Hi, this is my first post. My father in law suffered a stroke 2 months ago. He is still in hospital and receiving support on his road to recovery. What I dont understand and would like help trying to understand is the good days/bad days. A good day is sitting up in bed, eating, drinking, chatting versus a bad day which is non verbal, feeding tube inserted, mittens, in and out of consciousness. What is going on? Anyone else had or having these same experiences?
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Hi @Humphrey1
Welcome to the community, Iām sorry to hear about your father in laws stroke. This must be such a difficult time for your family as we know strokes donāt just happen to the stroke survivor but to the whole family too.
Iām sure some of our members will be along shortly to offer some thoughts on this. Everyoneās stroke is different so you may find some people have had similar or may not. In the meantime you may like to read some information we have on our website about fatigue as this could be contributing to the bad days.
I hope youāll find this community useful and if you need anything whilst using the Online Community, please donāt hesitate to tag me using the @ symbol and my username.
Wishing your father in law all the best with his recovery.
Anna
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Iām afraid there isnāt one type of stroke. I only had a mii- stroke (TIA) which at the time I had no idea what it was. It was only when my neighbour called the ambulance that the word stroke was mentioned. Whilst I recovered relatively quickly and am now back to my former self along the way were the balance issues, mood swings. outbursts of anger etc. I count myself fortunate it was not worse, but it takes time to readjust. In the meantime look upon each day as a bonus and realise that not everyday will be a positive one. Hopefully the bad days will in time seem all a point along the journey.
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Hi @Humphrey1 and welcome to the forum.
Iād say the bad days are brain fatigue, or at least some of it anyway. His stroke is clearly severe enough to still be in hospital. He will still be going through a lot of healing. Heās been through a major life threatening trauma. You donāt just bounce back from that after 2 months, this will take yearsā¦like heāson the slow boat to China. Slow and steady wins this race.
Brain function is reduced and his brain is still doing a lot healing, mop up, and trying to make connections and relearn functions. Whilst at the time, the brain is also trying to maintain all remaining functionality as well. This puts a lot of pressure and strain on the brain so it shuts down basically, while it processes all that itās taken in and learnt. Thatās the best time to do itā¦.bit like software update on a computer. Itās just humans take a bit more time to rebootš
So yes, you do have your good days and bad, but they will reduce over time. That could take anything from 6 months to 6 years depending on the severity of the strokeā¦how long is a piece of string.
Stroke recovery is a roller-coaster ride and only time can tell how well the outcome will be. We never really get back to full functionality as we were before. But we can get a whole lot better than we were at the beginning of this stroke journey. Iām nearly 5yrs post stroke but Iām recovered enough to drive and be independent. I do still have some deficits such as speech issues but thereās not much to hold me back, providing I manage my fatigueš
Lorraine
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Hi @Humphrey1 & welcome to the community. Sorry to hear of your father-in-lawās stroke. As Emerald Eyes has already said it is likely that his bad days I was a result of fatigue. When I had Maestro chatting was one of the most exhausting things that I could do. Speaking a couple of sentences wiped me out for hours and hours afterwards and itās possible that this is what is happening to your father in law.
There will be good and bad days and the trick is to not overdo it on the good days so that the bad days arenāt as bad. Over time the number of bad days will reduce and there will be more good days but right now it is still early days and his brain needs lots of rest to enable it to start rebuilding the connections again.
Best wishes to you all.
Ann
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Hi Humphrey - Welcome to the community and thank you reaching out to help you understand what is happening to your father-in-law following his stroke two months ago.
I start by saying that what you are seeing is not at all unusual and not something to worry about. Once you have had a chance to read up some of the posts on this forum some of which will describe pretty much what you are seeing with your father-in-law you will hopefully be better placed to understand, accept and plan for ongoing care that will be required and options that will be offered to you. Your healthcare team is there for you right now and you can always ask them anything that may be of concern to you and anything that you would like to understand.
I note that Lorraine, @EmeraldEyes one of our regular contributors has given a very succinct explanation of what might be going on and in echoing what she says there isnāt much more for me to add at this stage. I will say, that as time goes on, if you have more questions or require specific information, you can always post on here.
From what you have said, it seems there are some parallels with what your father-in-law has experienced and what my Mum experienced over six years ago. If anything, your father-in-law is in a better place as he is sitting up in bed, eating, drinking and chatting. This is all great because he is recovering from the stroke and able to do a lot of things. In doing these things he is using up his energy resources (mental and physical) which have already been significantly depleted by the stroke. This means he has to recharge and rebuild these energy sources and right now he is not able to build them up as fast as he needs to which is why he then goes in recharge mode - this you describe as in and out of consciousness. To be able to get fully recharged will take time as he is not able to take in the energy as fast as he would if he had not had the stroke, but this is fairly normal for someone in his condition and nothing to worry about.
If anything, he is actually in the best place to get the help and support he needs from my point of view. Try and make as much use of it as you can to get him as strong as you can get him before he is discharged into care outside the hospital.
If it will help :
- Mum had two thirds of her brain damaged
- Became aphasiac
- Lost use of right side of body
- Was left nil-by-mouth and is fed by PEG ( Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy) even today
- Got little help as she was deemed beyond help (she had been āwrittenā off in the first week due to perceived severity of her condition)
- Etc. etc. etc. - The whole story is documented on this forum and you can read up on it is you so wish.
In a nutshell, your father-in-law is actually in a much better place as at now than many others who may have started from a similar or worse position post-stroke.
He has a good chance of a very good recovery, but most of this will be down to him and his desire to live a life after stroke that may be different to the life he led before the stroke.
My Mum (and others on this forum) have shown it is possible. And on that note, I wish you and your father-in-law all the best.
Namaste|
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Stroke is full of good days and bad days. I have yet to experience a good day. Be happy 
and thankful