It’s time for a wallowing post. It’s been a while, and I’ll be brief.
Continue reading Follow Me, Follow, Down To The Hollow — An Open Letter
All Asthmatics, being angry or sad,
do fall into Fits oftener than when
they are cheerful
Sir John Floyer, A Treatise of the Asthma — 1698
Proust cropped up in the blog a while ago. I’ve never read any of his stuff, I have to admit. But I have discovered that he suffered his first asthma attack at the age of nine, and thereafter was considered a sickly child. The pneumonia that finally killed him followed asthma brought on by the young Samuel Beckett’s cigar-smoking. I’ve seen him referred to as “the asthma poet”.
Continue reading Of Love And Asthma
Last Monday, I went to the Western General Hospital for a CT scan. In some ways, it was quite similar to going to Methodist in Brooklyn. The NHS has signs up informing patients of the same sort of stroke-related stuff that the American Stroke Association is always — quite rightly — banging on about.
Back to brass tacks. Back to apoplexy, and the latest exciting installment of Digesta Plaga.
Continue reading Digesta Plaga #5 — Apoplectic and Auric
Day 7 without getting beaten up for being some sort of transatlantic nonce. I’m going to have to stop this count. It feels like I’m tempting fate, and, what’s more, we’re going to Glasgow tonight.
My editor, lover, lifesaver and cat-claw-clipper noted that Monday’s post was particularly dense. I chose to interpret this as a mostly good thing, and this turned out to be the correct call when she added that it probably contained enough material for a couple of weeks’ worth of posts.
Fortunately, there’s a lot going on in the world, of strokey and not-so-strokey natures. From my introduction to Vilayanur S. Ramachandran’s Phantoms In The Brain to the ongoing NSA surveillance revelations (and how Wang Dong will react); from how non-invasive brain stimulation is being used to help patients with walking impairments to the maleficent spread of the craft beer plague around the world.
Continue reading We Are All Made Of… Memories
Writing a blog sucks. (And you thought reading it was bad.) On Friday, between making my way to OT, PT and neuro/psychotherapy, I pre-banked today’s post. It was about how much I’ve enjoyed writing apoplectic.me and how much it’s meant to me over the past five months or so.
So, what happened? As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson would say:
Continue reading AWEI: Apoplectic.me Will Eat Itself
Phew! It’s been a long week. Busy, and, honestly, a bit stressful. Last Thursday, I missed a scheduled post post for the first time since starting the blog in early December (which, from what I can gather, isn’t a bad record). Then, Friday was a terrible day. I was a bit strokey getting out of the house, and ended up missing my physical therapy session. Three hours traveling from home to the Ambulatory Care Center, confirming my appointment was screwed, and making the return trip home, all with just my own thoughts for company, was a pretty ugly scene. Thank goodness Beth, with her uncanny ability to know what I need – better probably, than I do myself – was able, eventually, to drag me out of my funk. The trick, in this case, was just to move on from the mental perseveration, reset, and move on to something else. So, although I don’t doubt that there’s a post in my massive Friday breakdown, for once, I’m going to try not to dwell on the unpleasant. Because, as Socrates almost said, “The examined life is not worth living.”
Continue reading The Milkman of Human Kindness
The search continues for the root cause of my long-standing high blood pressure. So, today, we got up early(ish) for another trip to Methodist Hospital. Which is, apparently, part of the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System. Which makes sense, I suppose, given that there is such a thing as Calvinistic Methodism. Apparently, Calvinistic Methodists constitute the congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Wales. So, Methodist Hospital is like having a tiny part of Wales in Park Slope. Sort of.
Continue reading Men, Cybermen and Bionic Men
Although life continues to return to something at least outwardly resembling normality, it continues to retain aspects of strokiness. Tonight, I’m going to a presentation giving an “overview of the latest interventions and approaches in stroke rehabilitation, like e-stimulation [and] other robotic devices for arms and legs, etc.” [thanks, Avi], and a number of you will probably know how excited I get about e-stim. Hopefully, blog fodder will be forthcoming.
Continue reading [Almost] 30 Things I Can Do Today That I Couldn’t Do Until Relatively Recently