Marathon Training to End Stroke; Or Gimmee Your Dollars and No One Gets Spammed

My father suffered a massive debilitating stroke in 2002. It has left him largely immobilized and dependent upon his family and caretakers for many of his basic needs. My dad's always been bright, funny, compassionate, generous and vaguely embarrassing in that way that parents often can be when they're clever and enjoy the minor mortification of their children. The stroke has left him with most of his mental faculties – his intelligence, his wit, his kindness, but without most of his physical acuity. He can't indulge in any of the hobbies that brought joy and meaning to his life – woodworking, playing the guitar, cooking, walking his beloved dog, going on trips with his wife.

Modern medicine worked a sort of miracle on my father – he's alive. I say that completely without irony. Probably, he shouldn't have been. The doctors told us he wouldn't survive, that he would go into a coma and not come out of it. Our gratitude, my gratitude that he is still here is immeasurable.

My father's stroke impacted everyone around him – my step-mother, my step-siblings, their familes, my grandfather, even my own mother, my relatives on my mother's side. Watching someone go, overnight, from active, vibrant, challenging and amazing to completely dependent and utterly changed is terrifying, it's heart-wrenching, and it's all too common in our current society.

It changed everyone's life without a single warning.

Genetics worked against my dad. Lifestyle choices worked against him. Medicine worked against him (a small hole in his heart that should have been found when he was a child allowed the blood clot through that caused the stroke).

I have struggled with many aspects of my relationship with him – are divergent and completely similar personalities; his need to have his way constantly; his reluctance to accept his situation and make the steps and strides I think he should – but in all that, I am terribly, terribly happy that he is still here and making me utterly nuts.

This was not the only medical scare that I, or my family, faced over the next few years. Ironically, they all involved blood clots, involved that same tiny little inability of the body to do what it was supposed to do.

Several months ago, when looking for a way to give some of my time and energy to a cause, I came across the training program for the Stroke Foundation. It only took me a minute to decide that it was something I wanted to participate in. Training for a marathon (or in my case, more likely, a half marathon) while raising money to fund research for something that has immediately touched my life and those of my loved ones? Not something that took a lot of thought. (Those of you who know me, who know my attitude towards running if not being chased, stop laughing right this minute! You can walk the marathon too, or walk/run it!)

This was a way to change my own life and habits, and support my father in a way I have not always been able to do face to face. While raising money to fund research may not seem very personal, it is, for me, a way to answer many of his fears and hurts over the years – that I am not on his side, that I am unsupportive, that I'm too angry to be there for him. He isn't wrong. He's not right either. I am angry that he set himself up for this to happen. I am equally angry at his body, at fate, at everything that led up to and allowed this to happen.

But I love him, and I want him to know how much. Plus, I want other people who face this issue, who've watched friends and loved ones combat this issue to have more options, more knowledge, more possibility.

So, I'm doing something that makes me vaguely uncomfortable (asking for donations) to do something that will make me physically uncomfortable (marathoning) in order to hopefully provide something for others that will make their lives more comfortable.

My dad was relatively young - 54. It's something that can happen at any age, and certain factors make the risk that much greater (when he was in the hospital, a woman only a few years younger than me had suffered a similar stroke to my father's).

The website for my donation page is here. Info about the American Stroke Association is here.

Regardless of whether or not you donate, I appreciate the support and the forum to put this out there into the vast world of the internets.

Catching Up on a Friday

It's struggling to rain here, which puts us up on most of the country where snow is still falling like it's forgotten how to stop. But it gives the mornings these queer glowing grey casts that make me sort of sleepy and confused.

Driving out of the carport this morning, a little later than normal since I was at work late last night, I paused backing out as this full grown coyote walks into the parking space next to my car, and just looks at me, face tired and a little sad. I wanted to stop, and comfort him, offer him food or rest or whatever his poor coyote heart wanted, find out what drove him down into our carport at 9:30 in the morning.

It was so strange, surreal like a movie. He stood there like a dog, just watching me. And even though I know he's going to go eat someone's cat – which is what you do when you're a coyote and the neighborhood is full of snacks for the taking – I still wanted to hold onto him, cry against him. He looked how I felt, raggedy and shedding and a little lost.

I need to write, find some solace in that, I guess. It's usually there to be found.

