Anne scores a steal

We have needed a knife block forever. Anne was in Marshall's and found a nice solid wood knife block. It holds 14 knives, a sharpening steel, and a pair of kitchen scissors. It was so cheap she bought it and I am proud of her shopping prowess. It cost $5.99.

Anne's knife block

Bob and Anne share a gift

Our living room furniture has been sagged out and broken down for a long time. It was getting kind of embarrassing to have friends over and say "Would you like to sit down in the living room?" Their reply would be "Uh, no thank you, I am comfortable standing."

So before Anne and I bought any Christmas presents for each other, we agreed to go look for a couple of recliners and see if anything grabbed us. We went to visit Mattress Mac and one furniture group reached out to us and said "Please take us home!". It was a floor sample and marked way down in price. Yep we bought it and added a small recliner to go with it. Merry Christmas, Bob! Merry Christmas, Anne!

By the way, we called Purple Heart to donate our old furniture. They picked it all up, except for the sofa. They said it was so broken down, even they would not take it! Its going on Craigslist under "Free stuff".

Our new furniture

Am I going to write or what?

I sit here thinking... What do I have a blog for? If you're going to have one, you better write more often than once a year. So right now, I have lots of time on my hands and I will see if I can start writing more.

Following my bike accident and followup surgery on my birthday (Sept 14), things did not go well. I'll just say it simply. My shoulder started coming apart. It hurt. No wait a minute. It HHHURRRRRTTTTTT!!!!! I experienced three of the most miserable months in my life. I tried to be spirtual and keep a positive attitude. I did not do so well. I started reading Disappointment with God, by Phillip Yancey. Does that tell you something about where my head was at?

So I finally decided it was second opinion time. I got one and this surgeon said what my first surgeon would not admit. YOU NEED TO HAVE ANOTHER SURGERY. Surprisingly, this thought cheered me up. It meant there was a path forward, instead of sitting and spinning in a painful circle. On December 13, the new surgeon operated and put my shoulder back together. Does it hurt? YES. Am I happy. YOU BET! My shoulder feels like everything is in place and I feel like I am having the kind of pain that means it is healing well. That's an odd thing to say, but that is how I feel.

It is unfair to say everything has been miserable. My first grandson, Liam, was born. Oh what joy! He is lucky to have two great parents, Greg and Melissa. It's very obvious that they are totally in love with the little guy.

Then there are two of the greatest joys of my life, Sarah and Jessica, my granddaughters. They make me feel totally important and loved with no limit. They are pure happiness and infinite energy all rolled into one. Sarah and Jessica will grow up brimming with self esteem because of their two devoted parents, Lisa and Jeff. They give their daughters firm direction with constant reassurance and praise.

To complete the positive thoughts, I think of my awesome wife, Anne. She has unselfishly cared for me physically and emotionally. I would be a total wreck, if she had not been there so many times to hold me and talk to me. She has been with me almost 39 years. We are working on making it a lifetime.

What Happened?

Many of you are aware that I had a bad bicycle accident on August 24. I decided to write the answer here to the question that many have asked: "What happened?"

I was riding a bike with dual sided pedals - plain steel mountain bike style flat pedal on one side and SPD clipless on the other. I was riding in running shoes. This combination should have dictated casual non-aggressive sit-down riding for city commuting. But its on a light weight early-90's Japanese steel racing bike that begs to be ridden hard. Add to the mix a rider who has no brains when it comes to cautious riding styles...

So I was standing up, accelerating away from a stop light. My right foot slipped off the front of the pedal and my foot got caught hanging just in front of the pedal. As I struggled for balance, the little voice in my head said "I'm going down!". I fell on my right side and my head hit the pavement hard enough to knock me out. The bike had tiny scratches on the front of the brake hoods with no other marks anywhere.

My body, on the other hand, took the brunt of the fall. My right shin was bloodied and scraped by teeth of the metal pedal. I cracked a right rib. My shoulder had a category 5 AC joint injury (ligaments ripped away from top of joint). My helmet had dents all along the right side.

Surgery will be required to fix the shoulder. Its scheduled for September 14. The doctor said he will wait for road rash to heal on top of my shoulder before he will perform surgery.

Salad Hands

We recently got together with Greg and Melissa and gave me a father's day gift. I am the salad chef in our house. He gave me a set of "salad hands" and some fresh vegetables from his garden.

Here's a picture of me using the salad hands with some of Greg's vegetables in the foreground. Yummy!

Turning a new leaf

I've erratically posted notes about the intracerebral hemmorhage that occurred on Jan 3, 2009. I thought I wanted to do it to help me track my recovery progress and let others know about the experience. I realized recently that this is actually kind of dark and depressing to document the troubles I have been through and the residuals I still feel.

Enough!

I've got the rest of my life to live and I'm not going to waste another minute dwelling on this negative stuff. I'm going to write about current and hopefully happy and joyous events in my life.

I prefer this means of producing thoughtful writing to venues like facebook or twitter or email.

Jan 6, 2009 - ICH follow-up - first full day at home

I am going back to document my experience following an intracerebral hemorrhage on January 3, 2009. I want to do this so I can remember the progress I have made.

On this day and many days following, it seemed like I slept all the time. My lay view is that a lot of energy is burned trying to remap in the brain for brain cells that have been killed.

My right hand and arm are completely numb. The right side of my face and scalp are completely numb. My right toes are numb.

I am unable to manipulate the touch pad on my PC. I decide to get an external optical mouse to see if that will help.

I burn the inside of my mouth drinking coffee. Apparently I am a "right side chewer" and things go into the right side of my mouth first. I cannot feel hot coffee and it burns when it swishes to the left side.

All food seems to have no taste.

Yikes! When I am sitting at the table, I discover that I am drooling as a little wet spot forms on the table.

I think to myself - I just need to rest and everything will come out ok. I should be back to work in a couple of weeks.