Exercise Plan

I have decided to start practicing. For the first time I feel the need to show what I’m really made of. I have looked online to see if there is anything remotely interesting and I came across the page of Charlie Mike on bodybuilding.com and I was completely hooked. I am going to start on Monday and see what happens.  

I am going to look for anything where you can find a full diet, because now I have only found one breakfast so there should be more.  

The reason for this decision is very simple, I want to loose weight permanently. I don’t want to be old and wish and had done something. I had this stroke and that is the reason why I decided to change myself. I went to the doctor to here if there is anything wrong with me and the results are clear. I have decided to make me stronger and better. Right now I don’t have the same energy as before, I am constantly tired and need to sleep and I don’t want this.  

If there is anyone with something that can help, please contact me. Much appreciated.

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

I had a stroke...part 2

So as promised here is what happened to me while I was in rehab. As I said before the details are fuzzy so the gaps were filled by my family.

I was transported from the hospital to the rehab by my family as I refused to take the ambulance. I didn't want to be treated like a patient because I felt like I was fine again, even though I couldn't even really walk. When we got to the rehab they didn't know who I was or that I was suppose to be there. Are a few calls they realized the other receptionist had messed up and never made sure anybody knew I was coming.

They put me in a room with broken beds while they were getting my actual bed ready. They then decided the bed I was in was the one they were going to give me to sleep on, but it's wheels were stuck. Now I still had a massive brain injury, but this didn't stop them from taking a piece of a wheelchair and slamming it into the bed I was laying on repeatedly. I head quickly started hurting and my family tried to stop them. They then went to get the sister in charge to help with the bed and she did exactly the same thing. My family was very upset and also stopped her.

They explained to her that I have a brain injury and they can't be doing something like that. The person in charge showed up at this point and apologized for the stupidity of the staff. They gave me a brand new bed and moved me into a room with 3 other people. I was terrified being there alone so my daughters stayed with me while my husband had to go back to work. This is were the next horrible thing happened.

The rehab had not informed us they do not provide the nappies for me. My family did not know this as the hospital I had been in did supply them. It wasn't long before I needed a new diaper and they told my daughters they don't supply them. My daughters walked a my nearby to look for diapers for me. They couldn't find any and returned. They called my husband and told him what was going on. It had been more than 2 hours I had been laying in my own poo and urine. He immediately called the nurses at the rehab and demanded to talk to the sister. After scolding them over the phone they suddenly had diapers they actually could give me. At this point I was crying hysterically because the nurses wouldn't help me and I wasn't sure what was going on.

They sent in a nurse to change my diaper. She didn't tell me who she was or what she was doing. She just started taking off my clothes which were soaked by now. I tried to fight her off. My daughters heard the noise I was making and ran to me. They tried to calm me down while she was changing my diaper and tried to explain to me what was going on. The nurse lost her temper with me and told my daughters to just pin me down.....

But this isn't were the unprofessional-ism ended. When the shift changed happened the night sister arrived for work completely drunk with her makeup smeared across her. After what had happened that day and now this drunk sister was just about enough for my family. They were terrified to leave me there for the night, but they couldn't reach anyone who could help at this point.

The next morning my husband called the person in charge of the rehab and told her there will be a meeting at 10am that morning and he expects her, the 2 sisters that worked and all my therapists to be there. At the meeting he told them everything that had happened and that he is planning on taking this story to the press to make sure nobody ever has to endure what I had the past 24 hours. The person in charge begged my husband not to do this. She told him she would personally make sure I get the best possible treatment and that every staff member would be re-evaluated.

My husband agreed and within a hour they moved me to my own room free of charge. I also got my own nurse who had to be with me at all times during the day. I was not allowed to be left alone and I was to receive a lot of extra therapy. They also fired the 2 sisters and the nurses who had put me through hell the previous day.

It all seemed to be going well now, but as the days went by the staff started to get sloppy again which got another nurse a written warning. I was not to be left alone because I can't walk or operate the call button, but my nurse left me alone for over an hour and when I tried to go look for help I fell out of bed and hurt my knee badly. The person in charge of the rehab knew about this incident before my did and called my husband to inform him what happened and to apologized and let him know the nurse has received a written warning for not doing her job. This actually happened twice and the nurse was fired by the time I was out of the rehab.

