Bubble blowing class

For a few summers when I was little, the six of us would pack up a pile of gear and supplies into the back of my mom’s ’59 Pontiac station wagon for a week or more of family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake near St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. Just about everyone in Epiphany Episcopalian Church of New Hope, Minnesota, went. Epiphany was the third of the four churches my parents started, which is pretty unusual for a functioning agnostic and a Buddhist atheist.

There were all sorts of classes and activities for various age and skill levels; crafts, hiking, archery, fishing, swimming, etc. We all ate together. We had campfire together, then the children went to bed. There weren’t any beds. We were in sleeping bags on the old wood and canvas cots we brought from home. We did not necessarily go right to sleep. The parents stayed up for some late night conversation and libations. Did I mention it was an Episcopalian camp? Sometimes, we would mix it up and kids would “trade families” staying overnight in friends’ tents. We learned about how to do graffiti on the canvas by writing on it with toothpaste. The toothpaste would bleach it. Also, if you pressed on the canvas when it was raining, it would leak at that spot; a useful skill to annoy a bullying, sleeping, older brother.

There was a wood-fired sauna near the lake. We could get real heated up, working our way up to the top bench, then run down into the lake for a good shock to the system. This was on the “men’s” end of the beach. It was only designated this way for the moonlit skinny dipping. Some of the men would go full Finnish style in the sauna on those occasions. The women and girls were on the other end of the beach (about 50 yards away). My mom pointed out how, at that distance, in the moonlight it looked like everyone was wearing swimsuits, you know, with their tan lines. Sure, mom.

The stated topic was bubble blowing. Since we are finally at the lake …

Every year I had swim lessons I was in the beginner class, leaning over in knee deep water, blowing bubbles, turning my head, taking a breath and blowing more bubbles. I could never get out of bubble blowing class, because I could never float without moving my hands. My feet sank! I am now 64 years old. I still cannot float without moving. My feet still sink. I have heavy feet! I could never pass the test to go out to the floating raft to play and dive off with the rest of the kids my age. It got to the point where when it came time for bubble blowing class, I ran up the hill to our tent and hid under my cot, crying. It was no better when I went to Camp Manitou, the YMCA day camp. As part of their program we had swim lessons in the YMCA in downtown Minneapolis. We had to swim naked! They said that was so they could see who did it if anyone peed in the pool. It was not the best experience for this boy at nine years old, who could only blow bubbles and doggy paddle.

This was ridiculous! I lived in Minnesota, which is Sioux for “Land of Lakes” and I couldn’t swim! Finally, in 1966, the Golden Valley Country Club built a pool. My folks were very active there. In fact, my dad, Charlie, was president for a couple of years. The pool was open 9am to 9pm, 7 days. I basically lived at the pool. I was 11. I taught myself how to swim by mimicking the old folks who were swimming laps morning and evening. They were members of the “Mile-a-Week Club.” I also watched the swim team practice and tried out the other strokes. The pool opened the end of May. By the end of June I joined the swim team and the Mile-a-Week Club. I was the only child in the club. I still could not float unless I was moving. By the end of July, I was swimming two miles a day. A mile is 71 lengths of a 25 yard pool. I was never a speedster, but I could beat anyone on the team for distance. Also, whenever the coach wanted to demonstrate the form of a stroke, he would have me do it. He would use me at meets to compete in the long events above my age class where there were few or no entrants from other clubs. I was always entered in my maximum allowed events, so even though I wasn’t super fast, I racked up a lot of points for being there and finishing. Sometimes it made the difference between winning and losing a meet.

When I was 13 or 14, our family bought a lake place on Loveless Lake in Polk County, Wisconsin. Once a summer, I would swim around it, about 3 miles, with my sister, Sue Ann, guarding me on our waterbike.

The other day I swam four lengths of the pool. By the end, I was going so slowly my feet were sinking.  It’s hell to get old.

