Open & Close Cereal/Bread One-handed

Opening and refolding the plastic bag inside a cereal box is a two-handed task.  I would have to use my teeth and my sound hand.  Instead I take the bag out off the box, cut one side open (see arrow), and pour the cereal into a container.  Each morning my sound hand flips open the lid and pours.

To open a loaf of bread, I pull off the plastic tag and use the pointy end of a bottle opener to rip open the inner plastic liner.  

To close, I fold the open end of the bag under the loaf (see arrow) and slide the loaf inside a bread container made by Rubbermaid.  When I turn the container upright, the weight of the bread keeps the folded end shut.  The next day my thumb flips the lid off, I put the container on its side, and slide the bread out.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Equipment that is WalMart Cheap

As an OT I shopped in expensive medical catalogs.  Now I use a cheap over-the-door plastic hook to hang a terry-cloth bathrobe on a towel bar.  Another plastic hook keeps the head of the shower hose off the floor of my tub when I am finished showering.

If I did not have non-slip shelf liner under the pill container it would start slipping away from me as soon as I reached in to get a pill.  I am glad non-slip shelf liner comes in neutral colors that do not clash with my decor because I have small pieces of it all over my house. 
                                                      homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Do Not Throw Away Your Bananas

Part of my healthy diet is putting a banana on my cereal instead of sugar.  But there is no "honey do" at my house so to cut down on trips to the store I buy a bunch of bananas.  I live alone so a bunch of bananas turns brown and becomes mushy before I can eat them all.  

To get the bananas off my kitchen counter, I separated them and put them in a container in my refrigerator.              I discovered when I put green bananas in the refrigerator, the peels turn brown but the bananas do not.  

The trick is remembering to put a banana on the counter    1 or 2 days before I want to eat it so it will ripen.            Green bananas are difficult to peel.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Staying Safe When I Do Laundry

I do laundry with the help of 2 cheap pieces of equipment I bought at Walmart.  My washing machine is so deep that to reach all the clean clothes, I have to dive into the machine with my hips resting on the rim and my feet dangling in the air.  So I use tongs designed to handle food to reach the bottom while I keep my feet on the floor.  To keep frustration from ruining my success, I keep these tongs in the laundry room where I can grab them without hunting for them.

My dryer is so deep I have to lean down and stick my head in the dryer to reach all the dry clothes.  To prevent a fall I put a cheap folding metal chair in front of the dryer.  Sitting an a chair when I reach for clothes in the back eliminates a fall hazard.  I keep this chair folded and propped against the laundry wall.  

I try not to feel smug because I did not buy high-priced adaptive equipment from a medical catalogue.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Walking in the Dark

I need light to see if I am standing upright because a stroke stole my ability to feel where vertical is.  Unfortunately, my electricity goes out one or two times a year so I have learned to be afraid of the dark.  Instead of moving to a long-term care facility I put flashlights every place I sit (couch, computer, kitchen table).  My leg brace allows me to carry a flashlight in my sound so I can walk to a phone to report the outage.  However, when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I am barefoot.  I need a quadcane in my sound hand instead of a flashlight.  A friend showed me her Energizer Folding Lantern.  It has a large handle so I can carry my quadcane and the lantern in my sound hand.  Thanks to a silvery lining this lantern is bright enough to light the few feet I need to walk to my on-suite bathroom.  

This lantern opens like a clam shell when I need to replace the batteries.  I need a big screwdriver to remove 2 screws (see small white circles) to open the battery compartment.  Searching for a screwdriver is maddening so I bought a screwdriver just for the lantern.

I keep the lantern, screwdriver, and replacement batteries next to my bed on an 8 inch wide rolling cart I found at Target.  It is the Household Essentials 3 shelf utility cart.  Before I get into bed, I place the cart where I can pull it close to me without getting up.  The lantern is on the middle shelf so I can turn it on while lying in bed.  In the dark I slide my fingers along the edge of the shelf until I feel the lantern handle.  This tells me where the on-switch is.   homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Rolling Over in Bed Can Be a *****

Right after my stroke, rolling over in bed took horrendous effort when I was most tired.  When I rolled onto my sound side, my floppy hemiplegic arm would get stuck behind me.  It felt like a wrestler was pinning my upper body to the bed.  I had to remember to use my sound hand to pull my hemiplegic arm across my chest before I started to roll while pulling on the bed rail.

Seventeen years later rolling onto my sound side is still difficult.  One night when I wanted to roll over so I could sleep on my sound left side, my hand reached for the folding chair I placed next to my bed.  This chair is lower than my bed which makes it easier to lean down to tie my shoes.  With the help of the chair and a hemiplegic arm that now rolls with the rest of my body, I quickly fell asleep.  Once again serendipity made my life better.   