After my second fall they decided to move me to a room meant for 2 people, but the other bed was removed so I could have a larger room to move around in and practice walking with my therapists. But during the move from one room to the other the nurses stole most of my clothes. When questioned about this they all pointed fingers and each other. My family just decided it wasn't worth the battle. The next time they stole things was the day I had to leave and  come home. They had stolen almost all my toiletries!

Personally I would never recommend this place to anyone and whenever I hear about someone I know who is going to go there I am sure to tell them about my experience and they always end up choosing a different place in the end.

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan 

Bad days never last

From the moment I woke up this morning everything just seemed to be going wrong. My husband wasn't feeling too well and had to get up very early as he had a very busy day ahead of him. Felt so bad that he had to work while he is under the weather. After he left though I went back to bed. 

After a few hours I was woken up by my daughters fighting about nonsense. They are actually very interesting to watch when they fight. The one always screams so loud even the neighbors know what is going on where the other one just ignores her and just occasionally tell her to go away. Though no mother likes to see her children fight so I had to break up the argument, but that is easier said than done.

Later that day after I finished my workout and had breakfast I sat down at my computer only to find random programs I had never seem before running. I called my daughter and she came to look at my computer. My computer had a lot of viruses and malware. She couldn't even find my anti-virus on my computer anymore. She had to re-install windows for me. Luckily I had nothing important of my c-drive.

How was your day today? Hopefully it was a lot better than mine. The good thing about bad days is they make you appreciate the good ones even more. Here's hoping tomorrow will be another great day!

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

Inspirational Quote

Every now and again we come across a quote we feel we just have to share with other people in hope it will mean the same to them as it did to you. Well today I came across a quote I really wanted to share with all of you. I really hope you like it.

I really believe this quote touched me the way it did is because I really dove into something I have no knowledge about when I started this blog. I have no idea what I'm doing or if I'm even doing this right. All I know is I really wanted to start a blog for years now and share my experiences with the world. But just never gave myself permission to do that, until one day my youngest daughter sat down with me and told me today is the day I'm going to do it. She set up this blogger account for me and showed me how to use. She even helped me write my first post.

It feels like each day I return to this blog I'm better myself and living my dream. I might not have a lot of readers, but I feel grateful and blessed that there are actually people sitting down each day to read what I'm sharing. There isn't a lot in this life which feels as amazing as this. I really just want to thank everyone who has been reading and following my blog post!

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

Never Give Up

Today was my first day without bread in a very long time. I actually can't remember the last time I didn't have bread for a day, which is actually very sad if I think about it. Never realized until now how dependent I was on one piece of food, which isn't good for me in any way. I did have moments today were I thought about eating a little bit of bread, but I just couldn't allow myself. There was no way I would allow myself to give in so easily. I am very proud of myself to have made it through today without eating bread.

For lunch today I made myself a little salad. I used lettuce, tomato, cucumber and tuna. I'm not a huge fan of sauces on a salad so I didn't use any. I keep forgetting to take photos of the things I write about here each day, but hopefully tomorrow will go beter and I will have lots of photos for you! 

What did you use today to replace the food you're giving up? Hope it was delicious! 

Other than trying my best not to eat bread today, I opened an Instagram account for myself today. I'm not very sure how it works yet, but the idea behind being able to freely share the photos I take with everyone just seems amazing to me. As soon as I know how it works I will be sure to add it to my blog. I really want to learn more about all the social media platforms there is, though being 50 I do struggle a bit getting the hang of things, but I won't let that stop me from trying to use them! 

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

Home Alone

Today my husband drove all the way to George to take his dad home after visiting here for a week. We are going to miss him, but all good things must come to an end at some point. Looking forward to his next visit though.

After everyone went in their own different direction today I had the house all to myself. I made myself a nice big cup of tea, put on some music and sat outside enjoying the fresh air. Somehow this always just lifts my spirit up and make me look at life from a very positive perspective.

