Cheers Tom.
Yes the brain does have remarkable capabilities. Just after the stroke I read that up to 2 million brain cells a minute can be damaged. To me that sounded very frightening and on day one, it was all very scary and traumatic though she was in no mood to dwell on it or feel self pity. Then I found that the brain has something like 100 billion cells. I read up on plasticity and I remembered reading that you could improve your own guitar playing by watching a skilled player's hands.
I sat with her for hours at a time moving my leg and arm and my fingers. Hers were totally useless to her but we kept at it. Then bit by bit the movement started to come back in her leg. I don't know if we can attribute it to that. Another strange thing occurred.She has a friend who says she is an energy healer. As far as I was concerned, I didn't want Mrs 38th's hopes raised unduly but we were open to anything. So this friend visited her in hospital. That night, after two and a half weeks of being immovable, her right arm could be raised. I was amazed. The day before the arm was useless though at that point she had just the faintest of movement in the tips of two fingers. Since then the friend has seen her a few times and she has made progress each time. I really didn't want to believe it and if I hadn't seen it myself, would have remained very sceptical. But for now I am just grateful that the bleak future that I thought she and I would have, is looking better.
