The 411 About My 911

Last Wednesday, I had a stroke.

TL;DR: I’m fine. I was very lucky. Other than some mild balance issues, I’m already back to normal.

Here’s what happened, for anyone interested in the details.

On Wednesday around noon-thirty, I finished a video call with a coworker. I work remotely for a custom software development company named Taazaa, so my home is my office.

After I got off the call, I noticed I felt a little dizzy. Figuring I needed to eat something, I got up to get a bite and the dizzyness got far worse. I decided to lay down.

The dizzyness got worse, and I started feeling very hot. Something didn’t feel right, so I felt I should let someone know. I called my girlfriend, Beans. She said I sounded drunk and was coming over.

After I hung up with her, the entire left side of my body went numb. Pins and needles, like when your foot falls asleep.

Finally, I got it through my skull that this was a Serious Medical Event. I called 911.

They sent a squad, and I was taken to the local hospital. Beans followed the squad there, and took over all the talking with the medical professionals, which she is very good at. I am so thankful for that, and all of her subsequent help.

After a CT scan, they told me that I had two blood clots. One was in my brain stem. That’s very bad. Blood clots in your brain stem can paralyze you from the neck down. I was lucky, but at that point, it was still possible.

I still wasn’t feeling too worried, and then they said, “We’re going to transfer you to the neurosurgery ICU downtown, and we’re sending you there by helicopter.”

I think I said something like, “Oh. So it’s that urgent.”

Ruh roh, Shaggy.

So I was burritoed and loaded onto a helicopter (first time!) and flown down to UC Medical Center’s NS ICU. They put me on IV Heparin (a blood thinner, to melt the clots) and monitored me over the next three days. MRIs, more CT scans, blood draws on the hour to track my potassium and magnesium levels and other stuff.

I spent most of the time sleeping.

They got me up to walk and assessed my motor skills and strength. Long story short, I didn’t lose too much of all those things, so I recovered quickly and was released to go home (with 24/7 supervision) on Saturday.

I thought I was prepared for serious illness. I was (and still am) not.

Thankfully, I had friends who leapt to help me out. Beans was at the hospital every day, keeping me company, dealing with all the doctors and nurses, and collating all the data. Diego and Karen helped keep me sane and cared for my kitties. Many other friends and family visited and sent messages of encouragement. I cannot thank them enough.

I want to say again: I was very lucky. Lucky I didn’t wait too long, lucky I had good doctors and nurses, lucky to had so many good friends to support me.

I am still waiting to see if I got COVID from all this. So far, I have no symptoms. I lived and slept in masks the entire time, and most of the nurses and doctors were good about properly wearing masks. But I had to take them off to eat, to get assessed, and so on. So, keeping my fingers crossed.

Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit to print. I’m okay. I have some recovery to do. A few followups and such. But so far, I can do everything I did before, only slower.

Why did this happen? The best guess is that I sit too much. I don’t have any of the other risk factors–smoking, drinking to excess, family history, diabetes, and so on. So I am making it a point to move more, exercise more, and not sit around for long periods of time.

I’m still here. I’d like to stay still being here. So I’ll take all the new medications and listen to my doctors and eat better and move more.

So that’s what happened. I’m happy to answer questions, but there’s not too much more to tell.

Thank you all for your support. Even if you didn’t know it happened, knowing you were out there helped. If that makes sense. It probably doesn’t, but hey, I had a stroke. Gimme a break.

The Bell

Enjoy this spooky short-short I wrote for Halloween.

Last night, some friends and I were playing D&D together online and one guy’s doorbell starts going nuts, like someone’s just pounding the button.

He’s got one of those new doorbells with a camera in it, so he checks the app. No one there.

We have a good laugh about it, asking him if there’s a flaming bag of poo on the stoop, and he goes and checks and says no.

A few minutes later, it happens again. Again, no one’s on camera.

Rapt in the Ghastly Fascinations

It’s a month of bated breath.

We strain to see what manner of beast lies past the bend, desperate to know which way the tail of the year twists.