Tomorrow is day one of my week without bread and very eager to start. This can only be good for my health. What are you giving up for a week? 

Light and Love 

Annelie Jordaan 

Family Day

Today was a really quiet day for me. I spent most of it relaxing with family as my father in law has been visiting for the past few days. We don't really get to see him as often as we like seeing he lives in George, but we really enjoy his visits.

At the moment we are all curled up in front of the tv ending the day by watching one of my husbands favourite movies. You probably know it as it is very popular. It's called Captain America : The winter soldier. The little jokes made through out the movie have to be my favourite part. What is your favourite Marvel movie?

Tomorrow is my last day of bread before we start on our journey together where we try to leave behind our favourite unhealthy food for at least a week. I am a bit scared I won't be able to pull through on this one, but I really can't wait to at least try. Have you decided on what you want to give up for a week yet?

Hope you have a wonderful day

Annelie Jordaan

My kryptonite

We all have that one food that no matter what we just can't seem to give it up. For some it is chocolate and for other people it might be cheese. For me it is something that is sinfully delicious....it is bread. No matter how I have tried I just can't seem to give it even though I know is very bad for my health.

This week that is coming up I have decided to set a goal for myself. I want to completely remove bread from my diet. I will be replacing it with a salad or some steamed veggies at lunch every day. I heard somewhere if you don't eat something for a week you will stop craving it. Personally I think my love for bread will take longer than a week to break, but it won't hurt to try.

I am still thinking of a reward for myself so if you have any suggestions please let me know. Do you have a unhealthy food you want to try and give up with me for the next week?

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

Mia's Miscarriage

I have never really been an animal person. I have just never felt a strong bond with animals and could never understand why they were so loving towards me even though I didn't do anything to deserve their love. I actually avoided them best I could.....but this just one day changed for me in the start of 2013.

I woke up one day just knowing I needed a little kitten in my life. I told my family and we started looking for a cat who could easily fit into a household with 4 dogs. It didn't take long and we found a litter of 3 kittens. We called and said if we picked her up today we could have her. We immediately went to get her. 

She was 6 weeks old and completely scared of us. She wasn't use to people around her. I felt a connection to her and knew she felt the same way. She ended up staying in my youngest daughters room till we had her litter box trained and she came to think of my youngest daughter as her mother. She felt safest with her, but this didn't mean she loved me any less. I might not have been able to save her out of a high tree, but she did seek cuddles from me daily. 

I'm not a dog person and I'm not a cat person, but I'm most definitely a Mia person. She is 3 years old now and in the end of last year she became pregnant. She had been carrying the kittens a bit over 2 months and my youngest daughter had become worried about her as belly had started taking a weird shape. But when she started to bleed from behind she immediately went to the vet around the corner from us to make an appointment for as soon as possible. They told her to bring Mia in immediately as it sounded like an emergency.

I sadly wasn't home at the time and couldn't go with Mia. The doctor informed my daughter that Mia had to get a c-section as soon as possible and it would be quite expensive, but if she didn't get it she would most likely die. The doctor also said when he does the operation he could sterilize Mia to prevent any infection there, but obviously this would up the price even more.

I'm not really sure who loves Mia more me or my daughter, but she told the vet she didn't care about the price. He should do whatever would be best for Mia. I'm not gonna say the exact price, but it cost her a few thousand rand to save our precious little girl and she is definitely worth every cent.

Mia had to spend 2 weeks inside the house and she absolutely hated it and kept crying to go outside, but the day we finally went to get the stitches removed and she could go outside .....well she chose to stay inside....well that's cats for you.

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

I'm back!

Hello everybody,

I know I just started with this blog, but I have to say I truly missed being able to sit at my computer and type out all my thoughts and share with you what has been happening in my life lately.

As I mentioned before I have noticed my health has been back tracking and I wish I had realized a bit sooner as my daughters rushed me to the emergency room the other day when I suddenly forgot who I was and who are the people around me. This was such a scary experience for me, but the doctor told me after we did every test possible I was just suffering from shock.....yeah this probably sounds weird, but let me back track a few days and fill you in on all the blanks.