 

My 46th TIA, in other words, Friday

It was a Friday, February 15, 2019, I was just feeling a little off. I started to paint a portrait. I couldn’t get done with it fast enough. I did not have the patience for it. I felt fidgety and unfocused. I applied the first coat of two colors, then put my brush away. When I walked down the hall to the front of the house, all of a sudden my right side went limp and I fell against the wall. I leaned against the wall and continued to my chair. I decided to try to sort out the problem I was having getting my glucose test strips from the pharmacy. Medicare has instituted new rules aimed at limiting test strip use, because, you know, so many people are addicted to pricking their fingers. The local CVS had received my prescription on Tuesday. The doctor’s office had not written it in a way that complied with Medicare’s requirements. They did not bother to inform me or my doctor of this. I filled a drug prescription on Wednesday and asked about the strips. They told me to tell my doctor to reduce the number of test strips to 300, since 400 was more than three months’ supply. I test four times per day. I did so. I used my last test strip Thursday morning. I called CVS. I got put on hold for several minutes. I called back. Anna finally answered after a long hold. She wouldn’t let me speak to explain my conversation with my doctor’s office. She said, “It wouldn’t work. I’ll try it again.” Then she immediately put me on hold again. After a couple of minutes, she got back on the line and said, “We’re really slammed. It didn’t work.” Then she hung up as I was trying to ask: What didn’t work? I was exhausted enough by the ignorance for one day, so I didn’t call back again until Friday. On Friday, I got the real reason Medicare wouldn’t fill the prescription, even though it was now written properly. On my last prescription for test strips the doctor’s office had mistakenly directed me to test twice a day. I had mentioned that I test 4 times to the pharmacist and to my doctor. No one seemed to think this was a problem at the time. It turns out Medicare won’t refill the prescription until I exhaust the supply at 2 uses per day. CVS told me to call Medicare to get an exemption. I called Medicare, who informed me that they didn’t routinely give exemptions. I told them, up to now they had covered my strips for four times per day. They told me Congress changed it. (After all, we need to save a few dollars on test strips so we have more money for trillion dollar bombers that barely fly.) I called my doctor’s office again to have them write the presciption for what I could get. I called CVS again. I explained to Mary what I had one. She made disparaging remarks about Medicare. I told her that Medicare remained the most efficient healthcare delivery system in the country, with the highest customer satisfaction rating of any insurance company.. She made an absurd statement with no basis in reality: “Well, the last thing you want is government in charge of healthcare!”

That put me right over the edge. I mean, who is to be in charge, if not government? Who is to enforce malpractice law? How could there be malpractice law without government? Who would enforce insurance contracts, drug safety and quality of care? My mind was reeling! My body was already in an active stroke state when I called. I responded with a word I had never uttered aloud before. I said, “You must be an ignorant Trumpite!”

I regretted saying it as soon as I heard it. It was true, but it would do no good. She apparently hung up before I finished the sentence. I waited a couple of minutes, then I called back. Eleanor, the manager answered. She told me that I was not to do business with them anymore after I used that word. I said, “Excuse me. She was the one who brought politics into the discussion. Wait a minute. What word?” Eleanor said, “You called her a c_nt.”

I told her that I most certainly did not. I have never used that word in my life. Eleanor claimed that another employee heard me say it as well. I asked how that could be, since only Mary and I were on the phone. I told her what transpired, but that did not matter. None of Anna’s or Mary’s mistreatment of me or their nonsense or discourtesy made any difference. At CVS, the customer is now always wrong.

An hour or two later, Frank, my visiting nurse, came to check on me. He  ended up calling the ambulance and I was back to Grand View’s ER with stroke symptoms and extremely high blood pressure. They went over me and determined that I had another TIA. The doctor asked me if I thought that staying at the hospital would provide any benefit. I told him no. I thought it was a bad idea to come in the first place. He released me.

A month later I went into CVS to pick up a prescription for my wife after her surgery. The hospital had mistakenly sent it there instead of to the Giant Pharmacy next door. The pharmacist on duty had no problem giving it to me. Anna, a pharmacy clerk, started to go into a fit about how Eleanor told me I was not to be in the store; something Eleanor never told me. Anna proceeded to call the police, while the pharmacist hastily finished filling the order and ringing me out.