In a normal autumn, the months are a slow exhalation of an aging year, plodding toward its terminus. Leaves and temperatures and moods drop. Vibrant colors grow muted as the days shorten.

This is a not-normal autumn in a not-normal year.

Proof of Life. No, Really.

It’s a steamy morning—literally. A thick blanket of fog crept in overnight, leaving behind a fuzz of dew. The shed roof smokes as the morning sun burns away the moisture and spider webs hang like complex diamond necklaces in the fencing.

It’s been quiet on this blog, I know. But I have not been quiet. I have been writing.

Doctor Atomic

I was promised Rachmaninoff.

His most difficult work (Piano Concerto No. 3, nicknamed, she claimed, “the Rach”), played by Denis Kozhukhin “with precision and poetry” despite its difficulty.

She hooked me. I heard the intro in my car as I arrived home, Kozhukhin talking about how it was the first piano concerto he heard as a kid. How he tried to learn to play it before even learning scales, a little boy grasping at a star far beyond his reach.

Because it enthralled him. 

Dive In

It wasn’t the perfect morning for a swim.

The clouds moved in as soon as I stepped outside, blue-gray and portending rain. The sun became a pale circle impotent of warmth, then was swallowed completely.

Knowing storms were forecast for the rest of the day, I dove in anyway. The water hovered at 80 degrees F, about the same temperature as the air.

Bar 6

He’d come in every night around 6:30, stay for the space of two drinks and maybe a burger. Middle-aged, not a snappy dresser but no slob, either. He knew the owners well enough that they said hi to him, but not enough for special treatment; no free drinks or anything like that.

Always grabbed the same bar stool, if it was open – sixth from the end, by the bend.

Had a name I should remember, but so vanilla it never stuck. Eric, I think, or Allen. I don’t know, I’d only been working there a couple weeks. To me, he was just Bar 6, because that’s how we entered orders in the register.

I called him “boss” to his face, just like everyone else. It’s easier than remembering names.

He wasn’t much for conversation. Some folks want to spill out their problems or chat about the music that’s playing or whatever sport is on the TV behind the bar. Bar 6 would talk to other patrons if they started it, but otherwise would just hunch over his drink until it was gone.

Bar 6 liked his bourbon. Usually neat, unless it was Jack Daniel’s, and then he’d want a rocks pour. I think the longest conversation he had with me was the night we added a couple new bourbons to the shelf, and even that only lasted a minute or two.

Every once in a while, I’d catch his eyes following a woman’s ass as she strolled past. He never made it creepy, though; he’d look, and then he’d turn his attention back to his drink. When the girls served him, he looked them in the eye and thanked them. I never saw him hit on anyone, touch anyone, nothing.

Come to think on it, I never saw him come in with anyone. He was always on his own, but never gave off that hook-up vibe. He came, he drank, he left. Veni, vino, vamoose.

Darrell? I think his name might have been Darrell. Damn, it bugs me I can’t recall.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, he was just this guy, you know? I never expected him to do what he did. Jesus.

The Shape of the Year

The borders between the years are meaningless from a “things are bound to change” point of view. Luck and Chance and Fate don’t care what the date is, be it Monday or January or 2018. There’s absolutely no reason why anything should suddenly get better.

But we stick up a new calendar and turn the page, and we sigh in relief that we survived the past 12 months. We hope for a better dozen to come.

I began to see the vague outline of this year around the beginning of December. I know this will be a year of hard work. Boards need pulling up and earth needs moving and what last year broke still needs to be fixed. Root causes need to be uprooted to allow for new growth.

With luck and perseverance and a little help from others, 2018 will be a year of repair, of redirection, of rebuilding. Changing the landscape. Making improvements that are long, long overdue.

I’m going to try to shape it into a productive year. Apart from the pulling and hauling, I want to start creating again. My litany every January First is always “read more and finish writing the book.” This year, it’s “start reading again and finish writing a book.”

