Having a stoke has transformed my life. Given that it happened when I was 80 hears old is both insignificant and significant. It is insignificant to me because it is irrelevant when it happened. I have to change my life regardless of when in my life it happens. It is insignificant to most anyone else because 80 is old. Most of life is past. For most people anyway. But it is significant to me because I have so much more to do in my life. I realize that 80 is pretty old and that extending life beyond 100 is unrealistic. In fact, for me, I would have to say that my family history would make 100 very unrealistic. But I did think, and still hope, that I have at least another 10 or even 15 years to live. And to live productively. Even with a stroke.
Details of the event
The stroke happened on a Wednesday in August of 2024. It was Wednesday, August 21 to be exact. I was lucky that it happened in a doctors office. Not because the doctor knew what to do, but because his office manager did. I was not alert and dont remember the details. In fact, I was knocked out on the floor of the waiting room. My own recollection was that I had gotten up and moved to a sofa, but I learned later that the crew from the hospital picked me up from the floor. I was out and only remember things from a day later when I was in the hospital.
Peppy told me that he had dropped me off to park the car and only got to the doctors office after I had already been carried out by the crew. Neither the doctor nor his office manager knew which hospital the crew was taken me to. Peppy then called a neighbor at home and Kristina, who was in England, to help calling hospitals with their better french. Kristina is the one who learned that I had been taken to a hospital in Nice. Peppy then called the Nice hospital and spoke with the officials in the ICU unit where I had been taken. By now it was late in the day, I was being well taken care of, and he waited until the next days visiting hours to drive the long distance from our home to the hospital.
I want to step back now to recall the days leading up to my being in the doctors office. Kristina and her family had spend a week with us in Grasse in between time in Bristol. They left on Tuesday, 20 August. It seems to me that I had already had my fall near the pool when I had injured my hand, before they left. In any case, I had a big wound on my right hand while protecting my face in the fall. And the fall, or whatever caused it, came to be considered one of the possible causes of my stroke.
Anyway, back at the hospital, I was first placed into the ICL unit and had my first CT and related tests. I was there from August 22 to 28, when I was moved to the vascular ward. I was originally going to be released on 2 September but I apparently had another miner stroke and was not released until September 7. The medical work was excellent in both places, the best in France for strokes, I have been told. The only complaint we would have (both Peppy and I) would be that they werent good about communicatint with either one of us. I guess this can be attributed to our American expectations, which are more communicative between doctors and patients . Of course, our very limited French may also have been a factor.
Nonetheless, they did provide excellent care and explore many factors that could have caused the stroke. They considered my heart, bleeding in my brain, a non-functioning blood vessel, my previous troubles with my legs, and even that accident with my hand. They were also concerned about what effects the stroke had had on me both physically and mentally. I was apparently immobile on my left side at first, but I dont remember this. What I do remember was that I had difficulty seeing things on my right side. And still do. So I went to see an eye doctor after my stay in the hospital. She concluded that I had no problem with my eyes but that my eye side was affected by the problem in my braid. On that score, I have lots of symptoms. My reading and righting skills in particular are week. Eventually, with the help of some additional tests in another hospital arranged by a heart doctor, they all concluded that it was caused by an erratic heart rhythm that has caused the bleeding in my brain.
The attention to my heart and its effect on my brain involved tests and treatments over the next couple months. There is a node in the Team Kathy WhatsApp that Peppy set up showing that consensus was reached about this on December 6. The supplementary measuring device was installed on November 12. This device was inserted by a special medical staff at the hospital in Cannes. They are connected to a monitor next to my bed that checks detailed heart movements. They can and have contacted me whenever it records any problem with my heart. This has happened only once so far, but it was for a four second delay in my heart beat in September 2025. Pretty amazing. But good to know about it, with confirmation from the doctors that it was not serious. But they did call me about it.
Unfortunately, there was another problem, with my legs. The medications for my brain conflicted with the medications I had been taking for my legs. For some years now I had problems with the arteries in my legs. Changing the medications contributed to the need for different treatments. I need to get more acquainted with terminology for this, but suffice it to say here that I started having pain in my legs some two months after the stroke. I went back to the medical office where I had had my stroke to get the review of my legs, and I also meat with a new doctor specialising in legs.
This doctor was a Russian. My eye doctor and my heart doctor were from Romania, and I thought that was largely because of a historic link between the two countries. But Russia? Well, it is not like politics interacts with medicine, but it was interesting to hear him talk positively about his home country.
