Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

In Canada, after a stroke you get 6 months of ‘recovery with a physiotherapist team that, for me started in earnest ten days after  four and a half hour heart surgery to remove a large tumor from the right atria of my heart, which occurred 3 plus weeks after the stroke itself. I had 4 months of physiotherapist in hospital followed by another months of physio at a different location. It wasn’t enough, but it got me on the path to the hardest DIY project of my life. Trying to overcome permanent paralysis. Why am I still trying months shy of the ten year anniversary of my stroke? Because, as frustrating as it is to admit, I simply can’t give in to the ridiculously slim possibility that I might just be able to walk around the block.  Am I delirious, or is it tenacity?  Either way, I just can’t accept that it likely won’t happen.

So I feed the delusion by planning trips I know I’ll never take. Setting challenges for myself, I know I won’t succeed at and dreaming my life away.

Turns out DIY stroke recovery might just be the impossible dream.