Friday, April 15, 2016

Yes, I am alive. Apparently.

[sidebar]
I just opened up this blog article and got distracted.  Walking into the other room, I noticed my eldest son had the perfect outline of a fork the back of his jeans.

"Why do you have a fork print on you butt?" quoth I.

But he doesn't know.

Ah, the life we lead!
[end sidebar]


Anyway, I first wanted to apologize for not blogging more.  You guys are awesome, and I feel like I owe you more than I've been giving lately.

Not to make excuses or anything, but I've been pretty busy with house remodeling on top of having had some pretty nasty health problems.

The real low point happened the other day when I actually had a mild stroke!
I guess they call it a TEI or TEG or something like that.
(Thankfully, from the symptoms WebMD says it doesn't cause brain damage.)
(Not that people would notice much of a difference. :D )

What a weird experience!

I was just working away in the garage, when all of a sudden my eye started getting what you might call "tunnel vision".  I'd heard of that, but I always thought it would be dark around the edges like looking through a cardboard tube.  Maybe for some people it is, but for me it was like the center third of my vision was real and the outside rim was just colors and textures like my brain was just making things up.

In fact, my wife went to put down a glass in front of me, and a hand just appeared out of thin air.  Really strange!  I was busy laughing.  She was busy worrying.

Then random body parts on my left side started going numb and I joined her.  First my hand, then lips, then forearm and part of the tongue.

Nothing hurt at all, and it all went away within 30 minutes, so the internet says not to worry.  (And who doesn't trust the internet?)

Still, a little concerned about that though...
Haven't seen a doctor yet, but I'm afraid there isn't anything they could do besides run a bunch of expensive tests, so I'm torn on whether or not to bother.

But, hey!  Good news is that I join the ranks of other authors.
Consider, sci-fi  author Orson Scott Card, writer of the famed Ender's Game series had a stroke in the middle of writing it.

Also M. L. Forman of Slathbog's Gold fame had a stroke as well.

So maybe it's a right of passage?
Or maybe a side-effect of QWERTYitis?
Some carcinogenic property of open Word docs, perhaps?

Seriously though, since, like I said, it started in the garage, I'm leaning more towards possible toxicity of the environment.  In response, I'll be venting the 3D printer outside before I use it again, and may consider installing a circulating air filter before spending more time out there.

To quote Monsters Inc:
SULLY
What just happened here?

MIKE
I don't know.
But it would be really great... if it did not do it again!


Well, this blog has gone on a long time now, and my intention was not to make up for lost time.

Under the circumstances, I'm going to suspend the usual "live your adventure" tag line and end with:


Please pray for me,
-E.L. Fletcher

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