This Russian doctor operated on both of my legs, the left leg in December, and the right leg in January. Ralph knows the terminology for what he did, which was different on each leg. The doctor’s work was effective in getting rid of the pain, but not the dead feeling that I have, especially in my left foot. He has suggested that this will fade away but could take up to 12 months. His surgery, by the way, was in a third hospital, near the main shopping center just outside of Nice.
The medical work and support activities have all been encouraging. I have a full range of medicines to take; a family doctor who has grown with us; specialists galore who check my heart, my head, and my legs. A good person gives me special exercises for my legs. And a fantastic expert works with me on my language skills, in english and in french.
Recovery is more than medicines and doctors and hospitals. And I have to note that my darling Peppino was my hero and savior. Having him come to the hospital every day was important in all three hospital stays, but especially in the first one. We would review the mail, especially the Team Kathy inputs from family and friends and read the news. We played lots of a simple card game Go Fish and took walks up and down the hallway. And at home, he was super, even holding the pan for me to pee and pop. His coming up with the Team Kathy idea was especially valuable as a way for others to join in the recovery process. I have enjoyed reading through the messages more than once.
One interesting thing about these months was that we managed to enjoy time with family and friends, both in Grasse and in the States, during this time. Becky and Scott were with us in Grasse both before and after their time in Greece between 6 and 24 October; and PJ was with us from 21 to 26 October. I think our olive harvest came after that, but it, too, went on with coordinating help from Louise and Pascal and their young family and friends. And we benefited from Charles and Yola hosting a thanksgiving dinner for us in November. Christmas in Virginia also happened between the two leg operations, from December 17 and 31. I was sleeping upright during that trip and had nursing services on my left leg during that time, but otherwise it went well. More on these adventures later.
Learning to live with a stroke
There is, of course, the challenge of living with a stroke, no matter how good the recovery process might be. The medical advice was that I would lever recover 100%, and I suppose this means both physical and mental skills. The former is further hampered by the problem with my legs, of course. But I am especially bothered by the loss of my mental skills.
True, I cant drive anymore. And that means that Peppy has to drive me everywhere. I used to like driving, but most I dont missed it. Peppy has to take me to my recovery appointments, twice a week for my head and once a week for my body. And all the other medical appointments. We do all our grocer and other shopping together, although he does a lot of his shopping on the internet. I cant even go walking by myself except in the garden or nearby. So I am not exercising as much as I used to. I stopped sleeping upright some time ago, but I still have difficulty climbing stairs, most going down than up.
To work on my physical difficulties, I have been going to a specialist once a week. He is good at knowing what level of difficulty I can handle and has me doing a mix of leg and arm exercises with ropes, balls and pads next to a wall with a machine on it. He usually has two other people in nearby rooms and rotates among the three of us for 45 minutes. Often, these two other people are two nuns in traditional religious garb. Other times, there are men in shorts and skimpy tops. Once there was an Islamic woman all covered up, oddly enough like the nuns but in Islamic dress and head-gear. Anyway, the specialist is doing a good job with improving my physical health, but I still have a dead foot.
My eyesight is another problem, although our eye doctor has confirmed that it is not because of any problem with the eyes themselves. And the only time I notice it is when we watch things on the television. I miss seeing things on the right side of the screen unless I turn my head. This can also happen when I am reading. I do notice that it seems to be getting less problematic, but that may just be because I have gotten used to it.
And then there is the matter of not being addle to read or write the way I used to. My speech therapist, Marie-Alix Olivier has been wonderful. She has been able to connect with me in ways that move beyond the formal. First, I think she is a skilled speech therapist. She combines reading and listening with righting, but it is more than that. She understands about speed and texture and other aspects of speaking and communicating that I dont even know how to describe. We combine reading or writing with listening to the spoken word, based on a specific reading. Often the reading is from a book of my own readings, which is a good way to connect to my writing style from before the stroke.
Another aspect of our sessions is that Marie Aliz is very attuned to me as an individual. She compliments me on my clothing, things that my new glasses make me look younger, remarks that I have a much larger vocabulary in my head than most people. On this last point, she has noted that I regularly find equivalent works to ones that I dont remember. She comes from the part of France that used to be part of Germany and asserts that she knows German better than English. She and I have worked on my France as well as my English, of course, and not my German (or my Spanish). But her background somehow connects with mine, at least on the fact that both of us have Protestant connections. But it is more than that. We seem to like the same music and other cultural interests.
