Posted on January 14th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Recovery.
Another: My spelling is still 100% good -- when I'm presented with the correct word. But my spelling function -- "spell it out" -- is horrible. In other words, if I get presented with five variants of a word -- say, "fortunately", "fortunetely", "fortunetelly", "edgar", and "fortunatelly" -- I will pick the right one every time. But if I'm asked to spell it out aloud, I will be dumb. And sometimes I can't spell even writing -- not speaking -- simply, I can't find the word; for instance, I can't think of the variant "fortunately" -- the right one -- and I'm helpless. Once I've found it, I know it.
It's really hard to explain, that one.
Posted on January 14th, 2010 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Recovery.
Samuel Beckett, Rough for Theatre: "There croaking to the winter wind [rime with unkind], having lost his little mouth-organ."
I literally can't parse "rime with unkind". I understand perfectly the sense of it, but my mind skips, every time I try to sound it out, the winter wind rhyming with unkind.
addendum: It's not Irish. It's not the words.
I understand perfectly how "wind" rhymes with "blind" and "mind". But my hearing mind doesn't understand it; it's broken.
It's weird.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Stuff, Recovery.
Today my head speech therapy guy, Luis -- it's between semesters, there is nobody who is a student and therefore usually speaks to me, so it's up to Luis (don't get me wrong, he's very busy, and I'm a free -- Medicaid -- therapy case) -- anyway, Luis said the neurologists and speech doctors in charge of me had a meeting. They were worried that I had regressed -- which, of course, I had, since the seizures -- and they wanted to keep me pointing forward, so I am -- probably -- going off the maddening Keppra, and going on something else. (Unfortunately, Dr Benjamin, my head neurologist, was not there.)
We talked about homework; specifically, we talked about the homework that was going to do any good to me. I asked about function words, because those are words that were particular problems for me. Unfortunately, he said there were no homework -- things? jobs? this is how I write, casting about for words -- he said, well, my mind is ahead, even though I can't grasp it. (And I can't, today.)
Posted on December 27th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Stuff, Recovery.
I went to speech therapy today, and she felt confident of my sentence completion skills that she sent me home with homework. Last week I was numb; I was just staring at the paper. So today I was writing; still can't write like two months ago -- before the seizure -- but slowly coming back. Especially humor; grade-school humor, but still.
I'll show you some. It's mixed with humor -- not wit, that's coming, I hope -- and, well, despair and anger. (This is what Velma has to put up with.) The all-caps is the part I'm completing:
2. I DON'T LIKE cell phones BECAUSE they're difficult to hear.
3. THE TROUBLE WITH POLITICS IS, well, nothing. Politics is compromise; you can't necessarily get what you want, but you get something, if you participate. Unless you're talking about corrupt politics; to many, corrupt politics are the only politics. I think that's a copout.
4. YOU LOOK LIKE a patient woman.
6. SHE CAME LATE BECAUSE her hair fell out, and she had to glue it back on.
7. I WISH I had my language back. Also, I wish I had just one more hit single.
8. IT UPSETS ME TO have to write eighth grade sentences; and that I know I have to.
9. FLOWERS ARE funny. Particularly daisies; I don't know why.
Posted on December 20th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Movies, Recovery.
One of the changes in my life is movies. Reading is now very hard for me; I can read, but it's ten times as laborious -- still -- and it's exhausting. But movies is easier. So I've begun, late in my life, teaching myself the classics. One of my lists is Roger Ebert's 4-star movies. So far, I have watched The Thief Of Baghdad, In a Lonely Place, 12 Angry Men, and The 400 Blows.
I watched The 400 Blows yesterday. And I discovered another dismaying thing: if it is not English, I have to expend translation time -- ten times as hard, basically -- trying to keep up, flickering my eyes up and down, everything watching, not comfortable, not lost in the movie. By the time it's ending, I'm again exhausted. The 400 Blows is really good, but I've going to have to watch it again, tomorrow, because I was literally lost for much of it.
