Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Danny MacAskill - Cascadia

In the "be good at what you do and have fun making a living" category:










Sunday, December 06, 2015

Mental weirdness

I was at work, on the cell phone, pacing up and down the corridor in the job trailer when I first noticed the halos.

They came on suddenly this time, taking over the right side of my field of vision in just a few seconds, not slowly fading in like the last couple of times. Within a minute or so the halos around what I could see gave way to a floating blob of colored shapes, kind of like what happens when you stare at a bright light for a while and get the afterimages burned into your eye. Pretty soon, the entire right side of the universe had vanished as far as I could tell......covering my left eye I could still see OK out of my right eye, but there were nothing but random backlit blobs floating around in the right side of my field of vision.

Kind of like one bigass blind spot with a light show being projected on it.

Crap, I thought, this is not a good time for this. I already have too much BS to deal with!

I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch behind the trailer, hoping to find a quiet place to get a grip, all the while getting a bit woozy and disconnected-feeling, like a mild head-rush kicking in.

That's when I lost the ability to speak coherently. Someone on the conference call I was listening to asked me a question and I think I was able to bluff them with a grunt because they didn't ask any follow up questions and just like that the call was over. I found myself standing by the street, aware of my surroundings but unable to speak or see anything to my right without moving my head that direction and really concentrating.....

This is the third episode of this weirdness I've had in the last two months, and the fifth over the last couple of years. Two years ago I had the first major short-circuit event, and since the progression of symptoms then was nearly identical to what was going on now, I figured this was most likely a TIA. The Doc, when I had gotten myself checked out after the first episode in 2013, said these were like little mini-strokes, and although they are pretty harmless in themselves they can be portents of bigger problems in the making. Doc said that about a third of people that have a TIA go on to have a full-blown stroke within the next year.

Doc had also mentioned the problem could be a focal seizure, and not a TIA, possibly related to a head injury I earned twenty-five years ago, but in either case I should watch my cholesterol and blood pressure, and if the problem ever came up again I should call 911 and get it checked out as soon as possible in case it turned out to be a real stroke.

So, I'm standing there knowing that while what I am experiencing is probably a temporary and minor problem, it could also turn into something bigger, and I should call for help. But, for some reason, whether some deep-seeded fight or flight instinct or just plain stupidity, my reaction is to look for a safe place where no one can see I have a problem and try to see if I can figure this out by myself.

By now probably 5 minutes have passed since the problem started. My vision is totally wacked now, and not only am I unable speak but I can't even find words in my head for the names of the people or things I can see around me. One of our project engineers walks past and although I recruited him to come to Miami from California and have worked with him for over a year and I know that I know his name, all I can find in my head for him is jdebghefg. Crap!!!!

 OK,  got to get a plan together....if this episode goes like the last few the worst part will be over in 15-20 minutes and then I'll just be stupid for a while. Still, should probably get to the doc and get this checked out somehow - three episodes in just two months is not good. So, great plan, just move - walk to the park and walk it off....go back to the jobsite once I can form a sentence and speak the names of the people I see, then slip into the office, grab my keys, and haul ass.

Everything goes pretty much as planned - I spend about 10  minutes getting in a nice walk, practice naming things in my head and then out loud until I can do it fairly reliably (that is a sidewalk! that is a tree!), then turn and head back to the office.

So, this time I did eventually go see the doc....I wasn't able to escape the jobsite without the folks I share my office knowing that there's something wrong, but I was able to convince them I was OK enough to drive home. The folks at the emergency room whisked me back immediately when I mentioned TIA - should tell me something right? - and they went into their full round of tests and inspections. The good news is that the MRI and other tests didn't show any major problems or signs of a real stroke. Eventually the verdict was that this episode could have been TIA, but it could also have been a focal seizure, so I should take advantage of the awesome health insurance the company affords me and go do some follow ups with the the neuro guy and a cardiologist to see if they can identify and fix whatever underlying problem is causing this craziness.

So, a lesson in mental weirdness.

The take-away from this experience is that what I really need to work on is that weirdness that keeps me from being able to ask for help. Gotta do the other follow-ups as well, of course, but realizing that I had been standing on the curb outside the job shack, wondering if this was going to be just another minor bump in the road or if it would turn out to be my demise, and deciding the best approach was to try to get through it without bothering anybody is just plan crazy. And not the good kind of cray cray I'm fairly well known for within the family.

Not really sure where that takes me from here, but I think just getting this story down and out there to you guys is a start.

Hopefully this process of getting my noggin checked out won't impact my plans to retire and go cruising next summer, but I guess that will work out however it's going to work out.

Fair winds, everybody. Will catch up later.