The Caruccio’s Stroke Recovery Index
Obviously it helps if I eat properly to recover from my stroke.
So when I’m in London, Cambridge, I tend to go to one of Carluccio’s cafes for lunch and have a plate of prosciutto and one of their delicious lemonades.
The prosciutto is not that easy to eat with a knife and fork, but I notice that I’m getting better. I also dribble less with the lemonade. As the staff are always very attentive and can help with an extra serviette if required, I doubt there is a better way to gauge how your recovery is going.
I note that since I got to London at 12:30 yesterday, I’ve had eaten three meals in Carluccio’s cafes; lunch in Hampstead, supper with my son and his friend in Islington and then breakfast in St. Pancras. Perhaps, it is not a cheap way of travelling, but I am alone and I know that everything I eat will be totally gluten-free and safe.
Did Anybody See Top Gear on Sunday?
If you didn’t, it’s repeated tonight on BBC2 at 8:00.
They asked the team to buy three reasonably priced UK-built sport cars and Richard Hammond turned up in a Lotus Elan like mine. What he didn’t say about it, was that Elans are second only to E-Types, when it comes to pulling posh birds of a cerain vintage!
He was also unable to show, how it is still one of the fastest cars across country. Read some of my posts from last year about the car.
Interestingly, I am now driving the car again, in and out of its garage and round the yard. I can’t do this with my Jaguar as the clutch is too strong for my gammy left leg.
Perhaps, one day I’ll be back on the road! But it will be in the Elan!
A Gentle Game of Real Tennis
Today, I had my first game of real tennis since I had my stroke two months ago. So it was only a gentle workout with Andrew, the professional at Newmarket and Suffolk Real Tennis Club, but it made me feel a bit better.
Real tennis is a full body and mind workout, if ever there was one!
- Your eyes have to track a moving ball, as it bounces and spins of both the walls and floor of the court. It can be frustrating to someone starting the game and I found it a bit so, as I struggled sometimes to get my racket to the ball.
- You also have to move properly to the ball and I did find this difficult at times, as I wasn’t too sure where it would bounce. But I did think, I was getting better as we played on.
- As I am right-handed and that had been unaffected by the stroke, I was hitting quite a few balls successfully and in some cases I was actually hitting the ball, so they got the optimum length.
- My backhand wasn’t good, but then it never was.
- The big thing about real tennis is that it is a game for the mind as well. As we progressed, I was remembering the strategy and was able to play better to my strengths and my oponent’s weaknesses.
So all in all, I found it valuable.
It will be interesting to see if I get better in the coming weeks.
On a serious pointoif there is anybody out there who would like to learn and enjoy the game, why don’t they contact me? I could teachthem the basics at either Newmarket OR Cambridge. The only snag would be that they would have to give me a lift to the court!
How My Diet is Changing
I do still have a few problems eating, so my diet has changed a bit since the stroke in Hong Kong.
Some foods are easy and others are not. Take yesterday, I cooked a chicken for my son and his friend, and had new potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli with it. I couldn’t carve the chicken, so he did that, but otherwise everything was fairly easy, especially as I’d cut the cauliflower and broccoli into small pieces before I cooked them.
Baked potatoes can be difficult to eat, but they are easy to cook, as I just remove the eyes and put them in the AGA.
Pasta is easy and for this and other foods, I can always use the fork as a spoon in my good right hand. I don’t often, as you have to have some standards!
I don’t eat much red meat and if I want a steak, I generally have tuna, which is very easy to eat and I also have a simple recipe for this, which is very easy to cook. In fact, I probably have fish at least once a week.
But it is not the great change I thought it woiuld be! If I had one piece of advice, it would be to experiment and find out what you can manage.
Geeta’s Premium Mango Chutney
I’m not usually one for pickles and chutney, but I did buy a jar of Geeta’s Premium Mango Chutney from Waitrose. I tried it yesterday with some ham and cold new potatoes. It was delicious! It also revived the taste-buds in my mouth a bit, just like the Waitrose tiffin does.
The product is marked that it is suitable for coeliacs too. The web site has a selection of easy recipes too!
An Affordable Breakfast With Style
When you are a coeliac and like me recovering from a stroke, you have to be careful where you go for a meal. You must be sure of the food and because you might get into a mess and drop something or even everything all over the floor or yourself, it is probably a good idea to go to an establishment with staff waiting at tables.
All of this was illustrated very well, when I turned up at Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast or was it an early lunch?
