“Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day ...” Like. sometime in June, I imagine, when we really need it (just watch, this blog post is going to come back and bite me in six months). When I look out my window, I see gray. Very dreary. It’s easy to feel down right now. As Pastor Gary mentioned on Sunday, it’s easy to feel sad during the holidays. But for me, it’s a lot darker than that.
You see, in a few days it’ll be one year since the stroke. It hit me on Friday, December 22, 2006. A whole year has passed and I cannot put one foot in front of the other without grabbing onto something or someone for support. All but a few of my pre-stroke memories are now over a year old.
I still remember the night before the stroke. It was Thursday and I was hosting a Christmas get-together with my lifegroup, Koinonia. I remember taking them on a flashlight tour of the backyard. They saw the pool and we talked about a pool party in the summer. I guess we’ll finally get to it in 2008.
We shared a potluck meal and talked about everything we wanted to do in 2007. We had a retreat planned for February, but I never made it.
The other day, I was reminiscing with a friend about a mutual friend, who accidentally dislocated his shoulder while we were standing outside that Starbucks at Torrance Crossroads. It seems like it was just recently, but that was back on November 10, 2006. Fortunately, we were able to get his shoulder set correctly and got a bag of frozen peas from the nearby Vons to use as an ice pack (the roundness of the peas shifts to conform to the curvature of the shoulder).
Why do I know what date it was? I took a couple of photos with my phone, and just checked the date stamp.
When I think back, my hospitalization was just a blur. I have a journal from that time, but really don’t want to look at it. If I think about it really hard, I can pull up bits and pieces from that time. Like my first occupational therapist, Ed, who came by at 7am each weekday, to watch me try and dress myself with one hand. There were mornings that I feigned sleep, but he prodded me until I opened an eye to glare at him.
My sister and my mother would come by each day to see how I was doing. To help them out, Sheri came by on Tuesday evenings, and Liz on Thursday evenings. Mike & Carol started coming by on Saturday evenings after church service, and often dragged along anyone who was loitering in the kitchen, which meant that the ensemble changed from week to week.
Thus, I’m feeling a bit down this week. But I’ll get over it. No need to assign someone to watch me. I’m not a danger to myself (as long as you don’t count the walking attempts). I plan to live at least as old as Pastor Gary is now (which should get me to the era of the Jetsons).
Just venting. After all, that’s what blogs are for, right?
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