Weekend Open Thread: So, Two Weeks Ago I Had A Stroke….

By
Greg Diamond
– August 25, 2017Posted in: Fresh Juice, Greg Diamond, Health

Look at that beaming smile!  No, I’m not happy about having had a stroke — it’s a symptom check for facial symmetry. (OK, I AM pretty happy to be doing well enough to tell the tale, though!)

My wife and I and our daughters are currently planning a wedding for our daughter who is now out on deployment in the Navy, and it has struck me that this has something significant in common with telling people that you’ve had a stroke.

No, than sentence is not a symptom.  (Get used to that joke.  You’ll see it again.)

You have this list of people in your life that you might conceivably contact — and you have to pare it down.  Who gets to come to a wedding with limited capacity?  For whom do you use your limited time and energy to contact them in person to let them know about the happy occasion (in this case, it’s a “happy-to-be-alive” occasion) rather than learning about it when it’s reported on the Internet — which is what I’m doing here?  In each case, some worthy people are inevitably left out.  (My apologies if you, Dear Reader, are among them.  You can still, of course, send a gift.)  (That wedding-related joke may indeed be a symptom!)

Yes — so far as we can tell, I had a stroke two weeks ago.  I am doing pretty well.  Most critically from my selfish perspective, my thinking and reasoning faculties are fine, with few and sort-of-interesting-if-you-were-a-fan-of-Oliver-Sacks exception.  My worst symptom seems to be some problems typing with my left hand, such that above I initially wrote “it’s a “happy-to-be-alice” occasion” — and I hope that you’ll bear with me and enjoy such errors as much as I do.  (Or more so, in the case of the ones that I don’t enjoy at all.  You’ll know those when you see them.)

My long-term memory is pretty much fine — I can still remember all of the details I’d need to testify about voting on Saturday evening of the CDP election, for example, which looks like it will come in handy — with a few fun exceptions.  I could not recall my house number when in the hospital and it still doesn’t seem entirely familiar despite that I’ve re-memorized it.  My short-term memory of the past-two weeks is in some instances spotty, but that seems mostly due to trauma and bother rather than to loss of brain tissue.

(Having a stroke is a bit exhausting, by the way.  I’m sleeping a lot.)

I can still construct and present a detailed and compelling argument, so you’re out of luck there too.  I still have my same sense of humor.  People I encounter don’t suspect that I’ve had a stroke unless I have told them, and even then seem to maintain their doubts.  I can still walk, though stumbling into people and things (more often than my usual high baseline) was the first symptom that clued my wife in that something was wrong.  I have control over all of my bodily functions except for a tendency to spit on people who deserve it, and I’m just stating that exception for legal reasons.

If I end up with the obscene and inappropriate candor that Estelle Getty had in The Golden Girls, I hope that we can all enjoy it together.

I can drive.  I had a peripheral vision test and if someone throws a rock at me from above and to my left, I might spot it a little slowly, but I’m ok from the 90- and 270-degree angles.  I don’t have a handicapped placard yet.  Too prideful, plus I need the exercise from parking further away.

I wrote this in less than half an hour, including corrections (that was originally “Estelle Gwrrt”), so I can still blog — you targets of my ire and wit are out of luck there too.  While I’ve been mostly out of action for the past couple of weeks, I should be picking up the pace a bit.  Just presume that every time Trump does something worth condemning, I’ve condemned it.  I didn’t comment about Charlottesville only because it was so much to spell.  Plus others had that well-covered.)

I will be at the California Democratic Party E-Board meeting at and around the Anaheim Sheraton for parts of this weekend, so if you run into someone there who matches my description it’s probably either me or Richard Dreyfuss.

I want to get this posted now, but I will update it over the course of the day.  See you around, and make jest of me at your peril!  (I’ve already heard the “we all knew this was coming” and the “brain damage” jokes, so don’t even bother.  I’ll cut you, I mean it!  I mean it figuratively, that is.)

Aww you around!  (Get it?)

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About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)