A Blast from the Past

Suffice it to say that we are things continue to happen, one after my stroke. This is a tale of one of those situations.

I had a female friend who hailed from a foreign country, for now it doesn’t matter which one. Let’s call her Susie, for now anyhow. I met Susie under strange circumstances years ago. We communicated, long-distance, by phone and computer for a long time. One day I was particularly harried at the office, and Suzy called on the phone. “Today’s a really crappy day,” I said to her on the phone. We often shared the good and the bad in our weird telephonic relationship. “I feel like shooting myself in the head right now,” I said in my particularly American, over the top way. We chatted a couple more minutes and I went on about my business.

Flash forward – many hours later. The phone rings. It’s Suzie. “I will be there in a few hours,” she informed me, and hung up. I wasn’t going to be! I called my son who happen to live with me and warned him that some stranger from a foreign land would be descending upon the house looking for me. As always, my son expected the unexpected. He let her in. I arrived later. I found them out by the pool sipping a beer.

We had a fabulous, romantic, sexy friendship for a while. I don’t quite know what happened. She was making a trip back home and we did a little he said/she said, and it was over. But it was a very memorable couple of months.

Flash forward – a year and a half after my stroke. Facebook is an amazing thing. I get a message from somebody named Susie Jones. Either no one is Susie Jones. I do, fondling, remember Susie though. It’s her! Out of nowhere. Somewhere in the dim past of my memory every member Suzy got married. Well, Suzy was informing me that she was now divorced. She was just using Facebook to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. She saw my picture, and wrote. And we wrote, and talked, and wrote, and talked, you get the picture. As soon as Susie gets her passport – she’ll be here.

Probably a couple weeks after a move into the new house. I can’t wait to see her. Although, I have to wouldn’t, I tried desperately to dissuade her. I had her stroke… unemployed… paralyzed on the right side… old man now (as always, the women in my life were substantially younger than me)… not working… broke… you get the picture.

Now you have to remember, Susie was an athlete. A world-class skater until she busted ankle. A dancer, a sportsman. A model. You get the picture.

Susie’s response, “You will never believe this. I went back to school, became a nurse, and am currently working in a rehab center helping stroke victims. We can do rehab. We can go horseback riding together. Lots of stroke victims do that as rehabilitation…” Okay, how do I turn down an offer like that? I mean, seriously.

I’ll keep you posted.

Reconnecting

A few people wondered why he seemed so he was for it in the hospital. I spend more than a month they are recovering from a stroke. One thing that amazed many people, including my family, including me… was my unusually good mood. Here I was – no income, in the hospital, paralyzed on the right side and unable to walk or use my right arm or hand. You would think that would be a very depressing thing. But I wasn’t impressed at all. My kids and my mother attributed it to some really good rugs they must have been giving me. It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized that I was now taking the same drugs that I was taking in the hospital. There were no magic mushrooms to perk up my mood. Just stuff to keep the blood pressure down, fight off blood clots and keep the gavel under control. That’s it.

What accounted for my usual attitude in the hospital? If you couldn’t walk or use your right arm, if you were scooting around a wheelchair, if you had been fiercely independent and were now dependent upon the people around you – that would seem like a prescription for depression.

After talking with my stroke doctor is, Dr. Hayes, I figured it out. I had lived a high-pressure lifestyle. The highs were enormously high. The lows were cavernously low. Very little time was spent in the middle ground. Although I love my kids and my kids love me, my relationships managed to alienate them. My romantic relationships were volatile. I was an all or nothing person.

The euphoria that I experienced after my stroke wasn’t due to drugs and wasn’t experiential. It was because, for the first time in my life, a really treasured those simple things in life that we forget about when we are busy – family and friends. Disabled as I was, the workforce would have to wait. My kids, my mother, a few of my close friends were the most important things in my life. Their presence, their happiness and their companionship was what made me happy.

It’s a good thing too… while I was sick I lost my house and most of my personal possessions! I had a couple of van loads of stuff. But I had family and friends. As time went on – I realized who my real friends were. My partner at them had been my friend for more than 20 years and he stood by me. My friend and business associate Arnie, ditto. As my recovery progress, I found a few more of those old friends. Bill, Tara, Andrew and Sheila, Jonathan, Mimi, Charlotta, Adam2 and Zannell, Frank, Manny, and more than I can even remember (hmmm… there are a lot of women in there, aren’t there?) have stayed in touch and supported me throughout my ongoing recovery.

