Ok, 15.30 tomorrow it is.
I am sure you are right: I am still struggling to pace myself. Days like this every damn thing is hard!
John
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Sorry i had to scoot off, Simon. It was too long for me to sustain a sensible discussion. But I took on board all the sensible point you made.
I am inclined to agree that it could stir up a nest of hornets and create a lot of work that comes to nothing.
Let’s see if that small publisher responds.
My dyslexia has come back after 6-8 weeks of trouble-free reading and writing! 
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That could be because you overdid things for one day two.
That sort of back sliding can go hand in hand with a bout of fatigue and is usually only temporary.
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Thanks. It’s been an uncomfortable few days — anxiety, fatigue and a few bouts of despair.
I thought I was doing well but my confidence has been badly dented. I recognised that the company of my fellow human beings could easily exhaust me. But I thought some quiet walking in the fresh air could only be good. Now I am not sure. Anyway, start again I suppose and hope for the best.
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You will recover, it’s a learning curve, you just need to pace yourself better and reduce the amount you do in the day. A walk a day keeps the doctor away but no more than half an hour to an hour to begin with. Then maybe have a snack when you get back, because you will have burnt a lot of fuel in that walk and it needs to be replenished to get through the rest of the day 
The brain has an awful lot to take in and manage on a walk; as well as all it has to do to both heal and repair whilst maintaining all functionality. So that healing and repairing is a major added burden the brain has never had to bear before, so it’s going to be draining.
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It is very kind of you to take trouble. It’s disheartening — especially the deterioration of my language. I thought that was behind me two months ago. I must have taken more than 10 minutes to type and correct this! Sigh. To anxiety and fatigue we should also add boredom! Thanks!
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In truth its going to take you at least a year to know where you stand.
Look at it this way: I had a hip replacement 6yrs ago. Yes, it only took the usual 6-8wks to heal. But that is not “recovered”, that to me a year to get it back to full strength.
It’s taken me 3yrs to recover my speech and I’ve still got mild aphasia, I certainly can’t talk as you and @SimonInEdinburgh did in that zoom meet the other day.
My earlier post replies on this forum too me hours to produce and over many breaks. Now it just takes anything from 15mins to half an hour.
Like the walking, I did a bit every day, doggedly plodding along.
Now, 3yrs post stroke, in the space of half an hour, I can rattle off a post, jump in my car and head off down to the gym for a 2hr workout…as I’m going to now, only its Pilates today.
You also have your optimal time of day, usually around the midday period, where all functionality is at its best, its peak, for the day. That has always been there, just more noticeable as you get older. Mornings are always a bit of a slow start, and evenings are for shutting down.
I was an experienced touch typist, around 200 words per minute, though I haven’t tested myself, I’d say I’m about 80wpm now…I know my kids have noticed the drop, I struggle to keep up with them now 
It was the same for reading; I’d be lucky to read a small paragraph in the beginning. But that has built back up over the 3 years and now I can read a book in a couple of days. My only niggle is the wrestling match I have with brain to read the last line in every paragraph, it just want to jump to the next paragraph 
So, you got it all there inside your head, and you’re using it to some extent, in bite size portions. It’s just a matter of time and practice, practice, practice before you get to eat the sandwich . Keep ploughing through, you will get there. A year from now you’ll be so much better at these things than you are today.
Right, I’m off…
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That’s very instructive EE. Thanks. Nobody gives us even the merest sketch of a roadmap when we get home from hospital.
I was bobbing along thinking that things would get steadily better. And for the first 10 weeks or so that was pretty much the case. But then there has been a series of hiccups and setbacks. I wasn’t doing anything different, I think. But things started to go wrong and i began to lose confidence. Worrying symptoms began to pop up that I hadn’t experienced for weeks. Sleepless nights, busts of acute anxiety, inability to speak for 5 minutes or more, struggling with basic reading and mental arithmetic, sheer boredom, etc. I began to think I was doing worse at 12 weeks than I was at 3! I am not feeling sorry for myself but I really miss my old life very badly sometimes.
Your account your own experience helps me make a bit more sense of my own. I walk in the footsteps of many women and woman who have gone before. So thanks EE.
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I’m sure that’s pretty much how we all felt after our strokes! And after 2yrs on this forum, I’ve come to realise that very few, if any, are actually told of the sorts of things we are likely to experience as we recover…not even the basic such as fatigue which we all experience.
And that is the two steps forward, one step back that you will have read us all talk about in other posts on the forum…but I know your current reading time is very limiting at stage The medical world have a name for it but I prefer non medical terminology where I can that non medical stroke survivors are better able to understand and relate to…and don’t have to go googling to find the meanings because that’s just a brain strain.
Just basing my opinion on the man I met on zoom, I’m pretty sure you’ll make a good progress and recovery over the next year. Your speech alone is much better than mine was at that time…I couldn’t even write my name 
And yes, I too had many an anxious night, mainly nights, when I’d worry about the back sliding and thinking I was getting worse again or having another stroke. But when you really start paying closer attention to them you can start to see a bit of a pattern. And there are many patterns to observe over the course of your recovery.
Did you ever read The Numskulls comic strip in the Beano as a kid. So the brain’s got its electricians in there making repairs, doing temporary shutdowns whilst making them and shunting things about, normal service will resume shortly and then you get them back again.
Patience is a virtue and good things come to he who waits and all that jazz 
You need to have more faith and more confidence in yourself and your recovery
Don’t forget you can bookmark any posts of interest to come back to later, if you didn’t know 
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Thanks EE. I remember just about EVERYTHING I read in the pages of The Beano 65 years ago! Perhaps an alternative nickname for the forum is “The numskulls.”
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Yep, Numskulls are how I look at it whenever I considered what was going on in my head after my stroke 
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