My Stroke from September 16, 2023
Almost a year ago on September 16, 2023, I suffered a stroke affecting my left leg and left arm. Although it was not from a major stroke, it did affect my mobility and my stability, affecting the distance I could walk, the amount of time I could spend doing Taiji, and the time to take a break before I can continue. I want to give an update on the progress in the recovering process, especailly during the last 3 months. Let me summarize the results so far.
Current Situation
- After about 6 months of physical therapy (from Sept 2023 to beginning of March 2024) at the Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, it was decided to take a break from the physical therapy treatment to see how my body would perform
- I also had acupuncture treatment by a local acupuncturist for about two months in this 6 month period. Usually the acupuncture treatment should commence within 20 days of the stroke. Since my acupunctural treatment didn’t begin until more than a month after my stroke, we were not expecting a lot of progress from this treatment.
- After the physical therapy (PT) ended in March 2024, I did continue to do some of the PT exercises at home, but not extensively until around June/July 2024.
- Because I have Sleep Apnea, which occasinally causes me to stop breathing temporarily during my sleep. To solve this problem I have to use a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine with a mask to push air into my lungs during my sleep. About 10 years ago, doctors invented a method to replace the CPAP machine to automatically move air into a patient’s lungs. Inspire Surgery inserts a small battery in the patient’s chest to provide power to operate automatically a very tiny hook inserted in the patient’s throat area to make the patient’s tongue to open up to allow air to go down the passage way into the lungs. On 6/27/2024, I had this Inspire Surgery done by the pulmonologist Dr. Vishaal Patel.
- To allow time for my body to recover from this Inspire Surgery, the results of my Inspire Surgery was activated on 8/7/2024 by my regular pulmonologist Dr. Adrian Pristas. So now this automatic device has been implemented and activated in my body. I will wait till the next couple of months to see whether the Inspire device in my body will operate efficiently and as designed. I plan to update this information in my next update in Dec. 2024.
In the meantime, I want to give an update on an assessment of the results of my Physical Therapy (PT) exercises (such as walking on threadmills, various stretching exercises) I have been doing at home in the last couple of months.
Status Update
- The PT exercises on the threadmill have definitely increased my stamina so that I can maintain the threadmill exercises for up to 30 minutes at a time. However, I still drag my left foot on the ground, especially after I get a little tired. I have to constantly remind me to raise my left foot (especially the front part of my left foot) to be above the ground. I should keep this in mind even if I need to slow down the exercise.
- To increase my bending and stretching, I need to do more stretching of raising my left or right foot while lying on the floor on my tummy and raising the left foot or right foot backward and up toward the front.
- I need to do more of all kinds of stretching to make me more flexible.
- I need to do more pushups to restore some of the strengths that I have lost.
- I need to do more of the Taiji exercises to restore my flexibility, my stability, and my stamina.
I don’t know how much of my previous flexibility, stability, strengths, and stamina I can restore in the next 6-12 months, but I am looking forward to making progress.
In the last several months I have also been doing Sleep Therapy (ST) exercises once a week to increase my memory. ST provides exercises that try to associate various other entities (e.g., activities, names of projects or people that may be related to the current names). Sometimes, I have the tendency of temporarily forgetting the names of people I see and whose names I used to know. Such loss of memory may be just due to age. We will take a pause from my ST after I return from the Asia trip.
A New Perspective on U.S.-China Relationship
Now, after having trying without any success, I now try to point out the consequences of the confrontational and finger-pointing approach of this U.S.-China relationship. Instead of leading to benefits for the U.S. govervement and the American people, it leads to economic and political setbacks for the U.S., it makes the U.S. being unable to partipate in many key economic areas, such as electric-based vehicles. Although the U.S. may not always be taking the lead in certain industries, it should seriously look at the competitive world, and decide what is the best approach that will lead to the most benefits for the American people. Instead of imagining threats from China, then impose uncalled-for sanctions against China that will lead to disastrous consequences for the U.S. and the American people. The U.S. should realistically assess the security threats from China, and decide whether these security threats are real or imaginary. Doing so could lead to a very different perspective on U.S.-China relationship.
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