The ending shot was powerful, though.
Posted on December 13th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Recovery.
I have a sore left (good) leg. That's because I left the apartment alone yesterday good and mad -- both of us were mad -- and walked, walked, walked. Do you know the distance between lower Park Slope and the Verrazano Narrows bridge? I walked it there and back. There was fine; back was grim, and getting grimmer as I approached home. Velma met me about a quarter mile away, and I stumbled and staggered across the finish line. When I was healthy, I walked often, and far. So I took a grim satisfaction that I could do it, even though I took about six hours.
Today Velma and I are better. She's off to sing, wearing our derby hat. I'm preparing dinner. I'm making chicken hearts, slow cooked, with Indian jalfrezi sauce, red onions, green pea and lentil sprouts, and a mixture of wild and white rice. The only thing was hard was getting the jar of sauce open; that took five minutes.
My language is better: I mean it's better even in twenty-four hours. Maybe Dr Benjamin (my neurologist) is right about Keppra. Well, good. I still feel it, like a blanket around my head, numbing; but the words are forming, and the keyboard is not attacking me anymore.
Time composed: twenty-five minutes.
Posted on December 8th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Recovery.
Three weeks and four days my precarious recovery slipped, wobbled, and spiraled down, and I'm still slowly coming back. I'd been having a rough day; crying, depression, I don't know what. Sometimes it's hard. Late afternoon I entered the living room, and sat down to watch tv. I was tired, and I laid down. Suddenly I felt strange; maybe five seconds I felt weird, and I felt -- maybe -- my leg started to get cramped. And I felt numb, and I couldn't move. Then I felt better; except I couldn't speak.
Velma was looking pale, though. I wanted to speak to her, but I couldn't. I felt bemused. Suddenly -- again -- the apartment was full of people, EMT people, five of them. I couldn't understand them, mostly. I started to panic. Why? It's just five to ten seconds! They loaded me on a stretcher, and I began to cry. Going to the hospital, again! And I got mad. Speech slowly returned. But I wouldn't talk to the EMT people, or (mostly) Velma. I wasn't rational.
I arrived at the hospital. I was in and out. I remember Howard and Helen were there, but I don't remember them arriving. I lay down, and I turned, and then again I felt strange and again my leg started to cramp. Howard said loudly something.... And then it was three or four days past, upstairs. Apparently I had loudly threatened to kill myself. Apparently I had calmly told Velma I didn't love her anymore; that's hard, but is harder for Velma. Apparently I had two seizures, about three minutes; when you experience something as five seconds but in fact it actually is three minutes, it's, well, weird.
Anyway, I'm back, slowly, again. I'm home, after six days. Two weeks of Lexipro was hard, but I finally got off that stuff. Now I'm still on Keppra, which makes me numb and sleepy and queasy and I can't sleep -- yes, I can simultaneously can't sleep and am sleepy -- but my neurologist thinks it's messing up with Gabapentin, so I'm going to pull off the Gabapentin slowly, about six weeks, then check.
So yeah, the recovery slipped. But my comeback is back.
Posted on November 6th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Badness, Stuff.
I got yelled at by a turning trucker, for walking with the light but too slow. So I stopped in front of him, yelled at him, brandished my cane, told him I was disabled, etc. And he yelled even more. Eventually I moved on.
Boy, I blew up. I was walking fine, in a okay mood, then out of the blue this irritant came up, and I felt myself get instantly very mad; and I felt myself shake, even before I turned and yelled.
I think I have issues.
Posted on November 1st, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Comedy, Recovery.
(The last three weeks have been a steep curve of learning; I want to write down some of it.) This homework assignment is to describe a children's drawing, a simple drawing of a birthday party. And my therapist, Alexandra, told me to make a little story also (because she seems to have got the idea that I am promising).
