Blogs

"Do you want to go to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Convention Center?" my friend Caroline texted this morning.

Yes, yes I did.

If you have a chance to see the traveling Beyond Van Gogh exhibit, go. It's well worth it. For those without a real art education (me), it gives a basic grounding in his life, and a panoramic look at his art.

I found myself in tears after the exhibit. The brushstrokes dance across the canvases in swoops and flourishes, sheer joy in every one. It--and at times, probably he--was a delight.

Van Gogh was clearly mentally ill. As someone else who is clearly mentally ill, I can't help but wonder what his life would have been like had someone close to him either understood that or helped him. I believe he was bipolar like me, though I'm sure someone with more actual knowledge of Vincent has their own idea.

I've done it again: I forgot December 5th was my "stroke-aversary," the 7th one. Is it good I forgot? I think it's good. Briefly: on Friday 12/5/2014, I suffered a massive stroke, an IVH; the warfarin I was (mistakenly) on thinned blood vessels in my brain to the breaking point.

I wasn't expected to survive; more than 90% of IVH patients die. The CLEAR-III study saved my life, though. I was number 497 of 500 patients enrolled to see if the enzyme alteplase helped in strokes. It--or the saline placebo, we'll never know--helped me, spectacularly well.

Seven years later, I walk with a cane and talk with a few struggles--mostly for words. I'm also writing again, a few hundred words a week, not *nearly* as good as pre-stroke, but I'll take it. (In fact, I literally cry happy tears.)

I wish I hadn't had the stroke. And yet, I'm glad. It forced me to reckon with my self, the me who faces the world. It woke me up. Facing the world, as I am, was--is still--the simplest and hardest thing I've ever done or will ever do.

I count myself among the good knitters, and I make so many stupid mistakes now. I chalk it up to the stroke, but I dunno.

Latest: I'm knitting an 1898 cap from the Seaman's Church Institute--free, everyone on Ravelry's knit it, etc etc. This is my first one. I got a skein of Briggs & Little from Maritime Family Fiber as part of a mystery set, which consisted of one skein of worsted in a lovely heather gray...and one skein of a blaring bright orange--"Hunter Orange."

WTF am I gonna do with that?! thinks me. You can see it from a mile away. Maybe two. I go round and round, it sits out waiting for a few months, it aggravates me, I complain about it.

The hubs finally says, gee, is that orange? *sigh* Yes. He could really use an orange hat, he says. You know--for when he goes hunting? Like...Hunter Orange?

I keep meaning to post an update here on how we're doing, for the three people who might read this. It's been a year--not half as long as I feared. John and I are double-vaccinated, considered fully vaccinated on April 21st; the kids will be vaccinated some time after the 19th.

That's a full six months sooner than I anticipated vaccines even to be available, and that, for the sickest among our society. I didn't really expect us to be vaccinated before 2022. I didn't know if we'd have a functional government. I didn't know if John, who needs human contact like he needs oxygen, would make it through months on his own at work. I feared the worst.

How happy I am to have been wrong, on pretty much all counts.

This is a photo of me, taken the morning of December 5, 2014 in the bedroom of our temporary house. It's the last in a series of self-portraits I took every morning to document my life since a fire took our home three weeks before, and it's the last photo I have of my first 53 years.

Hey dog what up

i said hey dog what up

dog you got ears what up

OH HELLO KITTY I AM BUSY WATCHING MY BOSS

...ok well imma lay down next to you perhaps you will like to pet my butt

NOT NOW KITTY I AM STILL BUSY WATCHING THE BOSS SHE IS EATING SOMETHING

...so you not interested in petting my butt

GO AWAY

I'm sitting here at home, waiting for the all-clear from the novel coronavirus incursion, almost sheltering-in-place but not quite; the mayor and the governor haven't made that call yet. I don't know what's going to happen. If ever I wondered what it felt like when the Great Depression hit, I know now, because we are shearing suddenly down that path.

These are times I've been waiting for a long while. It's not that I've been hoping for this--quite the opposite. I've been afraid of this. Now that it's here, this time of COVID-19, I'm finding it...not so bad? To a point.

Friday was the fifth anniversary of the stroke that nearly killed me. I didn’t forget the day, I just ran out of time to write down my thoughts. I am wearing, for a couple of hours a day, a temporary prism on my right eye, an occlusion on my left, and no eye patch; they’ve set me back to where I was three years ago. I’m also using a keyboard, which used to be a part of my body and which hasn’t been touched in some months. Forgive me if I’m even more fragmented than usual.

The stroke has put MeiLin, my alter ego, my writer of fantasies, into a deep sleep she seems destined to remain in; I don’t know if she’ll stay there. I am now a Lady of Leisure, forcibly retired and unable to write much. I am deeply grateful I can be. What I do with the next part of my life is now the question, one I’ve been asking myself for damn near the entire five years, or at least since I’d recovered enough to ask that question out loud. (I know I’ve pondered it here, and I apologize for thinking these same thoughts; dammit, it’s what’s on my mind.)

Here is how it probably went between Stewart Dog, an extremely friendly little guy, and Blackberry Kitty, our very aloof cat:

HI MY NAME IS STEWART I AM A DOG I AM A GOOD DOG HELLO KITTY YOU MUST BE THE ONE THE BOSS CALLS BLACKBERRY OH HELP OH YOU HIT ME HOW COME OH HELP I WILL STAND WAY WAY OVER HERE OH DEAR

dont come anywhere near me unless i say its ok and im not saying anything in fact im pissed as hell wtf

I AM NOT LOOKING AT YOU I AM LOOKING OVER HERE INSTEAD OH DEAR

you damn straight youre not looking at me you damn dog

———————-

I've had difficulty walking since the stroke, unsurprisingly. (My gods, I'm happy to be walking at all.) When I walk, I walk lower to the ground on my right; it gives me a sort of rolling gait. It's bothered me for some time, but its cause seemed to be inherent to the stroke.

I was walking back from the credit union this morning when I made a realization: it's not that my leg is shorter, my hip is lower.