My nightstand staggers beneath an epic to-read pile, and a few unfinished manuscripts wait for me to finish writing them. Lately, one story in particular has been tugging at my sleeve. I’ll take a look at it soon to see if the book in my memory is as good as the one I put onto the hard drive.

I’ve slowly started eating better (shut up, I hear you laughing at the leftover charcuterie I ate for breakfast; I said “slowly”). I’ve begun moving more. Hitting the elliptical machine, doing pushups, trying to get healthier. That, too, will be part of the pulling and hauling this year.

What the year ahead looks like other than that, I don’t know. I’m going to try to fully enjoy the good times while they last, and endure the bad times with patience and kindness. I’m going to try to not worry about what’s to come until it gets here. I won’t always succeed, but I’ll keep trying.

I hope you will, too, and that together we shape something beautiful.

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Yes, You

The Plymouth colonists boarded the Mayflower for an ill-planned journey to a land in which they had no idea how to survive. Half of them died in the first year, and the other half would have died, too, had it not been for the friendship of this land’s indigenous people. The Abenaki. The Pawtuxet. The Wampanoag.

And especially Squanto, who’d had a terrible history with white people: he’d been taken into captivity by an English sea captain, sold into slavery, escaped, and made his way back to his home as part of an exploratory expedition.

And yet, offered his friendship to the Pilgrims. Taught them how to survive.

That’s why I see Thanksgiving as a celebration of friendship.

Richard Bach once wrote, “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”

I’ve quoted that often and I’ll quote it again, because I believe it.

I’m thankful for the family of friends I’ve gathered around me. Whether we’re linked through blood or shared passions or work or any of the other myriad ways people come into our lives, I’m thankful for you.

I’m thankful for the love I have in my life.

I’m thankful for the support I’ve been given, and the second chances, and the friendships that haven’t broken even when I’ve been distant or angry or terrible or all of the above.

I’m thankful for the forgiveness I’ve been shown, even when I’ve been unforgivable.

I’m thankful for those who’ve shown me how to survive, each time I’ve stumbled into a new land for which I was woefully unprepared.

I’m thankful for more than I know how to put into words.

If I had a TARDIS or a DeLorean that could travel through time, I’d visit every one of you today and hug you until our eyes leaked. Because I am thankful for you.

Yes, you.

We may talk every day, or we may only exchange a few words now and then. We may see each other often; we may not have seen each other for years. Maybe we’ve drifted apart. Maybe we’ve only talked once, for a few minutes. Maybe we’re just “Facebook friends.”

Regardless, I am thankful for you. I am thankful to have you in my life.

You.

Thank you.

 

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To the Too Many

Dad. Ethyl. Tiffie. Bardi. And now Lisa. 

Too many toasts to too many lost this year. 

Lisa Kaminski liked to help. She didn’t know me until a friend introduced us; I’d just been laid off and was panicking, and our mutual friend thought she could help me network. 

And she did. We didn’t just exchange emails; we met for coffee several times and went to networking events, where she introduced me to people she knew. 

She didn’t just help me, either. She volunteered and joined groups and helped so many others. Her light shone brightly in this world, and it’s tempting to say the world is darker for her absence, but it is not. 

It is brighter, because she shared her light with so many others, and now we shine with it, too.

Thank you, Lisa.

It would be easy to sink into the clutches of grief after loss upon loss, but I’ve been reminded several times today that life is what you make of it. Lisa Kaminski made a great life, and touched others. 

I haven’t been nearly as good at it as Lisa, but I try to help as best I can. Because I’m inspired by the givers and the helpers, the ones who glow brightly against the darkness of this world. 

Whether you give a few dollars a month to charities, or donate blood, or care for kitties at a shelter, or knit blankets for them, or even just reach out to a friend who is struggling, you help — and that inspires others to help. That inspires me. 

Aw, hell, I’ve doddered off the path again, and it’s too late in the night to go back and find it. 

So here’s a toast to those whose light has gone out, but have left the world brighter nonetheless.