Journal Through Recovery

Episode 1

I suffered a stroke on 11/30/2016. I was working from my home office on a normal stress-filled day. I felt a bit off that day. I thought it was just the introvert in me being a bit less social than usual. I had a few exchanges via Slack that seemed difficult to me. I thought I was having a hard time making myself understood. And not just they can't follow my technical solution, I should explain it better, but what felt like they don't even get me.

In the afternoon I had my only real meeting at 3:30. Since the meeting was about a project/topic I had largely transitioned to another manager, I did not really participate. I think other than to say hello, I did not even speak during that meeting. It ended quickly after about 15 minutes.

I was feeling a bit tired and had a bit of a headache at that point. Since I had a lot of technical tasks on my plate and did my best work on those when free from interruption after the work day, I decided to grab a short nap. The plan was to work several hours after dinner time and try to complete the task I had prioritized for that day. I laid on top the bed, unfolded my blanket over me, and fell quickly to sleep.

I woke up easily in just less than an hour. A well timed nap as though I planned it that way. I felt a little bleary waking up, but not unusual after a deep sleep during a nap. My daughter was in the kitchen making herself some food, so we started chatting a bit. I had purchased a new pepper grinder and she was using it for the food she was cooking. She liked using it and I told her I had been looking to a larger sized one. 

I tried to explain to her that I had a coupon from the maker for free spice refills. I had a hard time explaining it. I seemed a bit tongue tied and felt frustrated. I sort of waved her off that I did not want to talk about it. She asked if I was OK and I tried to explain I was having a hard time with words, but didn't really do that very well. She asked if I was OK and I nodded and kind of waved her off again. I thought "I can't seem to speak very well, but I'm sure that will get better." Little did I know it was not going to get better before it got a little worse.

My wife showed up after she got off work. She needed to come by an pick up the dog and take her back to her house. She asked if I watered the Christmas tree that day. Now, she was doing most of the tree care and so planned on filling the container and giving the tree a nice drink of water. But as I tried to explain that I had not watered and wanted her to do it, I could not express that. I tried to say a couple of things but could not, got frustrated and walked away. M started asking if I was OK. I tried to explain that I can't speak now, but everything will be fine. For some reason that's what I thought. I can't speak, it's very frustrating to me, but everything will be fine. "Do you think maybe we should go onto the ER and get that checked out" she asked. "Yeah, I guess", I agreed. After what was actually a much longer and not totally mutual discussion we headed to the ER.

At OSF they got me in right away. Mostly sat me in a room and took some history.  I've been working today. Noticed some challenges in communicating at work during the day. Took a nap this afternoon and when I woke up I could not speak intelligibly. Well that was the gist of it anyway. I'm sure it did not come out anywhere near as cleanly. My eldest was there and had already called off her shift there. She was advocating for me and trying to help the staff figure out what the hell I was saying.

I got sent for a CT scan and they figured out pretty quickly I had experienced a stroke on the left side of my brain. My left anterior carotid was 100% occluded, but I had some circulation from my collateral vasculature. There had been some damage to my left hemisphere with some swelling. It was nothing they could treat and since I reported that this may have started in the morning, some treatment regimes were counter-recommended

They don't have any neurology practice, so initially they wanted to life-flight me to Peoria. When we said we weren't doing that, they were going to just check me in upstairs for observation. We explained that we wanted me to be sent to Rush where my wife had a history with the stroke unit (tale for another day). After some annoying discussion they agreed they could get me ground transportation and a bed at Rush. By 11:30 PM I was loaded into a dismal ambulance by a crew with no EMT for a 90 minute drive up to Rush. I couldn't have told you that, not so you would have understood it anyway, but I was on my way.

Life is...

"Life is hard. It's misery from the start. It's long. It's dull. It's painful."

Pursuit of Happiness

I often wonder. Am I denied happiness? Or, am I incapable of it?

Fall Sunset from the Road

And now a little oil painting treatment.

Fall in Chicago

Visit from a Canadian friend. Let me play tourist. :-)

Mr. Bean

Green Tea Tranquility

Based on the beautiful video Green Tea Tranquility by Dan Nguyen on Vimeo.com

Cinematic Gif - First Attempt

But where can I display it? Facebook doesn't animate it. Nor does flickr. Grrr. Hopefully it works here.

 

OK It does seem to work here. Phew.

I've become intrigued with a new take on a very old (for the internet) medium - the animated gif. I've seen some incredible examples especially here! 

These are not the cheesy animated gifs of the early days of the WWW. These are beautifuly done with very subtle movement. The effect truly can be cinematic.

Anyway, here's my first attempt. Enjoy.