stroke

Tuesday, 20th July, 2004, was a red letter day for me. Prior to that I had sort of adopted Humorist Stephen Wright's slant on life: "I plan on living forever...so far, so good." This day changed my 'forever,' when, at about 9:30 that morning, as I was finishing my morning shower, I suffered a stroke which almost completely shut down my left side, in terms of gross motor skills. My left arm and leg simply stopped working.

Several friends suggested that I give this event some thought and record those thoughts here. The doctor agreed, since typing was one of the skills I seem to have lost to some degree in my left hand. Here is the first result of my self-inflicted therapy - exactly as it appeared on the screen before me that morning - typos and all.

Dave

Steaming rivers of pleasure
Coursing down my back
Washing soap and care alike
Down the drsin

I reach to turn the fauvet knob
More steam and pleadure I demand
But something is wrong

I life my left arm,
But it doesn’t move.
I turn to face the shower head
But my leg remains in place.

A strange, unfamiliar sense of the macabre washes over me
My brain issues the marching commands
But there is a riot of mutiny going on
The troops refuse to follow the commands

I try the other side
It works
So, I thinks to myself,
This is a one-sided rebellion

Half of me cooperating
Half of me seeming to delight
In a childish tantrum of stubborn refusal
Holding, as it were, its breath
Until it turns blue in the face.

The strong desire to sleep now!
Washes over me
And I delight in my own rite of rebellion.
I will not succumb to defeat
I will not go quietly into the night
I will not simply let my rebellious left siode simply shut down

I’m not doing too good at motivating it
But neither is it completely winning the battle.

A leaky spot in my brain
A pool of blood where ther shouldn’t be one
A forced withdrawal

And for the moment, the rebellious side is winning.

The arm refuses to lift.
The fingers rebel against the command
To press keys on my keyboard
Or make music on my guitar
Some of the words I say don’t sound quite right
And my leg would stuill rather stand still than carry me
Hither, thither ad yon

And ther is that damned, screaming ach4 in th middle of my brain
The one that simply won’t be silenced
Or willed into submission.

Intracerebral hemmorrage;
Hyperintensive state.
Or possibly hyperintensive stale
I’m not completely certain
A doctor wrote that, after all
A white spote the size of s nickel on a CT-scan
And the leg still doesn’t jump when I say jump
And the arm still doesn’t move when I say move
And, although it may be hard to tell,
My typing has gotten worse
And, of course, there is still that damn headache.

But they insist that this is a minor event
Sort of like reganomics – you get it its monir,
I get it – its major.
And they insists that this, too, shall pass
But in the end I guess s stroke by any other name would still stink.

Yet, I am alive
Still issuing commands
To mutinous body parts
And that I am aware of the constant rebellion
Must mean something

*Stroke - Day 7