"It's a birthday party. The boy with the big grin in the center is probably the celebrator.* The boys to either side have (presumably) presents for him. The cake in front of the celebrator has nine candles, which either means he's nine years old, or his parents screwed up. There are plates in front of his friends, but none in front of the birthday boy. Maybe he's supposed to give a slice to each of them, and than eat the rest of it by himself.
"But it doesn't matter; the missing plate is far from the birthday boy's thoughts. (Let's call him Ralph.) He is grinning -- do you notice that the other two are not? -- not in laughter; he is grinning because the plan he has cultivated, the plan he has spent the last year, well, planning, is coming to fruition. For his right hand is reaching, grasping for the big knife; and he is going to kill the two, or at least maim them.
"And yet. The right one of the boys -- let's call him Ralph, too -- is concentrating on Ralph the Killer's (or Maimer's) face. And do you know? his hands, both of them, are under the table. Maybe he is reaching for a knife too; it could be, because we can't see under the table. Maybe he's reaching for a gun! Maybe he's reaching for a knife and a gun! One thing that is for sure: we can't know until we move a minute past . . . the birthday party."
*(Originally I used the word "celebrant", but I looked it up, and the definition was "the priest officiating at the Eucharist," so no.)
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Cartoons.
"Wacky is humor without the teeth."
--Cat and Girl
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Badness, Stuff.
"Hunting has been banned in parts of Austria after freak storms with tennis ball-sized hailstones killed up to 90 per cent of the wild game population.
"Hundreds of deer were discovered either dead or so badly injured they had to be put down by wildlife experts.
"In the country's rural Salzburg province, 90 percent of pheasants and 80 percent of hares were killed in the hail storms.
"Sepp Eder, the hunting chief, said : 'Animals sought shelter in farms, in fields of grain but the hail was so heavy it smashed right into them. It may take five years for animal numbers to recover, if they ever do so.'
"Farmers are believed to have suffered more than £60 million in damages to crops and buildings."
via Ed Ward at the Well
Posted on October 9th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Media.
Alan Grayson (D-FL) is my hero. Seriously, he tells it like it is, without fear of the insurance companies, and certainly not without fear of the Republican lie machine:
"We as a party have spent the last six months, the greatest minds in our party, dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote on health care reform. I want to remind us all that Olympia Snowe was not elected President last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America's population.
"What America wants is health care reform. America doesn't care if it gets 51 votes in the Senate or 60 votes in the Senate or 83 votes in the Senate, in fact America doesn't even care about that, it doesn't care about that at all. What America cares about is this; there are over 1 million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bills. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are 44,780 Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care, that's 122 every day. America sure cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition, even if you have health insurance, it's not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don't need any. America cares about that a lot. But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities, America doesn't care about that at all." [. . .]
"Last week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there are 44,789 Americans that die every year according to this Harvard report published in this peer reviewed journal because they have no health insurance. That's an extra 44,789 Americans who die whose lives could be saved, and their response was to ask me for an apology." [. . .]
"Well, I'm telling you this; I will not apologize. I will not apologize. I will not apologize for a simple reason; America doesn't care about your feelings. [. . .] America does care about health care in America. And if you're against it, then get out of the way. You can lead, you can follow or you can get out of the way. [. . .] America understands that there is one party in this country that is favor of health care reform and one party that is against it, and they know why.
"They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation. They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry. In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon.
"But that's not what America wants; America wants solutions to its problems, and that begins with health care."
Posted on October 8th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Boring Posts.
Lots of people say I'm talking like my old self. My "style and persona seen just like always," according to a cross-country friend. And thank you. I want to. I think I struggled even from the first to sound like myself; everybody sounds, to me, like him or herself, and I was scared I might lose my voice. Now I think it's buried deep, and my voice -- everybody's voice -- is something you can't reach merely from a stroke.
But: my style and persona is not real, not quite. We read these posts, and we read them in the same time, same pace. But when you talk to me, in real time, you realize that I am damaged; I am ten times slower to get to the point, if I can: sometimes I can't. I slur, stutter, garble. I lose track. The magic thing about writing is, it makes me seem all right.
