When I came home, over a year ago now, I had noticed that there were a couple of places on my body where there was numbness - almost like the novocain you would get from the dentist. There was a large area on my left leg by the knee that had no feeling, as well as the fingertips of my right hand thumb (I guess that's not a finger - although the very end of a couple of fingers were affected as well). Also, when I would open my hand fully (spreading all the fingers and thumb), it would be painful. This started with the right hand, but then seemed to improve - and move to the left hand.
This morning, on the cruise ship, I re-evaluated all these problems. Most of them have now gone away. You might ask "wouldn't you have noticed right away?", but these took months and months to disappear - and now they're mostly gone.
I've tried to walk around the deck on the ship, but found that I really can't. There's too many people also walking on the track (and I get in their way), and my balance is still not great - I tend to find it hard walking with the subtle movement of the ship. I'm going to also say that I've always dislike gyms, so I'll use that as my excuse for not visiting the one on board - even though it never seems that busy (I make no comment on the reasons why).
Sleep continues to be my cross to bear. Many people have asked why I'm so obsessive about it, and I have to answer that "you might be frustrated by the odd night of poor or limited sleep - maybe only a couple of hours - but my issue is that, without sleep meds (mirtazapine), I get little to no sleep, and this happens night after night". Once I get off lorazapam (Ativan) sometime in the next couple of months, I'm really hoping the sleep thing becomes a non-issue.
So that's the update for the end of January, 2011. Overall, progress is good and it continues. My speech is very slowly getting better, my walking is getting longer and all the ancillary quirks of the stroke seem to have been going away. Once sleep is handled, life will approach the "new normal".