Bethann and I switched all of our prescriptions to mail order or to the Giant. Yet we still get texts from CVS for refill reminders. When I called them to tell them to stop that, they told me that came from corporate and they had no control. Yet, they originated from doing business with the local store. I told them they could figure it out. It was their problem. I did not want them bugging me. they harassed me, inconvenienced me, falsely accused me, called the cops on me, banned me from their store. they could figure out how to stop the texts, then they could go to hell.

Years ago, when I had an occasion to contact CVS “customer service” about a matter, I learned of their corporate policy of psychological warfare against customers. The phone tree on their published “Customer Service” line has no options to get to customer service. I even tried hitting 00 repeatedly to no avail. Finally, I screamed into the phone. That got me through to a bedraggled customer service agent. I told her what I had to do to get through to her. She said, “I know.”

I said, “You mean to tell me, that is the only way anyone can get through to you?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “You have a shit job.”

She said, “I know.”

April 2016

In the end of March into April of 2016, I had stroke-like symptoms for about a week. I was miserable. I kept on thinking it was just another complex migraine. I couldn’t sleep. I was hyper-alert at times. One side of my body was weak and didn’t work properly. I finally drove to Grand View Hospital’s ER on Monday, April 4. They took my vitals, extracted some blood, scolded me for driving myself to the ER, and for waiting through a week of stroke-like symptoms. They examined me and determined that it did appear that I was having a stroke. Then they proceeded to ignore me for five hours:  no food, no water, no vitals, no meds, no monitor. They told me I was going to be admitted. I finally caught an orderly who found a couple of sandwiches and some water for me. The kitchen was already closed. I ate the meat and cheese out of the sandwiches and threw away the bread. Part of migraine prevention is a low carb diet. All of my strokes and multiple TIAs (transient ischemic attacks or “mini-strokes”) have been caused by migraines.

I took my own drugs and supplements with the water. Finally, I got up to leave. I said in a loud voice that I would be more comfortable at home and they could call me when they were ready to admit me. A nurse immediately told me they were ready and scrambled to find a wheelchair and took me up to the telemetry unit on second floor. They kept me for five days and did every kind of heart test I have ever heard of, along with a CT scan and MRI of my brain with and without contrast. Of course, I was on a monitor the whole time. The brain scans showed no evidence of new stroke damage, so it was determined that it was another TIA, my 42nd.  Even though all of my strokes and TIAs have been migrainous, they did one last heart test, an echo-cardiogram. It revealed that my aortic valve was in bad shape. They found that it had been damaged by the infection that had attached to my spine in 2010. My cardiologist, who was doing the test, asked me why I didn’t know about this before. I said, “I’m not the one doing or reading the tests! How am I supposed to know anything?” He told me I would need to have it replaced. He didn’t think it was that urgent. He recommended I go to Lehigh Valley Hospital Center.

There are two reasons I would not go to Lehigh Valley. In 1993, when a truck hit me when I was on my Honda Helix, the ambulance took me to their ER. The doctor in charge that day happened to be a hand specialist. He kept looking at my hands to see what he could fix there. There were only minor scratches there. It was my hip that was shattered! They X-rayed my right hip, then had me stand up on it. I screamed in pain. They gave me crutches and another Percocet and told me to “buck up”. I hobbled out of the ER to ride home in excruciating pain in our compact car. I stayed on the couch that night. The next day, Lehigh Valley ER called me and asked me if I had pain in my hip. I said, “No shit, Sherlock!” They told me they had looked at the X-rays again and it looked fractured. They asked me to come back to the ER to get a scan. I asked why should I come back there and would I be seen immediately. They said they would take care of me and I would not have to wait. I arranged for a neighbor who had an old Lincoln to drive me up there, because I couldn’t bear folding myself into our Justy again. They made me wait all day long, lying on a gurney, in pain, in the ER, before they finally got around to me. Then they had the nerve to send a bill with a second ER charge! The other driver’s insurance was paying all of my expenses, but I would not sign off on that second ER charge! Lehigh Valley kept trying to bill for it. They finally called me and said, “What do you care? The other guy’s insurance is paying it.”

