Sigh...

I finally went online looking for help with my stroke, and all it really did was make me depressed. I don't even know why. Many of the stories I glanced though are much more horrific than mine. I guess I should just feel lucky, but I don't, nope not at all. I don't want to feel lucky, I just want my life back. But of course after reading the stories I now wonder if I will ever get it back. I regret ever looking at those places online, because now I have a much gloomier outlook than before. I knew this would happen, if I went looking, and it did... god damn it...

I need to find a place where maybe I can talk to someone, or just not hear everyone else's problem. Not that I wouldn't care, because I would... but I am at a point where I need to be selfish right now and while it will probably take someone who had a stroke, I just can't mentally or physically or emotionally put up with anybody else's crap.

Taste

One other thing I've noticed, since having my stroke, is that things have a different taste, or that I just don't like things anymore. In fact I just threw an orange away because in my mind it was too messy and too much deal with, plus it was kind of making me nauseous. I know that I've said in the past that I was done with stroke posts, but this is a completely different game. I often times go without lunch, and can even go without dinner, because of this. The weird part is this just happened within in about 2 weeks. You'd think I'd be wasting away, but that really isn't the case at all. This part is all new to me, and really can't wait for it to be over.

Expectations

The thing about expectations is you rarely set them up perfectly, you're either too high or too low. I think I might have set mine too high, but we're still not to June... yet. Without a bunch of backpedaling or anything, the first part of this past weekend was nice, until about 3 or so on Saturday. I have been neglecting my "man of the house" duties for a long time. So I opted to do a little work and even a little play. I stunk at each of them. I go to the doctor next week, maybe he can give some words of advice...

Bike Crash

When I was a kid, I think about 10-years-old I had this bike. It was a red 10-speed bike. You could only get a 10-speed or a bmx style bike back when I was a kid. Anyway... this was my passport anywhere. I had a friend named David that lived over about a mile away. We went to to same school (private) that was about 1/2 way between our houses. Anyhow I would go over to his house a lot because he had toys, and basically a much nicer setup there.

One evening I was coming home and then I don't really know what happened. Sirens, I know I heard sirens. And I kept asking "what time is it?" But then I faded into black...

What happened was I was in a bicycle accident. In fact one of the eyewitnesses said he heard my head hit the concrete. This was before anyone thought about bike helmets... just so you know. I was out, or at least consciously out, I was with it enough to tell whoever my name, phone number. etc. My mother was called and of course this is one of the worst fears of a parent... going to see a hurt or maimed child. Sorry Mom. When she got there they had me covered with a sheet. She thought I was dead. I thankfully was not, but I had some serious issues going on. My head had swollen up to twice its size. The doctors said they might have to operate to relieve the pressure.

Now we come in where I actually become conscious again. "Where am I" I said, having not even opened my eyes yet. I was in a very uncomfortable bed, in the ICU of Meadowcrest hospital in Gretna. They wanted to do all kinds of thing to me there. Most of it involved diagnostic imaging. The first one of which I promptly puked green shit all over it. I told them sorry, but I did warn them before hand.

They also didn't feed me. Which now I understand why, but to a kid, whose mother works for the Emergency Room at Tulane...I was flabbergasted.

So how did this happen? How did I crash my bike? I don't know. About all I do know is I flipped over the handlebars and landed on my head. Thanks to whoever you are that came to my rescue I don't even know that much.

Eventually the swelling subsided they did not need to operate. I had a blood clot and fractured skull, and I couldn't do anything for about 9 months for fear I might bump my head again and dislodge the clot. I did ride, that very same bike, again... but I always thought about what happened to me that day. The really scary thing is that isn't the first traumatic thing that took place, not even in my childhood. And since it's going on still, I wonder what's next. That and I miss my friend David, but I miss a lot of things....

Um, I Forget

Well I had several ideas for today's post, but they remain out of reach for me at the moment. I know I'm going to have to be one of those people that has to write everything down lest they slip away into the abyss that is my head. But I keep hoping... I think this is an underlying problem with the stroke, but I was this way before, just maybe not as bad. This morning I left without coffee, a belt, and kissing my wife. What's guy to do? Seriously I had all kind of thought provoking maybe even never though of ideas in my head, but it's gone now, sipping coffee, with a belt, and kissing my wife as you are reading this. Aint that some shit???

Proportionaly... of Course

A History Lesson...

...of sorts. Basically the birth of Mad Hatter, and of this blog.

I first started out as a much different creature, but through a course of events, not all controlled by me I have changed. It began as me posting as myself, then my pet, but those things were too easily identifiable and I had some not so nice things to say about the school, etc. So the creation of a totally unrelated blog persona, the Mad Hatter, was necessary. People say if you want people to take you serious you post your name... well those people aint me.

First of all the blog we're talking about is The Bluffton Today, and it really isn't a blog rather a message board. I actually own a blog that predates this one, by almost 9 years, but in it I've only given about 10 people access to it. The BT site nothing at all like that, but still rather than argue about it, I'll leave it alone.

Next we have the weirdo factor. That is the amount of people who would talk to me as if I knew them all their life... or in the case of my particular pet, felt a need to personally connect with him/her... I'm not telling you what the sex is because people are strange. I got some rather peculiar notes left on my car as well.

Then there was the policy holders there at the paper. They could do whatever, whenever, however. You didn't control anything put up there. In fact they even went so far as to manipulate what you said or how it was to be presented. This is where the name poolpooping came from, because one of the editors said we were pooping or peeing in his pool, because they went through all the trouble to create this site, we better appreciate it... so says him.

My argument all along is that you can't really say what you want to and there isn't any control over what goes into your blog then all its worth is what I call fluffy, those nice conversations you have with grandma or basically something pleasant to talk about, nothing controversial. And so the poolpooping blog came to its existence, because I did want to control what I said and what I thought and how I have for the most part outgrown the small daily (and free) paper anyway. I won't say I don't miss some people there, because I do, but in a lot of cases most of those people have moved on to brighter pastures anyway. The idea was a great one, to take citizen journalism to the next level, however in reality what we got is a mixed bag at best, and certainly not worthy of anything other than the fluff moniker its been given.

So you see I didn't even really want all this, but this is what I got. I aimed to start a blogroll of people around here but unfortunately most of them are too lazy to start up their own blog (or post regularly in it). They would rather have the audience built in that the paper brings, regardless of the fact that they'll change what you write, or post something you say in the paper, or somehow become a poolpooper. That is just a brief overview, really but it gives you a basis of who and what I am all about, pretty much... Well sorta, we're all much deeper than that, but you get the idea.