Simple Pleasures

A New Year, the old one is just barely gone at the time I’m writing this. This is generally the time people trot out their “Thank God the old year is over, blah, blah, blah” speeches. They bemoan how terrible the last year was (which it most certainly was this last year) and how “This year things are going to be different” statements followed by an assortment of resolutions regarding losing weight, quitting smoking and whatnot. Some sincere, some not so much but all said by everyone this time of year as if required by law to do so. I started to do that yet again but was stopped short by a more direct form of resolution generation.
I have lived what many people consider an exciting life filled with adventure (sexual and otherwise), travel, art, music and intellectual pursuits surrounded by sensual and interesting people (some famous, some infamous) whom I still have a deep and unwavering affection for and will until I die. I am proud to call those people friends. I was fortunate enough to meet and marry the true love of my life (although I do wish it had been sooner in life). Together we have shared many experiences only a few have dared to consider and been stronger for it. I have eaten elegant meals in exotic locations prepared and served by celebrity chefs at their personal tables. I have sampled fine wines direct from the barrels at legendary vineyards with world class wine makers and owners. My wife and I are preferred guests at several five star hotels and our wardrobes have been tended to or created by some of the most talented designers and tailors in the world yet our lives have hardly been “charmed”.
My health problems over the past six or seven years have been well documented in other scribbling I have done so I won’t bore anyone with a regurgitation of that. With health problems often comes the ability to maintain a steady cash flow and constant adjustments to one’s lifestyle. Going from homes larger than most people’s “McMansions” with more rooms and guest houses than a person can use, expensive cars that don’t get you from point A to point B any faster or more comfortably than one a third of the price (and still more than you first house costs) to no car at all at periods of time and small apartments smaller than your former master bedroom. I have experienced these things in the past year or so and more.
With each adjustment would prompt a re-assessment of what had brought me to that moment and what I should do to right the sinking ship and change its course. Such a process began, yet again, last summer. The New Year wasn’t even on the radar yet. My health was unstable at best so my, ever growing, collection of doctors and I began a quest to find out just what was wrong with me. Along with that I began to question how I earned a living. I had marginalized what I had spent my life learning about art, writing, and photography. I had continued to earn “fun money” doing those things but had abandoned those vocations as my primary source of income almost twenty years ago and replaced them with real estate. I wrestled and forced the real me and my true nature into Pandora’s Box and locked it tight storing it in a dark corner of a closet full of useless junk back so many years ago.
October of 2011 was a largely forgettable month. We were no closer to figuring out what was wrong with me and my lack of energy and other ailments. My real estate business had evaporated. My wife, my rock who had stuck with me through all of the changes and made some pretty tough decisions on my behalf at times I was incapable of making them myself had just about reached the end of her rope. Some drastic changes needed to be made and quickly.
Through all of this that box was rattling in the back of my mind.
An off handed chance conversation with my primary doctor shed the first shred of light on my predicament. He asked what anti-depressants had been prescribed after my heart surgery. He almost fell off of his stool when I said “none”. Apparently the normal course of treatment after a major surgery is to put someone on anti-depressants to help combat the anger, fear and depression they will most certainly feel after such an experience. Needless to say I was put on yet another drug to my ever growing collection of pills immediately.
About the same time my broker (and one of my best friends) and I had a heart to heart talk about my business. I had gone from a shining star of real estate to not even being on the radar anymore. It was decided I should put my license on hold with the State while I decide what I really want to do when I grow up.
So it’s now November. The New Year is drawing closer and I find myself jobless, homeless (we had to give up our apartment because my wife had been laid off nearly two years ago and people our age are hardly employable at the moment and she had run out of unemployment benefits) and carless. I had succeeded in becoming what I had jokingly threatened to become at some point in my life… a burden to my children. We had been reduced to sleeping on one of our daughters couches while we figured out what to do next.
Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went without fanfare. While searching for work during that time I chanced upon two creative positions with the same company and dutifully sent my resume’ to them and was soundly rejected. Undaunted I sent them a letter suggesting they combine both positions. I was more than qualified for both even though I hadn’t been actively involved in a creative field for more than twenty years but they could more than afford the salary I was asking by combining the two positions. With that I waited for their response.
New Year’s Eve was a quiet one in comparison to many we’ve had in the past spent with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter eating pizza and wings with a glass of wine while the kids played on the Wii they bought for Christmas. It was far from the lavish spectacles experienced years before filled with decadent food, rivers of alcohol and elegantly dressed people who eventually become naked piles of flesh enjoying the pleasures of each other’s bodies. Somehow the scene before me this particular night seemed just perfect. Simple food, a couple glasses of wine and family.
Midnight came and we toasted the New Year with a glass of Rose’ Cava, put the granddaughter to bed and settled on the couches to talk while we wound down and got tired enough to sleep.
As we began our “Thank God the year is over” speeches I got up to put an empty glass on the counter in the kitchen and get a drink of water. The glass barely made it to the counter when I felt myself going to the floor taking the glass with me. A moment later I feel someone trying to get me up off of the floor before going down a second time. I later learned it had been my wife and my feet had been shaking so badly she couldn’t get me balanced in a stable manner. It took her, my son-in-law and my daughter to get me up bleeding from several cuts on both hands and arms from the glass which had broken in my hand. They bandaged my wounds and put me on the couch where I slept restlessly through the remainder of the night. The next morning I had a small breakfast and was ordered to stay on the couch. At one point my wife decided to change my bandages. Once again I found myself hitting the floor with my feet and arms shaking uncontrollably.