It makes me feel like there are two Scrapses: one you encounter day by day, the other by writing. And yeah, every writer is two-fold, the writer and the person; but I never felt the difference so starkly.
Posted on October 7th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Boring Posts.
I am very mad at Access-a-Ride (the transit service for disabled people). They didn't show up this morning, or went to the wrong address. When I called, I was told that I was listed as Did Not Show. I was outraged. Me and Tyrell (my home care assistant) were there, outside, from on time to half an hour late. And the driver said he was outside a two-story building, but ours is three-story. I told them I was Disputing. Unfortunately, it's my story against his. Oh: the phone guy asked why I waited thirty-five minutes to call. Incredulously, I pointed out that their rules stated that a half hour late is on time. Here, I quote: "Be prepared to wait up to 30 minutes after your scheduled pick up time. The 30-minute waiting period begins at your scheduled pick-up time and ends 30 minutes later. AAR vehicles arriving during this time are considered on time."
Well. They offered another ride, but it was seriously late for my appointment. I fumingly declined. I called Metrosports, and arranged with Jenny for being half an hour late. So Tyrell and I took the bus; and, actually, I am contemplating whether, once I get the disabled permit, it is maybe the best thing for traveling to therapy.
The o.t. was really good, good workout. And this was a monthly where-is-the-patient-now thing, so Jenny moved and stretched the arm every which way, and you know? I think, very slowly, the arm is getting better, the last month or so. I'm not sure; but I think so. It will be the first time in ten months that I've detected some improvement in my arm. So, hey.
Posted on September 27th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Boring Posts, Recovery, Memory.
(I'm going to post insignificant details of my rebuilding mind, both because I wish I'd kept closer track of my pre-stroke mind -- even before my stroke, my memory was not good, but now it's awful -- and because I'm living here, and while my friends keep marveling at my speed of recovery, it frequently seems like I'm standing still to me.)
For four or five months, I've been typing every day, and my progress has been infinitesimal. Not the progress of my content; two months ago I couldn't summon up the word "infinitesimal", for instance. But my typing is about the same as two months ago. It's frustrating. A sentence will enter my thoughts, and by the time the typing catches up, sometimes the sentence will have vanished. And, my god, the N's. For some reason, N is particularly difficult, both the placement of the N in a word -- literally about one-third of the time my mind will drop the N, except the ING combination -- and also the placement of the N on the keyboard. Even though, as I said, I stare at the keyboard every day.
Composing and typing time: 24 minutes.
Posted on August 31st, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff.
I'm making a little money through social security, but it's not nearly enough. And Medicaid is free, but with complications, one of which is I can't make any more money, otherwise they start charging. Etc. You know the complicated mess of my life. I'm not out of it yet. I'm eleven months in rehab, now -- eleven month since my stroke. My mind is still improving (knock wood), but I'm probably have one year remaining ahead of me.
So, I'm asking again for support. Any amount is helpful, believe me.
Thank you, very much.
Posted on August 29th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff.
I found a 1960 quarter in my change. As coin-collectors know, quarters before 1964 go up in value, because quarters after 1964 have no silver, merely copper and nickel; quarters from before 1964 are composed of copper and silver (90 percent as of 1960).
So a 1960 quarter is valuable, slightly. Of course, this quarter has been out in circulation, and it shows. I don't know how much it's worth; probably not much. Certainly not worth bringing it in to a coin collector. On the other hand, I hate spending it, because I know it's worth more than a quarter. But where, in my small and crowded apartment, can I keep it? It's a 1960 quarter, an item of very small worth, sitting there.
Posted on August 26th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Boring Posts.
Medicaid doesn't allow more than one therapy each day, don't ask me why.