I replied, “Now, you really have me angry! You made a mistake, sent me home on a shattered hip socket on crutches. Told me to ‘Buck up’ ignoring my exquisite pain, and you want to get paid a bonus?! When my car mechanic screws up, and forgets to do something or damages something, he eats it. You don’t get to just get paid more for making a mistake! Do you want me to hire a lawyer and see where this goes, or do you want to just forget the second ER charge?” They removed the charge.

The second reason I didn’t want to go to Lehigh Valley was that I wanted to go to HUP, because my stroke specialist and neurologist were connected there. There is public transportation to Philadelphia. I have a lot of friends in Phila., and they have a long, national reputation for excellence in heart surgery.

When I was discharged from Grand View on April 8, as the nurse’s aide was helping me out the front door and into our car, my left side was numb and unresponsive. She was alarmed and questioned whether I should be leaving. She was concerned that I may be having a stroke. I assured her that they had done every possible test for that. I had been experiencing symptoms like this for about ten days. It is just an atypical migraine and they’re kicking me out.

I did not waste any time making an appointment at HUP.

What doctors don’t tell you

I first noticed odd shaped patches of skin on my feet and ankles that were totally white or pink, lacking pigment, when I was 12 (1967), at the pool. Some of the patches had spots of dark, tanned spots in the middle of them. I had no idea what this was. Someone told me it was from consuming too much vitamin C. Around puberty, I noticed the patches had appeared in my groin. By the time I was in college, there were small spots on my hands, which have  grown larger and spread up the under sides of my arms. The patches have spread on my legs, as well, nearly totally covering my knees. By high school I had a name for this condition. It is vitiligo. Hardly anyone had heard of it, back then, except those who had it, at least among Caucasians. Whites can hide it more easily, especially those with pale complexion. There are also better make-up choices, for those who are sensitive or embarrassed. People can be cruel. I am fortunate. Mine has not shown up on my face, yet.

The disorder was cast into the spotlight when Michael Jackson took the extreme measure of bleaching his skin to ‘hide’ his vitiligo. The disorder is incurable. There are some treatments that claim to breakdown the barriers in the skin to allow the pigment to reenter the pale areas. These have sometimes painful side effects and risks. Plus, none of them prevent new areas of pigment loss from appearing. When my vitiligo started, not much was known about it. More has been learned over the decades, yet no doctor thought to tell me what caused or aggravated it or the nature of the disorder.

It was not until after I had nearly died from an allergic reaction to Vancomycin, the eighth drug I became allergic to, I broke out in hives for no apparent reason (Winter 2011). I finally visited an allergist in Philadelphia per Dr. Jonathan Cohen’s recommendation. She looked at me. She read my medical history. She said , “We could spend a pile of money testing for almost everything under the sun and still not find what you reacted to. You are allergic to all these antibiotics. It’s probably an autoimmune disorder. After all you have vitiligo.”

I said, “Back up. Back up. Back up. What do you mean I have vitiligo? What has that got to do with it?”

She said, “Well that is autoimmune. If you have one autoimmune disorder, the likelihood is you will have another.”

Me: “Since when have we known vitiligo is autoimmune?”

Dr.: “About 30 years or so.”

Me: “Why did no doctor tell me this?”

Dr.: Shrugs shoulders. Sends bill.

Since then I have learned that there are a whole host of diseases and disorders that are classed as autoimmune. There is some research that is even indicating that some percentage of Type 2 Diabetes is autoimmune. Most autoimmune diseases are predominantly hereditary, and, like the allergist said, if you have one, you are likely to have two. Yippee skippy! Things start to make sense. My mom had pernicious anemia which is autoimmune. My brother has ulcerative colitis, autoimmune. Several of our children and grandchildren have a variety of minor and major autoimmune disorders.