The day after you last heard from me I had scheduled a doctors appointment because I have been feeling so tired lately that almost every 3 hours I need to take a 20 minute nap. The doctor checked all he could in his office and couldn't find the cause of this. He then decided we should get some blood work done just to check out a few things there so I went to have that done right after my doctors appointment. I was feeling tired after this big trip out that I went straight to bed when I got home. Don't worry I was fine and nothing happened on that day further, but  a few days had gone by and I still haven't heard back about the blood tests yet so I was still super tired all the time. Now we are at why I was in shock....

Being very tired I was in my bed sleeping when I was woken up by my eldest daughter screaming at the top of her lungs. I jumped out of bed and ran to her as fast as I could not knowing what to expect. She was squatting 35kg when she had slipped on her own sweat and doing a split mid air with this weight on her neck and her head having hit the bench. I tried best I could to lift the weights off her but I couldn't.....I wasn't strong enough.....my other daughter got there a few moments after me and we lifted the weights off her neck and helped he up. But in the moments before my other daughter arrived I thought I was going to lose my daughter because I was physically too weak to save her...

After this I was a bit shaken up, but all in all I thought I was fine. Another hour passed and my youngest daughter offered to make us lunch after I finished my nap. When I woke up I went to the kitchen to start preparing a salad for myself when she asked me if I didn't want her to make me lunch anymore and I couldn't remember to offered earlier....she thought this was a bit weird but just assumed it was cause I just woke up. As she was making lunch I proceeded to open all the doors and windows in the house which immediately alerted her because we were keeping everything shut to keep our cat inside after her operation (I will be posting about her operation tomorrow) as she had stitches and was wearing a collar of shame. She quickly closed everything and asked if I didn't remember that our cat had to stay inside.....I said no....

I didn't remember she had a operation....I didn't remember about the lunch....I didn't remember my daughters boyfriend....I didn't remember anything anymore at that moment....she immediately got me in the car and drove me to the emergency room fearing another stroke might be starting.....when we got there the emergency room doctor feared I might have developed a blood clot that is starting a stroke but after a scan it didn't seem to be the case. He proceeded to call my primary doctor and after a full examination  and an entire day I was allowed to go home. The doctor told me this all happened to me because of the big shock I got seeing my daughter so hurt and possibly dying.....

But the good news is I am fine again and got the green light to start exercising again. I don't know what it is, but I feel happier than ever and happy to be alive and have my family as close to me as they are.

Thank you for stopping by and expect to here from me quite often from now on!

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

Pullups

Today is my first fitness related blog post and I am so excited to share this with you. Each day I exercise I want to try and post my workout on my blog, but along side my workout I want to set a weekly exercise for myself which I will do everyday that week. This week it will be pull-ups.

I will admit I haven't exercised for some time now and obviously can't do a full pull-up, but I refuse to let that stop me. After looking around online I found something called a assisted pull-up. Basically you take a chair and prop your one foot on it to give yourself some support while doing the pull-up.






















Somewhere else I read you should just jump up and try to hold yourself up as long as you can. I can't do this yet, but hopefully soon. If you can do this version or even a regular pull-up let me know.

Light and Love
Annelie Jordaan

Taking control of my health

It's been 2 years since I had my stroke and I find myself going down the same road which lead me to my first stroke. Today I thought I would not only share my experience and my recovery, but also share what I am doing to prevent another stroke.

Most of my adult life I have been struggling with my weight. I tried just about every fad diet and pill, but the weight loss never really lasted that long. Somewhere in my mid 40's I just gave up and within 3 years I went from weighing 65kg to 85kg. I felt horrible and my self esteem went down the toilet. I tried to exercise again, but I felt so uncomfortable and unmotivated. I didn't know what I was doing and didn't know how to regain my health. Sadly I paid the price for letting myself go the way I did, but every dark cloud has a silver lining and mine is I have a second chance at life. A chance not to repeat the mistakes I did. 

