Another step…another stumble

Another day, some small learning’s. Most of these are about my own internal state as I relate t a world that seems very ordinary, but turns out to have ripples in it that I don’t notice at the time, or can’t quite fathom. Perhaps I was always this dense…I hope not. The bruised brain does funny things, I think.

Time is a major area of the confusing life. Time…for a guy who always needed to be early, and who lived by his watch. Now, I mix things up. “It happened today. No? Yesterday…OK.” In my last post I gave the clear impression that I had read scripture and prayed in worship at the church in the morning. Not a chance. I did both of those things during the afternoon walk, on a Sunny street corner, with small crowd around me. I know this because Beatrix told me. My response: “Oh…really? I gave that impression?”

Now this is a small thing, but it raises the question about how much of my internal time sense and memory gathering can I trust right now? On the one hand, I know the memory is terrible, forgetting instantly what happened a second ago, but trying to act confident about knowing what I’m doing. I knew I had read…shakily and with much practice from a gospel I know almost by heart. I didn’t know just when I did it. I thought I knew…I didn’t have a clue.

Had coffee with Z again yesterday. He’s been downloading material from the website I gave him, and from my perspective it’s the wrong stuff for him…I feel out-of-control in the guiding process. As an old-hand therapist I know that’s a normal phase or time in the process. But it makes me feel shaky now. The discussion got more personal today, and more about the impact of considering deep changes may have on hi personal life. He’s beginning to realizes that one change…a theological one, leads to other changes¬=…the potential loss o community, even marriage.

It was a harder conversation for him, less stressful for me. No sweaty armpits, no buzz in the head. I did feel a deeper anxiety elated to me friend. I want to help him, to provide s holding environment while he struggles, and I fear my own in-accurate perceptions and uneven psychic strength.

One thing is remaining constant, however. Here it is2.35 AM, and I am awake and writing. Sleep comes espy the daytime. Once bedtime comes, I am awake. I had to endure church Adler on the radio, he of the ego-inflated “Adler Nation, He is always insensitive to things I care about, I=and I listen to hi as I wait for the Long Ranged and Gunsmoke and Boston Blackie. You older dogs will know what I mean.

But then comes 1:30 AM, or 2:00 AM, and here I am ready it meet you all in of you the dark and share my little triumphs and failures of the day. Saturday AM I rose quietly and made my breakfast, took my ½ Xanax, and went back to bead. I was astounded when it was suddenly ten o’clock

OK!. I know the doctor said spend lots of time in bed, but the best of the morning? I wan to change that. I know I am not zoned our in the evening. Maybe I have to leave reading and +TV then, and the lying down after dinner.

I am so utterly dependent on routines to smooth my way through life that I get turned around when they don’t work or I can remember them. The feeling is like being 7 in the story, and not knowing where the peas are that I have to get for my mother, and failing to find then raises my anxiety…I will be punished for being late. At east scolded. And for me me, in wartime, with only one parent to cling to, that’s traumatic. Perhaps that’s one of the triggers Donna! Thanks for the hint. No “blah blah blah there at all. Just stuff for me to ponder.  I continue to need good friends, and I have not been good at cultivating friends, Too many of them were annoying. Look who’s annoying now! This friend.

Dat two…small steps and stumbles

March 29 – Good Friday, late at night…early in the AM.

After reading my last piece, about documenting my recovery from this stroke, Beatrix gently pointed out a particular peculiarity of my shattered short-term memory; I have little or no time sense. If I tell you something happened yesterday, it might haven last week. I mentioned that my symptoms began a week ago; in reality it was three weeks ago. It sound like I’m prevaricating…nice word, right? It means, “lying.” So if things I mention don’t add up, it’s probably because they don’t add up, except in my mind.

Time, for me, I like flat screen these days. I seem to have no depth perception: I can’t distinguish between then and then. If it sounds weird, ask me about it; challenge me. Give me the chance, after being embarrassed and then annoyed with you (for being honest), you will help me stretch time out again and live in a present as well as a past.

I had a busy day today, for me, Attended Good Friday Worship with Beatrix. I tell myself I’m doing this to support her. I even read a small piece of scripture – well, I mostly knew it by heart – and prayed. It’s true, that I go to support her, but it also is the only way for me to access a worshipping community, since I can’t drive to my chosen home in Rimbey. Some of them are coming to me on Sunday. I also love/need to watch her do her work. She has grown and changed so much over time, that it is a treasure ton be in the same place with her doing this. And as I write this, the feelings which are always right there, bubble up, and tears fill my eyes…happens all the time, if I feel a compliment coming on, I want tell people how I value then, but not necessarily shard teas on their shoulders, I seem to have little control over that, It may embarrass you, or think I have finally lost it. But no, I just am feeling something, with little ability to censure it.