Mike has taken to entertaining himself with the canned air. He has two bottles of it, and in addition to spraying it at the cats (the white one, already too cross-eyed to see enemies approaching, just wrinkles his nose and braces for attack. Georgie, sadly, freaks out completely upon even seeing the canned air), has now also taken to trying to spray me with it. If we have to call the paramedics because I've "accidentally" kicked him in the head, so be it. (This is like when I was taking Krav Maga, and he thought he was too strong for me to take down, and was so, so wrong. Of course, we didn't call the paramedics then either. But not too many boys want to admit to "injury via being a dumb ass." although I'm guessing it's a typical symptom).

However, he now has a dozen or so beer bottles lined up, all filled with various levels of beer, and is blowing the air into or over them to produce "musical works." Whether or not this is better than the "beeramid" remains to be seen.

My life? Oy. It's not even funny anymore. Okay, it's a little funny.


In an effort to avoid Mike and his beer bottle orchestra last night, I harassed various acquaintances until someone was willing to entertain me, and we ended up at this: The Moth. Every month they offer a topic, and people come up and tell 5 minute stories and it was a lot of fun. Made me wonder if I could actually tell a coherent story (with a point) to an audience. I'm a good public speaker, I can tell a story, I can read my work, but I'm not sure I could do a combination of those things.

So That's How You Become A Grownup

While I firmly believe that certain milestones smack you into "adult" status (buying a house, reproducing, taking care of or weathering an ill parent), there are other markers as well, and despite my own maturity, I've had... trouble with them over the years.

This comes as a shock to no one.

Many of them have to do with either authority or finances, and I've been in the past, a mess with both.

I'm struggling to do better, for many reasons, my own sanity top amongst them.

So, I want high praise and accolades for the fact that in the past few months I have done the following:

1) Signed up for my company's 401K. I don't want any grief about not doing this sooner, all I want is praise for finally having done it.

2) Paid my parking ticket.... wait for it... on time. (Mostly. And I paid it online. But I frigging paid it before it turned into a $150 ticket that I had to pay to register my car and that, folks, is a milestone).

3) Honestly looked at my bank balance, calculated what I needed to save, paid off some outstanding bills that I didn't realize were outstanding, and just got some of that in order.

I'm going to leave work early tonight to do laundry, so if the apocalypse comes, blame me.

Been Along Time Coming

Sorry for the absence! Real life got in the way, and stayed in the way!

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity:

- Breakfast date (boy from the internet. 1.5 stars. Nice, sweet, bought breakfast. Not my type at all. He went to mass before breakfast for Palm Sunday, was in the Navy. Works in IT. Not compatible, nice nonetheless.)

- Worked (client), worked some more (student), worked again (book editing with 83 year old).

- Went to local production of "The Sound of Music". Did not know until I got there that it was an all children cast (5-12 year olds). Demanded much booze of the person who brought me.

- Ate oysters as reward for all children musical.

- Met up with T. to gather data points. He bought the drinks.

-Collapsed into bed at 1:30 a.m.


This has been a weekend of acknowledging my own complicity in my unhappiness. I realized two things:

One:
I am unhappy about the no longer dating boy, and not contacting him only sounds less complicit than answering when he e-mails. It's the same. It's making me sad, and I'm buying into it because I like him and don't want to not hear from him. It's not... helping though. I need to stop. He is continuing because I don't tell him to stop, because I give him tacit permission. Therefore, I am complicit. But it will hurt, and it will mean giving up the illusions/hopes I have pretended I don't have, so it will also be embarrassing. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Two:

I am complicit in M's growing alcoholism because I have not said, "You have a problem. This will only end a few ways, and none of them are good." The argument that M. is not my responsibility is a false construct. There isn't anyone else to say this to him, and his behavior is escalating (two instances of losing his car, one of which also involved losing his jacket and keys and sleeping in a pile of leaves in our front yard for four hours because he couldn't get into the house and I didn't have my phone in my room and didn't hear him knock.)

Neither conversation is one I want to have. One makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed and sad. The other makes me nervous, and equally sad.

I feel that both mean some sort of surgical removal of men that I love in various ways. I kind of hate that, but one is better for me, and the other is better for both M. and I. Most days, I hate being a grown up.

In other news, I've got a music review up: http://www.popnography.com/2008/03/spending-the-ni.html
We went to see The Magnetic Fields a few weeks ago - amazing, amazing show. So go read about it!