I emailed my annual Christmas letter earlier this morning…it’s below this intro.A couple of days ago I learned that a long-time friend and colleague had passed away earlier this year. Les and I exchanged messages occasionally, but we hadn’t spoken in at least a decade. Can’t turn back the clock…I’d already decided on the song…
“Hanging in” has become my standard reply when anyone asks “How are you doing?” whether it be face-to-face, on the phone, or in a message or text. It addresses not only how I’m doing physically and mentally, but also how I’m living my life day-to-day. Often times the question includes “are you continuing to improve?”…
I’ve never been annoyed by “ear worms” (having a song and its lyrics stuck in my head).I sorta love ‘em.Recently I’ve been experiencing a repetitive ear worm: “Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”It happened again this morning. Joni Mitchell’s 1970 “Big yellow taxi” is more…
…This one is the “Coming Home from the Hospital Anniversary.” (With much more to celebrate than the earlier anniversary…when Transverse myelitis ambushed me on 9/17/23….4 days after my seventy-fifth birthday.) On October 25, 2023 I came home from the Meyer Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital to Apt B-307 at The Abbey Apartments in Springfield, MO. I…
Showers used to be so refreshing almost every time…especially on those days when I’d sweated thru a tee shirt or two.But now I live in a Transverse myelitis world. “Refreshing” is NOT the right word to describe the feeling after a taking a shower sitting on a chair.“Tired” is. The last refreshing shower that I…
This weekend is a big deal for both me and Shelly. I’m “home alone” for three nights while she is in the Wichita area celebrating her first born’s 40th birthday. Like several things that have been on my calendar since I came home on 10/25/23 after 34 nights in hospitals, it just wasn’t in the…
I’ve been having trouble getting this started. This is a hard “Anniversary” to think about.It has been some kind of year. It started on Sunday 9/17/23 with a tingling in my feet, that moved up my legs a bit that took us to the ER.The next morning I woke up paralyzed from the shoulders down….
I can’t help myself… I know I shouldn’t do it… I’ve read many “experts” telling me that I shouldn’t do it… But a few months ago, essentially a homebody thanks to being ambushed by Transverse Myelitis, I started doing it: answering “suspected spam” calls. Oftentimes I can show self restraint. I have even gone a…
On August 8, 1974, fifty years ago today, Richard Milhous Nixon announced that he would resign the presidency of the United States the next day. And this at-the-time hardcore news junky didn’t know until a couple of days later that the most corrupt U.S. president (until 43 years later) was finally gone. Several days before…
On Sept 18, 2023 I woke up in the Critical Decision Unit at Cox South hospital and was paralyzed from the shoulders down. I couldn’t move a finger. My diagnosis is Idiopathic Acute Transverse Myelitis. (John Hopkins says there are 1,400 cases of TM annually in the US.) See Part 1 (A thru L) HERE…