading and for sharing this post. I will begin the next one Wednesday afternoon.

LiveWellToday/DrinkTeaEveryday!

Love always,

SandraTeresa Davenport, www.TheHealthReverend.com

Still Healing...

Hello, Everyone, It's Sunday Again...

I know, I might have titled last week’s post with the same, or very similar, words. It’s not that I think of nothing else these days. I do.

The Building Where I was born!

It’s just that I always think of my health, my healing, my future.

Everything I read about these days is health-related, stroke survival.

Other—often times, anyway, I think of how to increase my followers. Not on FB, but on my own blog. I am very, very eager to increase these tiny, little two-digit numbers into big ones, that grow and grow from week to week.

I have just a bit of a challenge with focus, concentration and maintenance. That is, maintenance of my goals, once they are set. This is said to be a left-over from my Stroke. I have done what appears to me to be a great deal of reading on this topic. I am really read to find something much more direct and aimed at my present ‘problems’. Short-term memory loss, intermittent headaches and dizziness and, god forbid—hallucinations.

I know I have mentioned them previously, but I haven’t come upon anything directed to them. My questions are all quite simple. I.e., why are hallucinations always so danged scary? Why do they all take over the present vision of an item I have seen daily, all my life [trees, plants, flower pots]. None of these things are scary to me, but when my brain presents me with an alternative view, it is scary, for sure.

At this point, I must make better efforts in these directions, and dig deeper to learn more about hallucinations, how they start, from which part of my brain and memory they come and why, for heaven’s sake, are they all so danged scary? At least, mine are anyhow.

Now, for a bit about something else...

I had just begun to re-plan my future. Before the Stroke happened, I was even thinking of places I would like to live, what professions interested me. I even gave some thought to how I would get to those places.

Then, about a year ago today, my Stroke occurred.

Life is always changing, have you noticed?

Be encouraged, however.

Don’t be afraid of anything at any time.

Back To Health...

I am always concerned about my health, and yours. I am always reading about thigns I can do to take better control of my health, and gain a better understanding.

I have finally come to the conclusion that eating well is superior to any other diet or approach to weight-loss that I have encountered so far.

Beginning next Sunday, I will have an entry on health, citing various books and articles that I have read since I’ve been on the road to Recovery. I will be entirely delighted to hear your views and opinions and share information with you, on any of my posts.

Be sure to DrinkTeaToday/LiveWellAlways!

Enjoy!

Sandra d – www.thehealthreverend.com

Recovery Continues...

Me, Being Happy! :)

Oh boy, there’s a new week upon us. If there’s a new week, it means that I should have posted before today [Tuesday]. I didn’t, so I’m doing it now.

I continue with my most recent project [if you want to call it that]: Recovery.

One of the most interesting parts of it is my continuing hallucinations. They don’t come as often and are not as horrifying as before, but, oh boy, they still come!

There is so much to learn, about everything. I means, seriously, do you know a lot about the brain, how it works, hot it controls the entire body? Are you even familiar with how rest and nutrition and exercise affect its condition and its performance? It is all connected, my friends, and the more of it that I learn, I feel that the more of it I am obligated to practice.

Wow.

So, what do I see in a hallucination?

Wow.

Not much of what I see has an everyday-type name. None of the faces that I see can easily be described as any other animal that we all know. For example, there is the recurring on of a black, rubbery-like, multi-legged crawling creature who shows up some times as I am lying down [to try] to go to sleep.

Going to sleep is yet another challenge. I ain’t sleeping well, at all. Not only that, it takes me a long time [hours, sometimes] to go to sleep. Then, some of the dreams I have are just entirely ludicrous.One thing I must be grateful for: they are not just literally scary—the dreams.

Nothing like the images that my dear injured brain is creating.People, protect your brain. Start with what you eat, how you rest, how often you exercise. As much as I am sorry to say it: avoid alcohol, all of it. I know that once in a while, every true American wants to sip a beer. Please, just do it every once in a while, not every day. And surely, never do more than two a day.

My HomeTown at Night!

Okay, back to Recovery.

Another piece of it is that I have dropped off a large collection of ‘stuff’ that I dragged around before. That includes, thoughts, memories, memorabilia, furnishings, books. Oh, me, all of that is stuff. It’s not that I put any clear thought into it, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I just simply don’t need so much of it.Today, I am looking forward to moving away from the hamlet where live, to something with a bit more variety, pizazz, people, places, etc. Really, it’s just a 2017 version of Mayberry. Truthfully speaking, there’s nothing wrong with it.

I just want at least one new adventure. So, as soon as I am fully recovered, I’m off! I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

StayWell, Everyone!