That’s worth more than cash.

Fear Of Flying

In the good old days, flying was like breathing. It was just something you did. New York, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, you get it. Then there was the international trail to London and Paris, Helsinki, Tokyo, etc.

Now mix in one massive dose of stroke. Until it came time to go somewhere, I didn’t think about it much. It took me almost a year just to drive a car again. But my partner, Adam, decided it was time to go back up to Connecticut. I was cured to death. Get on the shuttle. Go to the airport. Get off. Check bags. It was quite a daunting thought to figure out how to navigate an airport when the words come the signs look like pretty pictures. But I did get. I was terrified. But, I did it. It wasn’t so bad after all.

There are two things you have to do. One, trust what memory you have left. Two, walk with a cane. Until I needed one, I never realized this symbolic power that a team has in modern society. Crutches, or a wheelchair seem to connote to the masses “This person is past his prime.” They defined the user is someone who is ill or injured. But a cane – a cane signifies a fighter, someone who overcomes obstacles, who is not stopped, even by a brick wall. Dancers on stage use canes in their routine. Batt Masterson, that sophisticated, old West crime fighter, and even magicians use canes. They denote a person who not only overcomes some physical imperfection – but even excels in other areas to more than even the balance.

Maybe I can no longer read 1000 words a minute or throw a baseball with my right hand or walk without a limp – but I carry a cane. I am a mighty figure. Batt Masterson, Look out. You have a very formidable 21^st century competitor – me.

Who said the web is easy?

I have a bone to pick with some fancy pants artist Web developers. But before I go too far, let me say clearly that web development (i.e., programming) and website design (i.e., how pretty the pages look) are two totally and completely different things. Programmers rarely stray into the page design arena... but page designers frequently rummage their way around programming. That's because the distinction between designing a webpage and writing a program that supports a webpage are difficult for the uninitiated to distinguish.

Now that I'm done with my editorial, let me tell you what my real issue is. When I had my stroke, I lost my ability to read -- completely. Letters on a page which is pretty pictures. I did not lose my ability to spell! If you tell me award I can tell you how it's spelled. If you spell a word out loud to me, I can tell you what it is. It is merely the visual recognition of letters on a page that was impaired by the stroke. I have to limit, after a year and a half, I'm probably a first or second grade reading level. That's a far cry from the 1000 words a minute that I was able to read and comprehend before my stroke. But, being philosophical, it's better than not being able to read it all. And, there is some hope for the future that I may get my reading back to an eighth, ninth or even 10th grade level, with a lot of hard work.

Back to the basic issue. There are two ways to build a website. I will call them the right way and the wrong way.

Let's examine the wrong way first. If you want to alienate some 10 to 15% of the market that is handicapped, or to be PC -- otherly abled (?) -- that make webpages with pictures. If I go to something approaching 80% of the sites on the web, the software on my computer is capable of reading the page out loud to me. There are pretty pictures, pretty backgrounds, all that stuff. However, text is text. You have literally thousands of fonts to choose from, and a palette of zillions of colors. Why in gods name would anyone take their text and make it a graphic image?

Now let's talk about the right way. it's really pretty simple. Text is text. Graphics are graphics. A graphic with some text on it should be just that, a graphic with some text on it. Only in some very we are instances -- computer-based games, advertisements, stuff like that -- is it permissible to make the text graphic.

Now here's a big beef with Apple Computer. I like the iPhone. I like your web apps. However, I hate it when I look at the Apple developer site on my PC. My PC software won't read Apple type! It's as if every Apple rendered site in the world is a graphic. I have an iPod. I'd love to put more stuff on it. I'd love to read the documentation. Alas, I can't. Apple, you're so good at user interfaces... why do you forget about us poor schmucks who have trouble reading a computer screen? This is supposed to be your thing! please, do something about it.

Sleepless in Seattle -- or somewhere

Pace ... set ... watched TV... read ... pay some more ... lay in bed with eyes closed ... lay in bed with eyes open ... pace ... I think I will go crazy if this doesn't quit soon. Insomnia. The inability to sleep. It's driving me nuts.