Demonic Attack?

As I sit in our living room waiting for the sunrise, with the right side of my neck covered in steri-strips over just under my partially shorn beard, the still painful reminder of last week’s right carotid endarterectomy, my mind goes not to the ER visit that led to this particular knife fight, but to my first ever trip to an Emergency Room. I was four years old. I was playing in the sandbox, next to the garage, behind our little Dutch colonial on Shoreline Drive in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. My sister, Sue Ann, was swinging on the swing set, which our neighbor, “Grandpa” Olson had made for us. I ran right under the swing and the exposed end of a bolt on the bottom sliced my scalp, right in the middle of the top of my head. I stumbled, then got up, screaming, and ran, bleeding profusely, to our backdoor.

Grandma Ingham was visiting. She grabbed the beautiful afghan she had knit for us, wrapped me in it and scooped me up. I asked her why the afghan. She said it was to protect me against shock. I didn’t understand. It was the middle of summer. Why would I possibly need an afghan? I couldn’t believe she used this and risked it getting all bloody. At the same time, I felt honored and comforted: honored, that she was willing to spend something so precious, that represented so many hours of work, on me; comforted, because it was softer and less itchy than any of our blankets. My mom grabbed her keys, and sent Sue Ann, Alison and Tic over to the Ericsons. I rode in my Grandma’s arms to North Memorial Hospital’s emergency room in our brand new 1959 Pontiac station wagon. The doctor handed me a spool of black suture thread to play with, to distract me, while he stitched up my scalp. He must have used a bit of a local anesthetic, because I remember it just sort of tickled a little while he was working up there. Then we went home.

Thankfully, my blood washed out of that beautiful afghan.

Now, why does my mind go to this when I started out thinking about Sunday’s visiting nurse asking me, “Have you ever considered you may be under demonic attack?” while I was opening the three window shades on the southeast front of the house in the dark? I’m just three months shy of 64 and I can recall those scenes from 60 years ago as if they happened earlier today. Part of me is still that spastic, precocious four year old. And, the nurse asked that irrelevant question after I had already told her I was an atheist. I also explained that when I believed in God, I didn’t fear demons. “The only power they had were lies.” Twisted people were another matter. I didn’t fear them enough to modify my actions, but I received my share of threats. A Mennonite pastor threatened to kill me. The Fruit of Islam leader at Graterford Prison put out a hit on me at one point. A gang of street punks threatened me. A high ex-offender took me from my day job at gunpoint to drive him to a rehab. Bishops, priests and pastors of every stripe slandered me, lied to me, and bullied me. Police under four different mayors of Philadelphia harassed and threatened me. This was just part of my job of serving the poor.

Of course, she was talking about my health history: the mysterious infection on my spine, the vancomycin causing kidney failure, then Stevens-Johnsons Syndrome, the six strokes, the atypical migraines, the 47 TIAs, the damaged aortic valve, the allergy to 12 meds, etc. I don’t think it was demons. I think it was more likely that my shell was softened when I was a young eagle by the spraying of DDT over our house and yard to kill the mosquitoes in the swamp at the end of our backyard. Every day is Earth Day. See what I did there. That was a Rachel Carson reference. Does your brain work that way, or is it just me?

The sunrise was beautiful!

Tricky Chicky strikes again!

Last summer, as I was painting the Birds of Perkasie mural, many people stopped by to say Thank You. A few even left gifts and cards on my chair or among my paints for me, including cash. One lady left a birdseed bell with a note. She signed it “Tricky Chicky”. When I was around town or at the pool, people recognized me and said Thank You. Perkasie is a friendly community.