After a brief phone conversation with my doctor (it pays to have their cell phones on speed dial) and fresh bandages I found myself in the all too familiar confines of John C. Lincoln Deer Valley ER (they’re going to name an entire wing after me soon). Eight hours later and after every imaginable test, X-ray, ultra-sound and blood test created by man they found…nothing…again. My heart, it appears, is unbelievably strong and I appear to not have any blockages but my blood pressure sucked. The three wise men (my cardiologists) and my personal doctor decided to keep me for a while and have a neurologist look at me in the morning.
The next morning I meet the new doctor now added to my ever growing stable of people with a lot of initials behind their names. The frustrating part is he’s barely old enough to be my son and as a parent have found my children’s maturity level to be somewhat suspect on occasion. Now I’m in the awkward position of trusting someone that age with my personal well being. To make it worse…we’re talking about my brain here (irony rears its ugly head at the strangest time doesn’t it?). And so the tests begin.
After each test young doctor “Spooky” would wander in and ask a question or two before disappearing to order yet another test. Just after one such test ( I don’t remember if it was the MRI, CaT Scan or Electrowhatever it’s called with the wires all over my head) in he walks in again. This time he’s got the three wise men and my regular doctor with him. “Have you ever had a stroke?” was his question. “Nope” was my response. “Are you sure?” … “I’m pretty sure I’d have known if I had.” was my response. “Hmmmmm” is all he says as the whole bunch shuffle out the door. A moment later he comes back in and asks “Your medical records say you’ve had Cerebral Palsy your whole life. Is that true?” “ I was born with it. What of it?” I said.
“Hmmmmm.” He says again and heads back out the door.
An hour and a half later or so Dr. Spooky returns while my wife, sister and my eldest daughter and I are talking with a great proclamation.
“You’ve fallen down a lot your whole life haven’t you?”
“Yep, I’ve chalked it up to my Cerebral Palsy and a bum knee going wonky now and then and thought nothing of it why?”
“The falling down isn’t from an odd muscle failure now and then. You’ve been having seizures. Seizures caused by a stroke.”
The silence in the room was disturbingly deafening before he continued with…
“You’ve had a massive stroke on the left side of your brain that, by all accounts, you shouldn’t have survived from. At best you should have had difficulty speaking, reasoning, doing any kind of math, play sports, remember things, walking or be creative if you had survived at all. Yet here you are. The falling down wasn’t your muscles going wonky it was your brain going wonky. You’re having what’s called “non-epileptic seizures”.”
He paused for a moment to let me take in what he had just said before continuing with…
“You’re going to be on a seriously strong anti-seizure medicine for the rest of your life which is going to require a few life changes. You can’t drive anymore…ever. You can’t operate heavy equipment, fly a plane or anything like that. You can’t stand for extended periods of time. You’ll have to walk with a cane the rest of your life to help maintain your balance. You will have to severely limit your alcohol consumption and you will have to apply for and go on permanent disability because you’ll be unable to work.”
With that statement my past present and future was wiped away.
“How or when did this happen?” was my only question.
“As near as we can tell the stroke was a long time ago. It doesn’t show up as anything new on the scans and tests. We believe it happened just before you were born which created your Cerebral Palsy. Back then that was the best neurological explanation they could give at the time. That’s also why you spent the first few years of your life in physical therapy and in leg braces. You’re a one in a million survivor.”
With that he left leaving me and my family to dumbfoundedly look at each other.
My New Year’s resolution was decided for me in a heartbeat and handed to me without gift wrapping or a bow. It wasn’t going to be looking for a job, losing weight or any of the other things ordinarily associated with such things. It was going to be learning to live my life all over again with some necessary tweaks here and there.
I will still have the love of my life, my wife and best friend, my family and a brave new world to explore from a different perspective. I will probably lose some of my friends because they won’t know how to deal with the new me and possibly fear what I might represent to themselves and their lives…unfortunate but if it must be…so be it.
My life has already changed in the short amount of time that this has happened. I rise a little later than I used to and have a robust breakfast of sixteen assorted pills and a glass of water followed by a cup of green tea while I answer e-mail and read the news online.
I may have a light lunch of fresh and dried fruits, various cheeses, nuts and fresh breads before taking a nap.
My afternoon is taken up writing for my book or whatever article that will bring a little extra cash into the family funds. I recently unlocked that box in the closet and am anxious to paint and take pictures that will mean something to people other than me and my misguided ego. I’m seeking out commissions, assignments and competitions to keep me busy and alive.
The daughter who took me in and let me sleep on her couch is looking for a larger place to live because the kids are quite certain and aware I can no longer live by myself. I can’t even take a shower unless someone is home with me so they’re going to find a place with enough space for my wife and I to live other than the living room.
When evening comes I sit with a cup of tea or glass of wine and watch the sun go down content in a twisted sort of way how my life has come about but anxious to do more for more people with the limited abilities still left me and leave a lasting imprint for those who follow.
More isn’t always better. Sometimes it takes a surprise to help you appreciate the simple things you’ve always had but managed to overlook. Happy New Year.