The average person needs eight hours of sleep a night. There are basically three sleep stages. The eight hours is divided into a) about 2 1/2 hours of various sleep stages to get to sleep, b) 2 1/2 hours of various sleep stages to wake up, and c) three hours of deep, restful, dreamless sleep known technically as somnambulism, otherwise known as deep sleep (getting there and waking up are called REM, initials for rapid eye movement, characteristic of that form of sleep).

Some people, either naturally or through training, can get to deep sleep very quickly. Those people need the ability to sleep three hours, and spend whatever time it takes to fall asleep and wake up. falling asleep and waking up times seem to have no effect on the body.

When I was younger, As a result of training, I used to sleep only about four hours a day. It gradually became more as I grew older. but basically, anybody can train themselves to fall asleep and wake up quickly. I used to be able to sleep on planes trains and automobiles. Basically, if I was moving and not driving, I slept. It was a very useful skill.

For the first several months after my stroke, sleeping was not the problem. I'd sack out of 8 or 9 PM and wake up by 5 or 6 AM. It was actually a very nice schedule. I also noticed, I might trip to Connecticut, but I hadn't lost my skill of falling asleep on the airplane. Life was good. It was after I got to Connecticut that I started having problems. At first, I attributed to a new environment, doing something exciting, lots of reasons. There's only one problem. It's a year later, and I still can't sleep.

Maybe I should just hire somebody to drive me around the block and park near the driveway once I fall asleep!

Fear of Flying.

When I was flat on my back in the hospital, my dear friend and business partner Adam came to Florida to visit me several times. After I came to my mothers house to live, Adam suggested that I make a trip up to Connecticut to visit him and my son Christopher, who lived in the nearby town. What was once as natural as breathing became one of the scariest events in my life.

I hadn't yet recovered enough to drive. I rarely ventured outside the house. In fact, I had just learned to walk with a cane and forgo the wheelchair. the world outside was terrifying. I couldn't read street signs. I couldn't remember words. I had no peripheral vision on the right hand side. Everything looks strange, smelled strange, tasted strange. My senses deceived me. It was as though I had dropped into an alien, foreboding, parallel universe.

I mustered up the courage. I had always been an adventurer. This was just another danger. Para-sailing, bungee jumping, all those risky things than I did in my former life paled in comparison to stepping on an airplane. But I did it. I guess, even with the stroke, once an adrenaline junkie, always an adrenaline junkie. All that changed was the drug.

I had a wonderful, two-week trip. It broke me out of my shell. It forced me to begin tour the world. What seemed an insurmountable obstacle, at first blush, turned out to be a mere annoyance. A little harder to do than before.

As humans we need to push ourselves. We need to do that which is slightly fearful, to overcome small challenges, so that we grow and can overcome larger challenges. I suppose I knew that before I had my stroke. But I never consciously thought about it. Now I do. And I'm grateful for the lesson.

Stoned again! Redux

When it rains, it pours. Right after I had my stroke, I went to the doctor about a pain in my back on the right side. That doctor sent me to another doctor. The second doctor almost killed me by mixing up my drugs -- but that's another story. The second doctor, we'll call him Dr. X., decided that I had kidney stone. Alas, indeed, that was true. that's the part of the story is true. We'll talk about how Dr. X. nearly killed me in another post.

Well, I had a kidney stone. Fortunately, I have had kidney stones before. Now for those of you who are uneducated, there are two distinct types of kidney stones. The most common kind is caused by calcium buildup to the kidney the second, and by far more rare, is the uric acids Crystal buildup in the kidney resulting from a condition called gout. the symptoms are similar, but the treatments are completely different. For uric acid crystals, they pump you up with fluids and wait. The stone resolves itself. Usually. With calcium-based kidney stones, they generally do a process called lithotripsy.

Mistake number one. I have a history of gout. I told the doctor that. Even so, he still recommended lithotripsy. That's what happens when you go to a surgeon. He recommends what he knows. I talked to a number of people about lithotripsy. Basically, the cure can be worse than the disease. Unless your stones are killing you, don't do it. Based on that advice, I didn't. And, of course, the doctor was not happy. However, realizing that the stones were resulted of the doubt, the doctor prescribed allopurinol, which is fine. However, you do with all my meds and his hands, he prescribed potassium citrate. other than the fact that that drug interacts with every other medication I was taking it was fine. Well, it nearly killed me. It crashed my blood pressure. Everybody asked me what he prescribed. Now I'm debating whether to sue over. I probably won't. Bad karma.