Yesterday, we received an envelope decorated with stars and and stickers. It was addressed “For the beautiful bird painter”, to our former address (the site of the mural). The mailman knew who it was for and got it to our new address, on Ridge Ave. It contained a card, decorated with bird stickers, that read:

Hello, Mr. Bird Painter!
I got you this gifty for the holidays but never got it in the mail so I’m sending it for Valentine’s Day instead. That’s probably more appropriate anyway because I love your beautiful bird wall! Yay! You lit up your little corner of the world & I appreciate it so much!
Thank you!
tricky chicky

Enclosed with this card was a $30 gift certificate to The Perk. My wife and I went there for lunch, today. It was a real treat! Since we moved and I have had so many health issues, we haven’t been able to pay all of our bills, much less go out. We each ordered about $9 meals, so we could leave a proper tip with the remainder. The food was excellent and generous portions.

Thank you, Tricky Chicky!

Medicare Is Not Socialism!

I am sick of these stupid memes that show trucks plowing snow with some text about socialist snowplows. This plays into the far right agenda to remove all government programs designed to help society as a whole. There is nothing socialist about the snowplows. The drivers don’t own them. In most cases they aren’t even unionized. They are keeping roads open so all of the workers can still get to work to make money for their corporate overlords.

Yesterday, I was attacked on Facebook, on a post about my 46th TIA (mini-stroke) by my cousin Sally’s husband, a self-identified “capitalist pig”. He asked if I was concerned about who was paying for my ER visit, since I have Medicare. He sells insurance. He told me that he was challenging my “ridiculous socialism”. At first I responded with, “I paid plenty, with Medicare payroll taxes my entire working life and with a monthly premium out of my disability now, plus the deductibles and copays, prick!” I mean, I just came home from the ER recovering from my 46th TIA, my third in the last three weeks, and he decides to “friend” me to take stupid potshots?! I then blocked him and deleted his comments. I don’t need the stupidity, the judgment or the drama right now. He called his wife, his children and his grandchildren “capitalist pigs”, as well. I don’t think it was very kind of him to call my cousin Sally a pig.

Medicare is not socialism. Some Republicans tried to brand it as such when it was being proposed, just as they did Social Security before that. Neither program involves workers seizing the means of production, so, by definition, they are not socialism. This is just old-fashioned, McCarthyist red-baiting. The GOP also lies about the insolvency of the misnamed Social Security Trust Fund. If GOP presidents had not stolen trillions of dollars from it for useless wars over oil, it would be solvent for decades to come. If the Social Security tax were not regressive and Social Security itself acted like a true insurance, as in, it was means tested, it would be solvent indefinitely. Both programs were created by capitalists.

How does this benefit capitalism? Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to advocate for universal health coverage from a position that no country can have a strong economy with a sick workforce. Eisenhower, another GOP president, certainly not a socialist, advocated for universal, free healthcare for children. He was hoping that the universal free distribution of the polio vaccine would serve as a pilot for such an initiative. His reasoning was manifold. Children cannot choose whether they are born into a family that can afford healthcare or one that can’t. He felt that it is undemocratic and a denial of the American credo of “all men being created equal” to not at least provide healthcare to all children, if not all people, who need it. Also, providing healthcare to all people helps save money and reduce pain and sickness for all by limiting contagion and preventing diseases and injuries from creating worse problems long term. It also saves a ton of money by eliminating the billing and collections process and all those bonuses to insurance executives for denying care, not to mention all those wasted advertising dollars. This has been the experience of all of the civilized countries, which have universal healthcare. (Most of these are social democracies, as opposed to the US which is an anti-social oligarchy, listing toward fascism.) These conditions produce a more productive workforce. This is a capitalist value.

Social Security was introduced in the midst of two world wars. Traditionally, children take care of their parents as they age and can no longer care for themselves. Wars are a capitalist venture. Weaponry and war is the US #1 export and budget expense. The world wars, followed quickly by the Korean War and the Vietnam War, etc., left a lot of parents without children to support them. So Social Security is a program to share that burden somewhat among the whole nation. The truth of the matter is that money does not keep. Money is just a means of exchanging labor. Another GOP president, Abraham Lincoln, said it, “Labor creates all wealth.” It is said that money is denatured manhood and denatured womanhood. Social Security creates the illusion that one lives on one’s own resources in retirement. No one does. Everyone who no longer works lives off of the labor of others. Social Security and Medicare and various private insurances are social contracts that try to preserve the illusion of self-sufficiency which is an essential myth necessary to prop up capitalism.