I wrote that two days ago. It's actually more complicated, and frustrating, as I found yesterday. With Medicaid, they will only pay for ONE VISIT PER DAY. That means one out of everything: my regular doctor, my neurologist, my psychiatrist, my speech therapist, my occupational therapist, my physical therapist: only one per day. Never mind that this plays hell with my schedule, and basically means I can't work in an office: I can't get the help I need. I need three days (minimum) of speech, four or five days physical, at least two days of occupational, one day of psychiatrist, and the doctor and neurologist every two weeks. I could do everything happily if Medicaid didn't put that cap on. As it is, I take two days speech, one day occupational, and two days physical one week or one day physical and one day doctor/neurologist the other week. I haven't figured out when to fit the psychiatrist in. It's not enough, anyway; not nearly. I suppose I should be grateful that Medicaid covers anything in America; of course I can't get any normal coverage, with my Preexisting Condition. And at least Medicaid is straightforward; they pay in full or they don't, and you don't need to argue with a insurance man determined to screw you.
Posted on August 24th, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Boring Posts.
What a day.
We put in -- with Patrick's help -- air conditioning, last night. Yay! Unfortunately, I noticed in the morning that it leaked. It was now a medium-sized puddle in the rug, about two feet wide and four feet long. Ack. Angela, my home care assistant, helped me to lift the a.c. and insert two small paperbacks, solving the immediate problem, though the puddle would have to wait, because my speech therapy was imminent. We barely made it to my Access-A-Ride bus.
Unfortunately, the woman who scheduled my speech therapy last week apparently forgot another person's schedule (and the woman who scheduled me wasn't around to ask, because she was taking a vacation). More than two hours later, John showed up, very apologetic, and saw me for an extra half hour to make up for it. And he's good; he described a way to defeat (or get around) aphasia, talked about aphasia (and my suffering) intelligently, and when I asked about reading materials, including the way they teach me (or ones like me), he promised to bring in literature.
Unfortunately -- I'm getting tired of that word -- Angela said, on the way home, that she's leaving next week: because she doesn't like so much walking as I do. Now, I like walking. But I can't walk too much; I'm, well, crippled. I told her that I'll miss her (though truthfully, I can't understand her accent 75% of the time), but I'm not cutting down on my walking; first, it's not an unreasonable amount of walking; second, I need to be walking to keep in shape.
I thought, at the beginning of the day, I had the week more or less organized. Now at the end of Monday, I'm waiting for a call tomorrow that will reschedule me for speech (and I can't reschedule for Tuesday or Thursday, because those are my days for physical therapy and occupational therapy, and Medicaid doesn't allow more than one therapy each day, don't ask me why), and I've got to replace another home assistant, and the rug's still wet.
Every day is a challenge.
Posted on August 22nd, 2009 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Sports.
David Appleman wrote a post at the excellent baseball blog Fangraphs about Mark Teixeira and defense. Fangraphs is one of the best blogs about quantifying defense, especially their creation Ultimate Zone Rating. Appleman is replying to the New York Times sportswriter Tyler Kepner, who wrote:
I say off the charts because I’m convinced there is no chart that accurately measures defense. The attempt is a noble one; defense is easily the most underrated ingredient in how games are won. But I don’t fully accept it.
People often cite Ultimate Zone Rating, a metric that tries to measure range and errors and how they affect runs allowed or prevented. But how can that statistic be valid when it says Teixeria has had a negative defensive impact?
Appleman says that in fact UZR has historically showed Teixeria to be excellent; it's just this year that Teixeria measures out at average. Appleman spends time pointing out that the previous first baseman for the Yankees, Jason Giambi, was awful, and maybe that skews Kepner's perception. That's true -- even Kepner admits the possibility -- but as always, defense discussions and metrics frustratingly (to me) leave something big out:
The offensive baseball stats, both those widely-accepted and those not, understand that sometimes baseball players slump, even for whole seasons. Yet defensive stats are called out for anything that "sounds wrong", and dismissed thereby. Maybe Mark Teixeria, most of time an excellent player, is having, this year, a mediocre year defensively. I assume that defensive stats are as much subject to variability as offensive stats. It's wrong to write off a metric just because one year it doesn't tell you what you expect.