my body through and had always thought the same; consequences not punishments. As flawed as it may be, I had a life to live and women who care about me couldn't,

wouldn't let them down. I didn't try to make deals with the lord, I didn't find Jesus as I was lying there. Instead I found a will to survive, a will to carry on and get the most I could get out of life and I found how precious people were to me. I found in the will to survive the groundwork for my recovery and the hope I could change my life for the better and give a helping hand to others in the similar situations.

Nothing about my recovery was set in stone, there was nothing instantaneous about it either. The trauma to my brain and my vital function had to be restored, my blood-pressure had to be tamed before I could even think of a future. I couldn't even manage to communicate on a one to one basis. I remember going to therapy and trying my best to do the exercises and not being able to lift my hand or move my leg. And I'd see someone walking down the hall with the palsied hand and gait and would think I wanted to be better than him but for now he was my goal. Again I'd try harder to make my hand move and it just wouldn't, it would just lay there in my lap. Then the classes began in how to make us more productive in out lives, how to cook, how to cut and how to eat..., in short how to live life as handicapped. I was depressed but more than that I was angry. Angry that they thought I wouldn't be able to live my life as I used to. Angry that they weren't teaching me to get stronger, better and that they weren't teaching me to get my life back together. When the class was over I wheeled myself down to the head therapist and told her I wasn't going to attend anymore cooking classes that I wanted to get more exercise and help getting my arm, hand and leg to function again. As their trained to do she smiled and told me that would be perfectly alright I'd need to get someone to watch me though and that might be a timing problem but we'd work it out.

Anger and controlling my emotions were a big problem, they were a well documented side effect of strokes I was to find out. I had very little anger but when I

had it I was vocal about it. The nurse and the doctors expected it and were train to be non-confrontational and suggest way to transfer the anger, usually to another person. A little anger is good, it proves that you're alive and as long as you don't carry too much of it around inside of you it's a welcome release. But in short I needed people's help and assistance, having to admit to people that I needed help worked. But it was so frustrating and demeaning to ask for help, to admit that I'd had a stroke. That was a big thing to get my head around; I had a stroke and there was no way I could turn back the clock.

So I chose instead to work even harder, to try and to keep on trying until I got

some movement some idea that I was on the right track. Day after day I'd go into treatment and do the exercises and in my off hours I'd do them some more and I became a regular fixture in the hallways, back and forth I'd go. Trying to remember important phone number and dealing with my landlord and other creditors gave me the practice I needed in dealing with the world. I had to be honest with them and tell them again about my stroke to explain how I couldn't remember details and numbers. I needed that honesty to get people to slow down and really listen and give me the help I need and wanted from them. In the end most people were incredibly generous to me and to my situation. But I had to reach out to them first and share part of my story when I was in only the beginning stages of it and that took courage to start.

I could only work on one call in the morning, starting fresh before my round of therapy and I'd be so mentally drained that it took time to recover. Slowly I began to realize the predicament I was in but I couldn't comprehend it's totality yet. Hell I couldn't even wipe my ass correctly so I knew I had a way's to go yet. The first thing was to get rid of the catheter and bag and have some mobility. The day it happened I can't even remember, along with the stool softener they just fell by the way side along with the other detritus of my life. And that's what it truly felt like, I was a larva shedding it's skin, it's outer shell and becoming. I didn't know yet what but slowly I was becoming. I'd see my Doctor and we'd exchange pleasantries and I'd ask some question and promptly forget the question yet alone the answers. But ever so slowly I was beginning to heal, slowly I was making headway. The doctor was cautious with me, didn't promise me anything only time would tell, the next 18 months would be important to me.

The morning I moved my hand I remember. I was sitting in my wheelchair looking at my hand lying there and I remember willing it to move. Concentrating hard to get the damn thing just to bring it to my chin I hoped. And it did, I brought it up so so slowly and got the thing almost to the side of my face and then it dropped back into my lap. But I had done what had been impossible to me just days before. I had succeeded in touching my chin I was so excited and relieved by that simple action that it gave me hope for a future. This was the sign I was looking for, a sign of spring in the barren earth.