Next time someone tries to tell you the fire company or highways are socialist, remember Ben Franklin established the first free public library and organized the first fire companies, and helped lay out the grid pattern of roads for the westward expansion of the US. He also was a strong believer in capital exploiting labor to generate wealth, as in The Franklin Fund, etc. Also, when Brian Brady tries to sell you insurance, don’t buy it. He will try to make you feel guilty if you ever dare to use it.

My 44th and 45th TIAs

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019, I woke up with my right hand numb and part of the right side of my face numb. I have had six strokes starting in June 2011 through October 2012. They were determined to be migrainous strokes as they started with my atypical migraines and I was found to have a very unusual configuration of small arteries, along with some missing ones that normally would supply the right side of my brain. All of the strokes and most of the TIAs occurred in my right parietal and temporal lobes. The doctors at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) concluded this was due to the tiny arteries that fed these lobes, without any cross artery to the left side, would catch tiny clots that were thrown loose by the disturbance of the migraine. Prior to 2019, I had experienced 43 Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIAs or “mini-strokes”). This is my count. The MRIs don’t show individual TIAs well, but they do show damage done by multiple TIAs in the same spot or spots. I have atypical migraines. This means that many times they present with unusual aura and symptoms. Typical aura for migraine is partial loss of vision, or visual disturbance, on one side for about a half hour followed by intense pain on the opposite side of the head. These can be accompanied by hyper-sensitivity to light or sound, nausea and mood changes often including a desire to be alone.

Many migraineurs also notice a prodrome, which can last for as long as 48 hours before the aura presents. This is that uneasiness that something is not right like a premonition of something bad about to happen. Some do not notice their own prodrome, but their friends and relations notice it about them. They behave differently; more subdued or more irritable or more agitated than usual. Once the headache (which can last for as little as a half hour to several days) passes, it is usually followed by the postdrome or “migraine hangover“. Like the nickname implies, it can include fatigue, uneasy stomach, feeling totally washed out. It can last for a couple of days.

What makes a migraine atypical is everything from a variety of very strange aura to additional debilitating symptoms during the headache itself, including impaired vision, vomiting, diarrhrea, sinus pressure, body pain, balance issues and eye or tooth pain. I have had migraines that lasted for up to two weeks at a time. I follow an intense protocol to prevent migraines, since mine cause strokes and TIAs. Many migraineurs are triggered by specific things. A lot of people have the mistaken idea that some of these triggers are universal to all migraineurs. For example, sulfites in red wine is a fairly common trigger, but not everyone is affected by them. Also, a person’s triggers can change several times throughout their life. People can have migraines during various times in their lives, with long migraine free periods between. A possible ray of sunshine is that those who experience classic migraine live longer on average than those who don’t. Of course, it may be like the runner’s dilemma. A study showed that the average added life expectancy for a runner is roughly equal to the cumulative hours in their life they spent running. The lesson there is: don’t run unless you enjoy it.

Now back to my story. I have had “Gumby vision” and “Picasso vision” as aura to horrific migraines. The summer of 2011 I had only eight days without debilitating migraines. I had three hospital stays and one ambulance transfer to Philadelphia (HUP). Some of the migraines lasted almost two weeks. It was during this time I had my first several TIAs. They were recognizable to me and my family as they caused temporary deficits that outlasted the pain, that were the same as if I had had an ischemic stroke: weakness on one side of my body, word salad, uneven smile, etc. Dr. Scott Kasner, one of the top stroke specialists on the east coast, prescribed the Jefferson University Hospital Headache Center’s regime to help prevent migraines. It is a combination of herbal supplements and drugs. We have tweaked it a number of times to individualize it for my peculiar drug allergies and tolerances. It has given me many migraine free weeks and even months. Even so, I have experienced a total of 45 TIAs and three more small strokes, for a total of six.

