Just a small thing

[panda60]

Just a small achievement but it made me feel good. When I had my stroke in 1998 my cognitive skills were severely compromised. I worked really hard and learned techniques to cope to the extent of studying for an OU degree. But in the last six years I have lost the ability to produce anything handwritten, even a message in a card, without great difficulty sometimes spelling out the letters one by one. Whether it is because I have suffered further damage or just not using them since graduating I don't know, but have come to dread writing.

Yesterday I realised I had put off writing a simple letter and sending two cheques. I made a couple of errors in the letter and had to rewrite one of the cheques, but I did it and felt I had really achieved something.

[Manofmendip]

Well done Panda, keep at it and let us now how your improvement progresses.

Best wishes.

Dave

[panda60 in reply to Manofmendip]

Thanks. Fortunately most things I need to write can be done on my tablet or PC but I do need to make myself handwrite sometimes too.

[Lure2]

Yes Panda. Good that you did not give up!

I have no problems when writing here but when I write by hand it can be very ugly and I write the wrong letters or miss one letter sometimes.

I am divorced so I have to do everything myself and sometimes that can be good perhaps. You have to have the responsibility for your life yourself. No one can help you.

Hope you will like the Group on the 22nd of August. Balance that is.

Kerstin

[panda60 in reply to Lure2]

My handwriting was always my pride and joy but is dreadful now unless I write very slowly and like you I make spelling mistakes and miss letters out.

Appointment for balance clinic coming soon so that will be the next challenge. Hope they will be able to help.

[MaryF Administrator]

Good for you, smash those barriers out of the way. MaryFx

[panda60 in reply to MaryF]

Thank you Mary. Sorting ( hopefully) what is causing my balance problems is next. Symptoms all point to what happened after my stroke in 1998 but no idea why they have returned with a vengeance. Got a hospital appointment next week but am going to call different strokes first to see if they can offer any advice. They were very helpful 16yrs ago.

Hope all well with you and your family.x

[GinaD]

Is it handwriting or the difficulty of converting thought speech to paper? Your posts have always been informative and clear.

My handwriting has been bad since 7th grade, but after my mini strokes it became indecipherable--even to me. I switched to printing everything and have relied on computer technology -I have an iPhone with Siri and that has helped a lot. But the legibility of my printing has improved --particularly over the past 4-5 years.

Isn't it do frustrating when we are robbed of doing even little " normal" things like writing legible checks? Thank goodness for Hubby. He writes the checks while I use the ATM and my bank card!

[panda60 in reply to GinaD]

I think it must be the act of transferring thoughts to paper which is a very different skill to typing where mistakes can be easily rectified. But handwriting has become more of a chore since I had my shoulders operated on as gripping is painful. That's why I had to give up my cross stitch.

[GinaD]

So sorry. Yet another hurdle. But you are surmounting. Yea!