On my own, I do a lot of reading. I check my emails regularly and can read most of them. I get lots of political mail which I usually delete. Family mail is always welcome, as are notes from friends. I receive get lots of messages from the Council on Foreign Relations, including notices of Virlual meetings. And I keep an eye out for White House Fellows messages. I also read the news from the Washington Post and the New York Times and some other sources like the Economist or The Atlantic Daily.
Reading books and other longer sources requires a combination of reading and hearing for me to understand the content. I could, of course, just listen to understand the flow, but the combination works well for me to improve my reading skills. I read books for the local book club and for my WHF class. I occasionally read articles in Foreign Affairs.
As for my writing, I have two different problems. First, my hand righting is slow and messy. I can’t even right on a strait line. And second, my typing skills are even worse. I dont remember how to spell words, and I don’t even remember basic computer skills. I know there are ways for me to write with similar help as with my reading, but I have to get better with the basics of righting on a computer first. So I am righting this essay on a computer, my first serious effort to right since my accident. It is very slow, but I have to start somewhere.
Suffice it to say that I have made good progress on my English with Marie-Alix, and I am very pleased with that. I feel that my progress in French is not so good. It isn’t her fault, but we have not found a good path for my French. I guess I was never as knowledgeable in French as I had thought, and certainly not fluent. So my sense of learning French is weak. And my pre-stroke plan to become fluent in Spanish is out of the question now. But I also think that I need to concentrate on English for now.
What else has changed because of the stroke? Most importantly it has affected my husband and our relationship. I would say that it has strengthened our marriage, but it has certainly also affected Peppy personally. He has been very attentive to my welfare, and concerned about our future. At the beginning of this section, I noted that he had to drive me everywhere, but he has also been concerned about leaving me alone. He does more of the cooking than before, although this is only a matter of degree. He monitors my medications and makes suffer I talk them. He orders my books. He steps in to fix my numerous computer mistakes. He even helps me puts my difficult shoes on.
Peppy even came with me to my English class in Peymenade to help me with the class. We eventually decided that it was unrealistic for me to teach the class, even with Peppy’s help. But we met the class a number of times, in October and then again in January before deciding to wait until the next year. And now, at the beginning of the next year, I realize that I probably have to give it up entirely. Well, I can wait another hear to decide, as long as the students and the organization are willing. I still have trouble with reading documents without hearing them. But I have made good progress and might be good enough in a year’s time.
I have one final thing to say about how my life has changed because of the stroke. I joined an are club. Would I have joined it anyway? Maybe so, although I would have been less optimistic. It is an outgrowth of the book club I jointed last year – that I helped to organize last year. The book club has evolved into a much more English group than it was at first. And that is a separate problem. But the expansion of the book club included a person who is also an artist, an artist who likes to teach. The art club is simply a sub-seat of book club members. I joined it in January after I had had my second leg surgery. I recall that Peppy really encouraged me to join the group, and so I did.
The experience has been an eye opener for me. I do not consider me to be an artist. At least not my pre-stroke self. And I still have reservations about my artistic abilities. But I am intrigued by discovering how I approach art differently now. The art teacher seems to think that my art has a contemporary style to it. I personally think it is terrible. And all the other students are more precise in what they draw. But OK. Peppy seems to like it. And he has enjoyed giving me lots of artistic tools to play with. So I see it has a new post-stroke experience. I’ll even include some of it in this exercise.
Aspects of life and family in general.
I am still in a reading group. I have other groups to connect with on the internet, including my While House Fellows class and the Council on Foreign Relations. I’ve renewed contact with my graduate school, the School of International Service at American University, and I do intent to do more with the French group that organizes international conferences in Paris. I even toyed with the idea of connecting with the local university department involved in foreign relations. I am still interested in Democratic groups, both the local group and various groups in the States, especially involving Virginia. Peppy and I have become supporters of the area’s Pay de Grasse Tourisne group,, and I might even join some other groups here, such as the American club.
I am slower with household and gardening activities, but that is more because of my age than my stroke. I maybe do like our living arrangement more than before. Accepting it as the way to enjoy what we have together. Life with Peppy is wonderful. He has his photography, his music, his excellent cooking skills, his home improvement skills, and so much more. We have a wonderful family to enjoy from afar. And another trip to the States at Christmastime.