I woke up with the 44th TIA occurring on January 29, as I stated above. I sat this one out at home. It took two days for the symptoms to pass. I figured we know what is causing them. They don’t leave any permanent damage; I can handle this. This turns out to be only partly true. A TIA can leave permanent damage. It can also turn into a full blown stroke if not treated correctly.

On Sunday, February 3, 2019, I woke up before 6 A.M. with the same symptoms. This time they were more intense. Then I took my blood sugar before breakfast. It was 515! I don’t recall ever having a reading that high before. I waited for Bethann to leave for church, then I called my good friend, Mike Visser, to take me to the ER. I feared that the numbness was due to diabetic neuropathy. This time, they got me right into the ER, took several tubes of blood, installed an IV line, just in case, took me for a CT scan of my brain and moved me up to a private room on the telemetry floor within an hour. I had to stay almost completely horizontal for the first 24 hours. This is to help heal the brain. The idea is that it is easier for the heart to pump more oxygenated blood to the brain if it doesn’t have to overcome an extra vertical foot or so.

Grand View kept me for three days. We were busy. They took an echo of my carotids. They took another CT with and without contrast of my neck. They took an MRI of my brain. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Dr. Olivero and his team performed an angiogram to look at the blood vessels in my lungs, my neck and parts of my brain. They found my right carotid is 80 to 90 percent blocked. Surgery has been scheduled for March 6. What is interesting about this is that this condition is not related to the TIAs I experienced. The blockage is on the opposite side from where these TIAs occurred. This means this was a serendipitous discovery, much like the last time I went to the hospital for stroke type symptoms and they discovered that my aortic valve had been damaged by the infection on my spine from two and a half years prior. It is also significant that they occurred on the opposite hemisphere of my brain from the overwhelming majority of my prior TIAs and all of my strokes.

Six or eight doctors visited me during those three days. Every one except one used the word “interesting” to describe my case, when they were talking to me. I told Dr. Hurlbut, one of three neurologists I saw, that  that is one word that patients do not want to hear from their doctors. I would just like to be normal for once. He sympathized, then assured me I was anything but normal.

My Mac desk chair

Just after we moved into our current, slightly larger, small house in the middle of last month, we purchased a wooden table and three chairs for $50 through an online yard sale. The chairs are simple, sturdy, solid wood kitchen chairs. They were built for durability, not for comfort. We are using one for at the desk in the living room, one for a guest in the sewing room, and one for at my Mac computer which I use for editing photos.

I painted the living room chair Brazilian Tan. I painted my Mac chair Sunny Yellow, Cerulean Blue and Orange. It is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 home decor project.

Coffee, Tea, Cardamom

I guess this is more like a couple of simple lifehacks than a recipe. We were at our daughter’s place visiting her and the granddaughters. I wanted to make Red Bush Tea for them as a taste of Botswana. It is called Rooibos in Afrikaans. We learned about it from reading The #1 Ladies Detective Agency books, and ordered it from Adagio tea company. Lydia didn’t have a little strainer to catch the loose tea while pouring. So, I decided to make it in her French press. It worked wonderfully! I don’t know if this is a common use for a French press, but I had never heard of it or thought of it before. Now I use my French press to make tea whenever I want more than one cup. It is so much easier and neater than using either a tea egg or a strainer.

I really do not want to use sugar in my coffee. I will not use chemical sweeteners. Some of the coffee we get from the food bank is bitter. I had seen coffee and tea with cardamom in stores. So we bought a small container of ground cardamom from Centerville Bulk Foods for about two dollars. I put a generous, three finger pinch in the three cup French press and stir it in with the coffee. It tones down the bitterness, without weakening the coffee at all. It does not have a strong flavor. It just adds an earthy note. It is a healthy way to avoid sugar. Cardamom is the third most costly spice by weight after vanilla and saffron. However, a little goes a long way. It is also reputed to have many health benefits.