However, I have gotten good at rolling onto my hemiplegic right side to get out of bed.  My sound arm crosses over my chest as I swing my sound leg over my hemiplegic leg.  My sound hand reaches for the mattress as I hang both legs over the edge of the bed.  The weight of my legs dropping down helps pull my trunk and head up.  My sound hand pushes on the mattress to help me sit up.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

My Pain Got worse

My central pain became intolerable at night.  Central pain is constant pain created by brain damage.  Symptoms include pain caused by normally non-painful stimuli, constant burning, 

electric shock-like pain, and a stinging, tingling, or pins-and-needles sensation.  These abnormal sensations are usually localized to one body part, especially the hands or feet.  I have a constant burning sensation in my hemiplegic foot.  Three strategies give me relief.

Initially (1) taking Tylenol and (2) raising the sheet off of my foot helped me fall asleep.  In the photo I placed a ball outside the covers to show you what the ball under the covers looks like.  The ball keeps the covers off the end of my big toe all night long.  When these two strategies were not enough to help me fall sleep I added a 3rd strategy.

(3) Gel packs heated in a microwave oven.  WARNING: Gel packs heat up very quickly and are deceivingly cool at 1st touch.  I heat the gel pack for only 25 seconds on High because a stroke took away my ability to tell the difference between hot and cold in my leg. To safely remove the gel pack from the microwave and transport it to my bedroom, I put it on a stiff paper plate.  I place the gel pack NEXT to my foot. The gentle heat gradually extinguishes the burning sensation in my foot so I can fall asleep.

 Two sensations can cancel each other out.  This is why you rub a painful body part that has bumped into an object.  Ben Gay cream works because it has Capsaicin that produces a mild burning sensation that cancels the awareness of muscle pain.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Cheap Equipment That Prevents Spills

Stroke survivors can prevent messes when they cook by using cheap objects instead of buying expensive adaptive devices from a medical catalogue.  For example, my hemiplegic (paralyzed) hand cannot reach up and hold the handle of a pot to keep the pot still when I stir food or flip food with a spatula.  So I slide pots off the burner onto a heat-resistant fabric hot pad before I stir or flip food.  Friction has always kept the pot still.  Now I use a cheap silicon hot pod to hold things still (see below).

An even more delicious way to save money is to use the plastic lid from a peanut butter jar.  This lid catches spills when I measure spices or messy food like olive oil.  It is frustrating to stop to clean up a mess I just made on my counter top.  Using spices is a matter of life-and-death because I am on a low salt diet to help control my high blood pressure.  Low salt food tastes awful without lots of spices.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Cheap Equipment That Reduces Frustration

A cheap seam ripper I bought at a sewing goods store got rid of a ton of frustration.  I open seals around the top of bottles by slipping the point of the seam ripper under the edge and ripping upwards or downwards.  Then I pull off the seal by grabbing the cut edge with my sound hand while I squeeze the bottle between my thighs.  Sometimes I grab the cut edge with my teeth as my sound hand holds the bottle.  No more trying to slice with the tip of a knife which shreds rather that cuts.  

I use the tip of the seam ripper to rip open the foil at the top of a pill bottle and dig out the cotton ball that fill half of the bottle.  Preventing decades of frustration is not a small thing - so much energy saved for better things. homeafterstroke.blogspot.com

Another Cheap Solution

Here is another example of how stroke survivors can use cheap every day items to solve problens instead of ordering equipment from an expensive medical catalogue. I love my kitchen garbage can except for 1 thing.   As it gets full, the weight of the garbage pulls the liner down.  The notch (see arrow) does not keep the liner in place.  Garbage can get caught between the liner and the can - yuk. 

Recently I saw 2 metal clips resting on my counter that I forgot to put away.  I thought the clips might hold the liner in place.  Voila - the tiny black clips next to the hinge do the job.  I am so happy.  Serendipity saved me again.  Having a master's degree in OT is not enough.

I had to do in-store shopping to find a kitchen garbage can I can use.  I discovered I cannot use a garbage can that opens by stepping on a pedal.  This mechanism requires me to slowly step on the pedal so the lid does not fly open.  My balance is not good enough to do this.  I learned garbage cans with openings in the lid that swing open when touched are small so the edges can get spattered with food - another yuk.

A model made by Hefty has a lid that hangs over the side (see arrows).  I lift the lid with the back of my hemiplegic fist so my sound hand is free to dump the garbage.  homeafterstroke.blogspot.com