9 months, nearly, since that stroke last Easter I'm lucky I can walk, I know I had to keep trying... to pick up my coffee cup even without using my left hand, or the straw...
I do know that Spring of 2014 was tough on me, lot's of respiratory nasty's... in fact I was fighting for my life (again), had a bad "cold" after the third round of chemo that felt like blurs of scenes from early Rocky movies when he just keeps taking hit after.... March of 2011, I was in the throes of some kind Plutonian flu, they finally said, "it wasn't H1N1", in fact whatever it WAS is gone!!! But they did treat me for walking pnumonia (I wasn't hardly walking but I wasn't down all the way) gave me some kick ASS antibiotics (6), count 'em, 6, take 2 Now!!! and 1 every day until gone. Okay, I did that as directed and used the inhaler judiciously, when needed, and within days I was walking outside 1/8 mile each way, on Burke Gilman Trail until I was able to walk to Bothell and back (6 miles) just to check my mail, but I built some strength back, just in time. I remember having those strange pains that kept moving around, a few days in the shoulder and a couple days in your hip, and then nothing and then ow, shit, why does that hurt. I didn't do anything .... damn, but I had work to do, so to speak, and in May I took the train through Oregon down to Northern California to visit my family. I think I arrived before Memorial Day, and I had found that my dad's next older sister, my aunt, had been treated for breast cancer (of some kind, rather small, and seemed to have gotten it all early), but that it had metastasized to her bones didn't anybody tell her it was stage 3 when they treated her - oh sorry.... she had about 4 months left then and she did the best she could. Yeah, she lived a fair long life by human life spans and she had some good years for all that. I'm very glad I got to see her again, I had to return to Washington, well I didn't know yet what was before me. I think of being outside that whole summer and the work on the house we did, you clearly needed help, you had the 4th of July plumbing disaster when all that old iron pipe began to breakdown. The corrosion on the inside is one thing, it's only rated for 50 years from installation, yet it went for 40 more? The dust we raised and the plaster hauled out, I know we found deposits of a black oily substance in bizarre (completely normal when you think about it) places like the inside of a door knob. Yes, and the dust we inhaled and all of this under a bright sunny jetstream enriched summer sky. Amazing.
And the various odd cleanup and re-install tasks went on into the fall (my aunt had passed in September) and I went to have a sandwich on a Sunday night and I bit a piece of "something" in the salami which cracked a tooth that had rotted hollow. I've had a life of tooth trouble and that may well be another symptom. I endured for a month or so more but an infection was setting and I knew I was in trouble with that. Finally we found a local clinic that would see me on a cash basis at a discount. I just wanted antibiotics and an extraction. Cheapest way to go: get 'em out. I had lost many a good tooth that way... I know better than to ask for pain pills, I knew what I needed and I wasn't messing around. They know the scams for drugs and I wasn't playing one. But they insisted I see the M.D. be cause my blood pressure was too high. Well I knew that too, just wasn't worried. I had been on meds to control it before but I became unemployed and houseless, but again no insurance for consistent medical work. I knew I didn't want any of the crap they often foist on you, seen too many people die of being on too many... just watch their ads. Oh it's all pretty harmless.
So I got my blood pressure down and the teeth out (YAY) and just recovering from all that and trying to get my strength and appetite back (once again). Organic as much as possible. Started at the gym with a friend, eating lean, fruits, veggies, keep your water up. My wind was good, going farther on the tread, and getting stronger on the weights. Sitting there that night, such a long way back now, having a drink and meditating, reach up to run my fingers through my beard, and ..... what's this?
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