One person commented that my last blog seemed to pretty much in control. I had to smile at that: you have no ideas how many times I go over each of these sentences to pick out the mistakes, both in spelling and in word choice. Before I conclude tonight, I’ll leave one sentence unedited, so you can begin to feel the craziness of not knowing t=what the hell I’m talking about,

Long walk of the Walk of the Cross this afternoon. I’m not a fan of these. We don’t always stop at the right places, and we don’t always say the honest things, or pray for the deeply needed response. We stopped at a bank…now there’s place for honesty¡ we stopped t our MP’s office - a backbench Harper toady if ever there was one. Again, little truth…or at least little of the truth I would spout. But then feelings are tight hear, no censor in sight. In the end, I was tired and sore. At home, I discovered that In had walked the whole way with only one orthotic in! Duh……

Coffee wit Z, an intellectual man who earns money in a trade, who really us an artist and a theological ‘questor’ and intellectual, who has been rejected by his Evangelical Church for asking unsettling questions. Always stimulating… too much so today. I got excited, started sweating and had to ask him to bring me home so I could lie down and deep breath for a while.

And now it is two o’clock, and I am at last feeling weary again. So back to bed till next time.

Recovery, step by step

OK, enough of this whining and complaining. I’ve had a stroke. It was more serious than I thought. But I’m alive and in possession of most of my faculties. I am incredibly fortunate at this point. My intention is to document for you (and for myself), since my short term memory is virtually GONE, for the time being, just how I go about recovering. I will attempt to share with you what I do, and how I feel internally. Stay with me, if you can. It may be boring at times, and repetitive, but it will be “what happens.”

First, the symptoms I’m left with. The main external symptom is the disruption in my ability to read. I can see the words, but I can’t always comprehend them. In the beginning – a week ago – I could comprehend almost nothing. Today, I can read, but slowly, still stumbling over some words, often the small and easy ones. And after I read awhile, I have to lie down a bit and rest. Tired.

I also have virtually no short-term memory. The MD says it will return…right. I hope so. I can’t remember how a conversation started once it’s finished, and the names of common things escape me for minutes at a time.

I get anxious when I’m in a crowd of people. A “crowd” can be thirty…or six. Depends on the day. I had to leave a Seder meal last night half way through, because suddenly I was overwhelmed. There were twenty people at the long table. Everything was just fine, until…it wasn’t. This afternoon I met three Lodge buddies at Tim Horten's. They hadn’t heard about my “event.” So I sat with them to talk a bit. These are all guys I know well. Suddenly, my armpits are wet, and I’m breathing hard, and feeling cornered. Fortunately I had explained this to them. I just had to excuse myself and leave for awhile. Later, one f them drove me home.

The MD says I can walk, but not fast, no heavy breathing. So I stroll through the trees, or to the mailbox. Today I strolled to Tim’s twice, about twenty minutes each way. No heavy breathing. It’s been so long since I walked (January 16) that I am out of shape, and my legs are sore. Feels good. God knows when I’ll get back in the pool. I miss the bikinis already!

And sleep…what a drag. I go to bed at ten thirty, feeling tired, and then I lay there until twelve thirty, wide awake. At least once in the night I’m up for an hour to read. In the morning, I am a zombie until ten o’clock. This is so not-me!

So there you have it. The whole bag of weirdness. It feels strange, but good, to share this. I know in my head that this is slow work, but I get frustrated with it. And even stranger, I feel guilty about all of it. I feel like I’m letting people down, that I’m laying a burden on Beatrix – she has to drive me everywhere, and she hasn’t the time. But she does it. At times, I’m embarrassed to be me. I’m actually happy to spend so much time at hoe alone. It feels like a cocoon to me. I venture out, but I come back. Only Tim’s is like home. The pool is like that, too, but I can’t walk that far yet. It’s one of my goals. Enough. I’m tired. Talk to you soon.