This morning when I stepped on the scale for the first time in forever I saw something that shocked me. I weighed in at 81kg.....I am 4kg away from the weight I had my previous stroke at. This is me today saying I refuse to have another stroke due to poor diet choices and lack of exercise.  

My goal for this year was to start a blog and share my stroke experience with the world and help support those like me who looked death in the face and said not today. But now I realized this is not all I want to share. I want to share my journey to regaining my health which will include healthy meals and the exercises I am doing. 

Tomorrow I am posting my first fitness blog and hope it inspires some of you to make healthy choices in your life.

Light and Love

Annelie Jordaan

I had a stroke...

On the 22 September 2013 my life changed forever. I had a stroke...

It was 1am in the morning and everyone in our house was up later than usual. I was sitting in my eldest daughter, Stephanie, room talking to her when she noticed I was answering her very strangely and didn't seem to make sense. I tried to tell her I was fine and she didn't need to worry. At this point my youngest daughter, Anneke, walked into the room to get something. Stephanie was in panic and told Anneke she thought I was having a stroke. Being in a daze I tried to sit up and laugh this off, but this is when the right side of my face started to droop.

Anneke immediately ran to the other side of the house to get my husband, while Stephanie was sitting by me trying to keep me aware of my surroundings. Within minutes my husband and Anneke had carried me to the car. We luckily lived just around the corner from the hospital and it was 4 minutes after this started and I was laying in a hospital bed.

By the time I was at the hospital I didn't know who I was anymore or who anyone around me was. I started crying as they had to undress me as I had vomited all over myself. They kept me stable without starting any scans of anything till all the forms were completed. This took roughly 10 minutes. After the forms were done I went for a brain scan and they told my family a vein inside my head had burst and I basically and no chance of surviving this as if they tried surgery I would immediately bleed out.

Within the next 2 hours I was moved to a different hospital with more qualified doctors. They set me up in ICU and by this time I was in a coma. The nurses told my family they could go home and would be immediately called if anything changes.

By 8am my family was back by my bed side and telling me everything will be okay and I would wake up from this coma 100% again. The doctor spoke to my family and told them I had the most dangerous type of stroke there is. This is a stroke which survival is very scares as it is caused by a burst vein in middle back part of the brain. Normally they would burn this vein shut, but for me this wasn't possible because of the location of the burst vein. The good news was if I do manage to survive this stroke I could recover fully and do everything I use to do.

On day 2 my doctor noticed my brain wasn't draining fluid by itself anymore and I had to go in immediately for a operation to get a drain pipe inserted into my brain. I had my husband, daughters, my sister and her daughter all waiting in the waiting room for me hoping nothing goes wrong. The drain pipe stayed in for a week and was then removed. I was doing fine for about 2 days when my brain stopped doing the draining work again. My breathing dropped so low I had to be attached to a machine for that. The drain tube was inserted again. After this I started to wake up and the doctors decided to rather put me in a medically induced coma.

Another week passed and I was breathing on my own. The draining tube was removed and I was improving against all odds. I brought out of my coma, but I couldn't talk....I couldn't walk.....I didn't know who anyone was except for my husband and my sister. It brightened my entire day when they visited me and broke my heart when they had to leave. I remember being told for the entire month I was in ICU my husband never went to work and my sister would come visit me directly after work. My daughters were by my side the entire day with my husband and only left around 10pm at night when the nurses kicked them out.

My husband bought me a mp3 player and put love songs on it as well as some brain exercises . The nurses played it for me the whole time when my family couldn't be there. My daughters kept telling me stories of who I was and where I am from and everything. The doctors said I survived because of my family's love for me.

After my month in ICU I was moved to general ward and stayed there for another week or so. At this point I still couldn't really talk, just swear like a sailor. I started to walk with two people holding me up, but could only do like 5 steps. I was on a soft diet and needed to be fed.

After general ward I was moved to a rehab were I stayed another month. Oh the stories I could tell about this place, but that I will leave for part two of this blog post. The journey to recovery from a stroke can take years so please never give up. Take it a day at a time.

Love and Light
Annelie Jordaan