Then I could try even harder and sometime it was hard for the dumbest of reasons, playing bingo. God I hated that game because it drew attention to myself. Just a silly game, a childish game but it drew unwanted attention to me when I would win, I had to shout out BINGO in my broken voice. I know it was teaching me to think, hand eye coordination and all that but I felt embarrassed every time. I wanted

to try standing, now there was an accomplishment. Thankfully that was next on the agenda; first I'd roll my wheelchair against the back wall so it wouldn't go anywhere. Then the therapist would hold my belt for support and I'd try to stand. Wobbly at first I was learning to get myself up out of the wheelchair at last. So slowly the victories grew, the self-satisfaction and self-confidence grew. Inch by inch I was learning to get my life back together but it was taking so long. Never did I realize that what I was doing was retraining my brain. Reestablishing the pathways in my brain to do the things I'd always done since childhood. My stroke had blocked the pathway to the brain I'd always know as me, like a landslide in the brain the paths were blocked or broken and it was up to me to learn another path to the mountain top that made up the whole me.

About this time I had my first visitor Mark and old friend and fellow photographer. I rose to greet him and as we shook hands I was so proud of myself for

being able to stand without toppling over. Then I sat back down and we chatted for awhile and I told him what I knew about my condition. All that I could think about is that I rose to greet him and I felt like more normal, more like the old me. But inside I knew that I was broken, not is sprit but mentality and that was hard for me and him to understand. Thankfully he seemed to realize that I couldn't communicate like I had and he only stayed a short time. But it was a start for me and a big one at that. I also began to call other friends who loved me and tell them what had befallen me. Slowly and painstakingly I'd describe what had happened, where I was and for how long I didn't know. Most time I was blessed to get an answering machine so I didn't have to talk to a human. To this day people still describe my voice and how painfully it was to hear me enunciate each word and phrase as I was being taught.

It was around this time I began the process of losing friends, I did n't comprehend it at the time but the process had started. Old friend who I had held onto for years couldn't communicate with me, couldn't understand the new me and were uncomfortable with me. It was a long process but it had started as though I was dying

of cancer or some other disease but all I knew was that I was grateful that they weren't coming to visit me in my present state. I had enough to deal with and I couldn't take any more. So I concentrated on my therapy and getting my arm and leg back function again.

Then one middle of the night as usual I had to go take a piss and I maneuvered me to the wheelchair the footrest got tangled in the bed as usual and I got so angry I took the damn thing off and got around that way. I was so concerned about maneuvering the chair over the lip of the bathroom and getting myself seated and getting my business done that I didn't realize til I was safely back in bed that I'd use my legs to propel me. I almost got back in the chair to make sure I hadn't imagined it but instead went back to sleep secure in the knowledge I could do it again and that I

was on the road to getting my life back. The next morning I was excited to try my new learned skill and get back to therapy and show somebody what I could do, I was so proud.

That morning I got my physical therapist to work with me on a ball under my

belly. It was a large ball to be sure and if I tipped to far to the right I couldn't recover myself but that's what the therapist was for. I worked that ball like a man possessed with a will and a desire to succeed too. I was on a time clock, 18 months, a year and a half to get my life back in order or I wasn't going to get it back, That's what I was told, that's what I believed. The best return I was to have would come in the next year and a half and I'd better get busy. A new word began to creep into the lexicon of the people around me, I can't remember if it was a therapist or a doctor who used the word first but I was called lucky. Not as a noun but as a verb, I was very lucky. I was having some return, new pathways were beginning to be formed in my brain and though I wasn't sure about the lucky part yet I began to feel very, very blessed.

My doctor and I were beginning to have better chats, I was remembering more questions to ask and I was beginning to remember the answers. I asking what my prognosis was, what exactly would I get back and when. He had no real answers really only the truth which was he couldn't tell me, we'd both find out in time. His best guess was somewhere between 80 to 90 percent, maybe 95. But it seemed like I was lucky, lucky the damage wasn't worse, lucky that I had worked out so much and lucky that I had such a strong will to survive. Lucky too that I have a brain that was used to working out problems and fending for itself and as a result my best interests. He was a good doctor, he'd sit and talk slowly so I could understand, never in a hurry to be off on his rounds, he'd always make the time. I was so lucky.

After his visit I'd do my rounds on my wheelchair, up one wing turn around and go out to the other wing. Sometimes I'd even follow patients who were being moved

from one wing of my floor to the other department in another part of the floor. I was always getting exercise and satisfying my curiosity about where people were going. Some mornings I'd go down to the nurses desk and ask for extra orange juice and wait quietly till they had a chance to get it for me. I became a regular fixture on the floor sitting quietly by the window looking out on the seasons change from summer to fall. I'd watch the people all hunched over from the cold winds hurrying to school or to the office, hurrying on with their lives. Never expecting to be spied upon from four stories up as I sat in my comfy little wheelchair trying to get parts of my body to respond.