Brain Injury

Slowly adjusting…to the weather (snowstorm on the second day of spring), and to the new regime I am forced to live since arriving home from the hospital. Initially it sounded pretty draconian: no driving, no working, lots of time in bed, and the challenge of learning to read again. I’m slowly adjusting to the pace, although the reading pace frustrated me when I am reading a murder mystery and can’t keep up with the plot. And when I do speed up, I make more mistakes, and have no idea what I am reading.

Have taken a couple of short walks over the last two days, and was very surprised at how quickly I tired. I need a nap after the second one. It will be a long road back to Tim Horton’s, I fear.

Apart from these operational details, I have had time to ponder a number of things at greater depth. For example, I was surprised and shaken to discover the depth of the anxiety I felt when “confronted” by a room full of strangers – my room mates family, come to visit him. As the crowd grew to 8 and then 9, I felt trapped and threatened – almost in a panic. A nurse was able to refuse the situation and lower the numbers until I relaxed.

As my anxiety grew, my perception of what I should do, skewed by my injury, moved in the direction of angry and violent confrontation – “drive them out!” As the nurse calmly spoke to them of my dilemma, the situation resolved itself. I found myself thinking, “Gee, her way of doing that was a whole lot better than what I in mind!” I became aware of how brain injury can alter the way you see the world.

Brain injury. That’s what it is, however small. I kept thinking of ‘little stroke,” “minor event…’’ I believe that’s called ‘denial.’ A close friend helped me say the words ‘congenital brain injury.’ Another way of saying ‘get real.’ This process also prompted the thought, ‘I now have an inkling of one of the ways that I will die.’

So, I have begun to think of my life in terms of ‘last phase.’ Might be a decade… or a week. So some things become less important than they were, and some things become more important. Some bits of unfinished business will be deliberately left unfinished. Others will be picked up and completed. Life has changed, and even though I sometimes imagine myself living the way I live today as a ‘forever’ thing, I know that isn’t so. And so, I am different. Not worse, and certainly not better. Just different. Changed.

I can't read!

I've been om a journey, a hew one for  e. I've had a small stroke in the visual cortex of my brain. Although I can type words and ideas, IO cannot with any comprehension, read them.

I am currently leaning to read again, and I am at the second grade level. I will be back; please be patient wit me.  It is  very difficult to spell. But I want to tell you this story. It is very tiring to read a few sentences. I have to lie down a lot.

I remenber "Run, spot, run…" More next time, after I Sleep a bit more

Thoughts of Dad

I was driving on the highway the other day, and I got thinking about my Dad. He loved to drive highways. He and my mother would go for a long drive every weekend. The purpose was to get lost…then, with the assistance of maps, find their way home again. They would do this for hours on end, I discovered.

The more I thought about my dad, the more I remembered about the way he lived. He was silent and quite testy at home, but out in the community, he was the soul of helpfulness, kindness, courtesy and support. Everyone who knew him loved the way he was. I have frequently thought that my Dad, a man quite hostile to organized religion, lived his whole life as a Christian man should live it. His childhood in a poor and strict Presbyterian home in Scotland put him off religion for life. He always told me he was an atheist, but at the end of his life I learned that this was not true. He was just angry at religion for the way it impacted his life as a child.

So, not a believer, but in most ways, a Christian of the first order. It’s interesting to me that as I age, I become more like him in some ways. I am not an unbeliever, but I do believe that the lived life is far more important than correct beliefs. I am kind, thoughtful and loving at home, and more grumpy, judgmental and impatient with public life. Weird.

My Dad had an abiding interest in science, and although he had virtually no education, he learned all the time as much as he could about science. I remember him sitting in the car with my son and I, as we told him about a basic computer course that we were taking together. My Dad kept asking, “But how do they work?” Neither of us could explain that, because at the time, neither of us understood enough about it to be helpful. He was quite annoyed with us, because we couldn’t teach him something that he so desperately wanted to know. It’s ironic that now, all these decades later, my son, his grandson, is a computer programmer as well as a teacher, and has a deep and abiding interest in science, like his grandfather!

Over the years, as I have pondered my dad’s life, I have come to see the many ways that he influenced me, and the many ways that I am like him! From my mother I got a deep and abiding faith, and a model for patience, hope and persistence. From my Dad, I got the critique of faith over against the lived life of faith. I also got his sharp, and sometimes inappropriate, tongue!

My parents died in 1987 – Dad, and 1988 – Mother. At different times I feel their presence with me to this day. I thank them for giving me life, and for parenting me into the person I am. Not perfect, not even always good, but grateful and proud to be their son.