Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Life Continues

To quote my brother, "Life has been a little full lately." But his life can be full by choice or at least the choice not to make it less full. I have had a number of thing just come together at the same time, making life a little busier. If you find me these days, I can't speak as well as I could a month ago, at least that is how I feel.

I actually seem to be getting some of my vocabulary back, but having it and having to think about it is again taking a toll. I will deal with it. Today had me landing more work, but this is unique in that my competitor was my old employer and the customer was one I fought for while I was there. Several days of phone calls and reviewing my bid from January has gotten wearing but it all became worth it when I was awarded the contract today. Somewhat scarily I now have 3/4 of a million in work to run. Pretty cool and scary when you know you are missing a good chunk of your brain. I will get through it and prosper.

Add to that reporting for jury duty yesterday, which I was excused from, partly because of my brain injury. The bad part was it sounded like an interesting trial. And all this come with other problems at work, having nothing to do with me, still affecting us all in the office. Hopefully they will work themselves out. And the prom approaches this weekend which was fine until Maria rented the fateful limo and the drama began. I have tried to reinforce that the limo is Maddy's since she and Maria rented it and filling it is her discretion. Life should calm down very soon.

But on a positive note, I am in the third week of being gluten free, except beer. Okay this is a problem, but even with much smaller amount of beer I consume I feel much better and I have lost some weight. I am looking at the Paleo/Arheo diet and trying to learn. I see my doctor in a couple of weeks and should find out more.

I have also been very busy reading and will update the list soon. And two posts in May. Life is full but good.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Books

I just saw my book list and it is horribly out dated. I have finished the Aubrey Maturin series with the exception of 21. We were coerced in purchasing the weekend edition of the New York Times, for fear of losing our digital rights, so now have too much to read. More soon and current reading list. And completely of subject, an excellent Kentucky Derby, not one of the horses I chose, but a great race. So I picked the winner of the Woodruff Stakes so it wasn't a real loss.

Books will be coming soon.

Changes

I spent the first year after the stroke just trying to wrap my head around it. I walked, slept and tried to deal with these little limitation that keep manifesting themselves. Some where in the second year I started noticing that life was returning to some semblance of normal, not quite normal mind you but better than it had been in a year. At around 18 months I got the opportunity to go back to work on a part time basis and now that we approach the 2 year mark I am working nearly full time.


In the life that transpired during this, I lost first my father, and then a year and three months later, my mother. Both lived fully in their own rights and are now someplace arguing, my father with the drink in his hand and my mother trying to take it away, while Do You Love Me from Fiddler on the Roof plays in the background. Somehow we became a family of Russian Jews, land far from our Anglo and Germanic heritages.


But I am now realizing that I am in the third stage after the stroke. I am now rebuilding, with a passion. Some of what drives me crazy is realizing how preventable my stroke was. There were the two biggies, smoking and drinking too much beer, but I think that it is more related to diet.


Maria and I recently stayed in Providence, Rhode Island where she presented and worked at the American Society for Indexing conference. My Meg is also in Providence, in her final year at RISD. On Friday, Meg and I drove to Cape Cod to see an old friend. Meg and Steve are jewellers and jewellery and art monopolized a lot of the conversation, but Steve and I are also at that wonderful 51 year mark where things can go to hell or not pretty quickly and get harder to get back. We are both pretty active, he probably more that me, but have both felt some of time's wear and tear. He recently changed his diet cutting out glutens and dropped 25 pounds and claims to feel great. And he looks better. Meg also has been gluten free for quite a while, having any number of problems with wheat and milk,


So here I am a week into a gluten free diet. I could care less about the weight, I never weighed enough. I do care about the fat and I do care about any number of things that were continually bothering me. I am starved most of the time and learning this on the fly. But the TUM's bottle has not been touched in few days and I don't have an upset stomach much of the time.

There is more going on too, but I will save it for another night. Now that I am "recovered" I have this need to push myself and make myself better than I was. There are days my back is sore, I get exhausted and my knees don't work. Sciatica has reared its ugly head, slowing me down some, but most days there is no hope of running. But I am going to make myself better. I have a new bucket list and aim to stay alive to complete it.

And since I am never seen on facebook anymore, Happy Birthday Mr. Dwyer! a few days late.