RELAPSE CITY REDUX

Well, it continues

My health continues to deteriorate. Over the last several weeks, I have lost the ability to concentrate on typing and my confusion continues to grow. My fingers are not cooperating.

The funny thing is that my ability to do crossword puzzles remain. I am extremely proud of the fact that I am able to solve the Friday and Saturday NY Times crossword every week and have done so for a while. Anyone who knows the crossworld knows what an accomplishment this is. I don't say this to boast about my abilities as a solver but to demonsterate that I haven't lost my ability of mind, just my ability to express myself about the puzzles.

I am an isolated individual. I have trouble walking and talking. And the ability to communicate about the NY Times puzzle, particularly through Rex Parker's blog, is important to me. Aside from my wife and two children, this is the only place where I can communicate. And now I have lost that. It has taken me a little over an hour to get this far along in this post and I am exhausted.

I stopped timing myself a long time ago, more because I enjoy the process of doing the puzzles than being able to gloat over my time. Be assured that I don't begrudge Orange or the others for their speed - I just don't share their interest. I enjoy the puzzles My Way, the same way they do. However when it occurred to me that I was never going to be a serious competitor to Tyler Hinman, I lost interest in my times.

When I was in college, I came to that same general conclusion about my abilities as a pool player and quit the game. Just quit. Number 1 or nothing! That was very short sighted of me. I don't intend to quit doing puzzles because of lack of speed.

I'm rambling so I'll bring this post to a close. Goodbye for now. More later.

RELAPSE CITY

When I was a senior in high school, we were called upon to memorize 10 lines of poetry. Being something of a wiseass, I decided to do The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe which was considerably longer than 10 lines. When it was my turn to recite, I accomplished the feat with just a couple of stumbles. Most of the poem has stayed with me to this day. Oh, I can't recite all eighteen or so verses, but, if prompted, I can rattle off 15 or 20 lines.

All this is apropos of one of the quirks of my Multiple Sclerosis. I say My Multiple Sclerosis because one of the real oddities of this disease is the nature of its symptoms. MS is a disease of brain lesions and how one is affected depends on just where on the brain the lesions are located. In my case, the left side of my brain has the lesions and I have generalized weakness on my right side and my speech center is affected.

I could very well be paralyzed or blind so, all things being equal, I got off lucky.

When I was first diagnosed, I had a real problem with talking and maintaining my balance. I was fond of saying I had to relearn how to walk and talk and crawl on my belly like a reptile. One of the first things that dawned on me was that reciting poetry and talking were two entirely different processes. I'm not sure why that occurred to me but it did. Perhaps you are aware that certain singers, such as Mel Tillis, stutter but have no problem singing because singing and reciting poetry are right brain processess and speaking is a left brain process.

I figured out that I could talk with a minimum of trouble by memorizing what I wanted to say, then saying it. That is a very exhausting enterprise but, to some extent, it works at least in the short run.

All of the above leads me to this: I had a relapse a couple of weeks ago and had to be hospitalized for a few days. My doctor stablilized me and I was released, on crutches and stuttering up a storm. I am an outpatient and am taking physical therapy for my balance and speech therapy for my speaking. When the brain lesions "heal" I will be back to "normal," whatever that is.

Anyway, I missed about a week of doing crossword puzzles but my doctor - who is also a fan of puzzles - tells me that returning to them is good therapy. So I am back.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

On Sunday, September 9, 2001, I was doing the NYT crossword puzzle while my family was at breakfast. I solved it in 41 minutes, a record time for me on a Sunday puzzle. I couldn't wait for my family to get home so I could tell someone.

When they finally got home, I discovered I was unable to speak clearly enough to make myself understood. When I tried to stand up, my right foot flopped around. (I later learned this condition is called drop foot). I didn't know what was happening but I chalked the whole thing up to fatigue as I wasn't working at the time and was having trouble sleeping.

On Monday, September 10, my right leg was no longer under my control and I had to make my way from the bedroom to the living room by holding on to the furniture. I called my doctor's office and was unable to communicate well enough to make myself understood. I handed my wife the phone and she told the nurse what had been happening and, all at once, one word came to my mind - STROKE!

The doctor's office told my wife to get me to the hospital immediately which she did. By this time, my condition was worsening. I was unable to get out of the car and had lost the ability to talk .

The rest of the day was spent in an almost endless series of tests. One of the first of them eliminated the possibility of a stroke which seemed like good news at the time. Meanwhile, my mental confusion grew.

The next morning, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was taken to Radiology for more tests. By this time, I was not able to concentrate at all. I seemed to be in and out of active consciousness.

What I do remember was the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital on a Tuesday morning and, curiously, people talking about airplanes and the World Trade Center. I remember thinking about the plane that had crashed into the Empire State Building back in the 30s.

Then I became aware of silence. There didn't seem to be any people close at hand. I was hooked up to a machine and I could hear voices dimly buzzing at a distance. I learned later that all the staff went into the waiting room when the second plane hit. As I drifted in and out, I tried to make some sense out of what I was hearing, a jumble of dull urgency and some anger and a new thought entered my mind - terrorism.

I awoke and was back in my room.

INITIAL POST

This is my first post.

The only reason I started this blog was to be able to get my picture to display on Rex Parker's blog on crossword puzzles. I am a former bill collector, accountant, sheet metal foreman and am now disabled with Multiple Sclerosis.

More about this later