This weekend been suffering for three days with the residue left for the big uric acid crystals. Fine one minute. Flat on my back the next. However, three days of aggravation beats four months of lithotripsy treatments!

The moral of the story? I'm not going to sue the doctor. They call it the practice of medicine. mistakes happen. When in doubt -- do some research. You are in charge of your own fate, ultimately.

Siddhartha Gautama -- the Buddha.

I was lying on my bed in the emergency room, waiting for the verdict of the pain in my back (see previous article on kidney stones). I have studied the life of Buddha before my stroke, but hadn't had much time to consider it since. Now I think the reason for my kidney stones was really a way to get me to watch this television show.

Buddha started off life as a prince. He was tampered by his father, never being allowed to know or understand hardship. he was to be the next king. He was married at a young age and had one child. Early in his adult life he ventured out into the world, unattended by his father's guardians. He saw pain, suffering, hunger, illness -- things he had never seen before.

The Buddha left his life of luxury and ventured into the world in search of truth. He lived as a student, learning under knowledgeable figures of the age. He tried to attain lightning than by self mortification. Ultimately, he realized that we construct our own pain, and we manage our own joy.

The story is much longer, and I will not tell it all here; however suffice it to say that I read learned lessons I had forgotten. The greatest of those lessons is that I am here, alive, and there must be some purpose to my life. Whether it is to it merely experience a raindrop falling on my brow; help the number one daughter during her time of need; watch number two daughter graduate from college; or, just observe my son, his wife and their child grow up learning. There is joy to be found, happiness to be found in the simplest of things.

Unhappiness is rooted in reflecting on what we have lost or what we do not have. Happiness is rooted in rejoicing over the love of others, considering what might be yet, and will we might yet achieve.

Buddhists will tell you that the history of Buddha need not be accurate. The stories and parables from his life may be true or not. That is not the point. The point is the message. The point is the learning. Strive every day to make one other person smile, to make one other person's burden easier, to reflect on the miracle of the seedling growing into a flower.

Easter Sunday 2010

This is the second Easter since my stroke. I don't remember much about the last one. But today, I'm in Florida, living at my mothers house, and I'm alone. My mother is still in rehab from her back surgery. When I'm not sick, I go over and visit, almost everyday.

I've decided that it stinks being alone! All my life I've either live with my parents, lived in a college dorm or live with the wife. This being alone stuff is new to me. I don't quite know how to take it. Since I lost everything in my stroke, I live with my mother in a retirement community. Everyone that lives in the section of the retirement community is about my mother's age. The are all 30 years older than I am. Is this what I have to look forward to in my old age? it makes you pause and think, reflect on your life, your accomplishments and your failures. The real question is -- do I have one more mission in me? Do I have one more success? Or, is this all there is. Good question don't you think.

I prefer to think that I have one more success in me. 55 is too young to roll over and play dead.

Stoned again!

The Roman gladiators were reputed to have had as their motto, " That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I fervently hope that they are correct. since I was a teenager, I suffered from gout. The image we often see is an old man sitting in a chair with his foot raised and wrapped in a bandage. that is one way that gout can manifest itself.

Gout is a form of arthritis. it is a buildup of uric acid crystals in the joints, whereas arthritis is a buildup of excess calcium, or wearing down of the ligaments. However, uric acid crystals have other ways to invade the body. One of those ways is by collecting in the kidney, and manifesting as a kidney stone. Calcium can also do this. The symptoms are identical, but the treatments are very different. Unlike calcium, uric acid dissolves water. The crystals were enough water and they dissolve -- hopefully.

Generally, there are some great drugs they can get people to kill the pain And he said the dissolution of the crystals. Unfortunately, those drugs are incompatible with drugs they give people who had a stroke. So, the solution is drink a lot of water, take massive doses of ibuprofen for pain, and waited out.

It's not likely to kill me. I'll let you know if that makes me stronger. In the meantime, I'm going to lay on the bed and suffer a little.