It was sunny, so I sat outside and then ordered an Eggs Florentine without the bread and an orange juice. I’ve done this several times now in various of their cafes and no-one has minded, that I have modified their standard menu.
Gluten Free Eggs Florentine at Carluccio's
It was delicious and after adding cappucino, it cost me just £11.95, although I did add a generous tip for good service and such things like an extra serviette to make sure the mess was kept to a minimum.
I’m afraid that I tend to plan my trips around places where I know that I can eat well, easily and gluten-free. Unfortunately, not many places I hope to visit on my travels have one of Carluccio’s caffes. But it’s getting better as Leicester has no joined the list. But I suspect, I’ll be long gone before they reach Midlesbrough. They won’t be there for my trip in two weeks time.
Saying Sorry
Camilla Cavendish hit the nail firmly on the head with her piece entitled Just say sorry, I promise I won’t sue you! in yesterday’s Times.
It makes a lot of difference and is so easy, especially with new technology. For instance, why not have a Sorry, your points are noted signature in your Outlook setup, so when someone e-mails you with a complaint about a late train, you can at least get the start of the reply right.
I recently made a complaint to O2 about the non-performance of the courier swapping a mobile phone. I Got a proper letter starting with a sorry, going through the problems with the courier and then ending with a thank you.
In fact, as they had my e-mail address, they didn’t actually need to write, so they obviously thought about their response.
i’ve also had an apology from my John Lewis Partnership card about the non-delivery of vouchers, as they are having troubles with the supplier. That came with 500 extra points.
So perhaps things are getting better.
I know that when I bump into people on the street because of my bad visibility because of the strokes I have had, I more often than not get a sorry in return. Often before I’ve spoken!
I hope so!
Mind and Body Changes
In the previous post on Sudoku, I speculated how my problem solving ability was changing.
But this is not the only change that is happening.
Just after the second stroke in Hong Kong, my balance was not good and walking in a straight line was difficult. In fact when I went to physiotherapy or X-ray, it was always in a wheel chair. Incidentally, once in Addenbrookes, I was generally left to my own devices, after the first few hours. But that is in the main down to a difference in cultures.
But take what happened on my first day in Addenbrookes. I was taken to a kitchen and asked to make a cup of tea for myself. It tasted better than any cup of tea, I have ever made.
What that cup of tea taught me, was that you have to think differently and take in all possible outcomes, when you do something.
Now that I’ve been home for a few weeks and virtually looking after my cooking and personal needs on my own for the last three or so, I can see that my brain has developed new ways of doing things. As an example, I am sure, I’ve devised new ways of doing things to get round the problems I have, say with my left hand. But then I’ve done this before, when my arm was broken at school. For years, I avoided using it, as it didn’t work too well, So I sometimes used my right hand, when everybody else would have used their left.
Underneath it all, we all have several ways of doing things and when one is no longer available, we just use another one we know or devise a new one. As an example, how many of us are naturally left-handed, but have been made to write with the other hand. And then you have Ken Rosewall, who some would say was the finest tennis player of all time, but he was naturally left-handed and had been made to play with his right by his father.
The Sudoku Conundrum
In an earlier post I wrote the following.
Except for one curious thing. I do the Sudoku in The Times every day and have always found that the Super Fiendish were beyond my powers, unless I resulted to a process of elimination. That in my book is almost cheating.
But since the stroke, I can do these without problems in just a few minutes. I would never accuse such an august newspaper as The Times, of dumbing down, but they have just introduced a new section called Mind Games.
I should write to them.
I haven’t written, except to enter their Sudoku championships, where I did mention the fact that my prowess has improved.
I’m no expert on brains and how they work, but could it be a general improvement, that would have happened anyway. We all learn new tricks as we get older and have I just worked out other wheezes to find a solution. Possibly as my brain has had to relearn how to do things that it can’t do anymore, new pathways are being found or uncovered, that give my brain extra power in solving problems. On the other hand, I’ve always solved problems and that to me is almost a pastime in its own right.
Remember too, in hospital in both Hong Kong and Addenbrookes, I spent a lot of time doing the various puzzles in The Times. So it could just be a case of practice making things better, as it is by no means perfect!
I Can Drive
Not legally, I should add and not on any public road. But a couple of weeks ago, when I needed to move the Jaguar, it was a struggle and I ended up stalling it in reverse. whether it was my arm or my leg, I didn’t know, but today, I was able to move it so I could put all of the bottles for recycling in the boot. I then did a three point turn on the stud yard.
It’s progress! I hope!
The Anonymous Widower 