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All aboard…

On the via rail train heading east of Kingston. On the way to Montreal. Blow at High Dough from the Hip is going through my mind. It’s less than a week since Gord Downie and his fellow tragically hipsters played the final show here on their farewell tour.

I like the way those guys think. Downie gets diagnosed with inoperative brain cancer and they go blow it out on the road one last time. To hell with you cancer, I’ll go out on my terms, he seems to be shouting to that bitch of a disease. Who knows, maybe he’s got more music in him still.

This is my first Canadian train trip. After all of these years.

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Toronto from VIA Rail tracks.

 

I’ve done a bit of the train thing in Europe. Done plenty of city trains throughout Canada and the US. And I’ve even taken a few old fashioned trains at theme parks like Fort Edmonton and Heritage Park in Calgary. But this is my first Via Rail in Canada. I’m sorry I waited this long.

On board with my bride and first born, this is a pretty cool perspective of a part of the world I’ve only seen from the air. There’s a touch of elegance to rolling this way, even back here in economy.

Patricia and I are in the early days of a couple of weeks in Toronto and Montreal. Montreal is where we’re heading now. We flew in Monday night and crashed at daughter Kristina’s place near Queen and University. A brisk predawn walk to the subway taking us to Union Station woke us up after dinner last night with our friend Richard. He just hit the same unmentionable birthday that I recently did, so we celebrated at Biff’s Bistro, a great French spot that I haven’t been to since my pharma days on Front and Yonge.

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It’s been over a year since my last visit to Montreal. And this will be the first time there with my gals (two out of three, anyway). Really looking forward to that. I’ll also get to meet their friend (and Richard’s) Francois. He’s generously opened his doors to us. It’s great to live as a local when travelling.

This will be fantastic brain food.

If you’ve been to Montreal, you’ll know that it is North America’s best taste of Continental Europe. You’ll also know that the people there are as friendly as they come. I’ve found that to be true even with my poor French. When I say poor, I should say basically non existent. A combination of bad public school French when I was a young lad and the fact that all of my French speaking friends having excellent English which they like to practice. I also lay blame on my lack of French skills on the beautiful French teacher I had in grade 7. She agreed to pass me — just — if I promised not to take her class again. I was devastated. And the reason I struggled in her class was mostly because her presence scrambled my mind, I just couldn’t concentrate on French or anything else when she was in the room. C’est la vie.

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It’s quite spectacular to watch the country side role by at train speed. You can take things in, even at train speed. And the way you intersect the smaller communities as you role in comes with a sense of nostalgia. And it’s lovely to hear the train whistle blow from inside our care. More nostalgia, I suppose.

We’re now stopping in Cornwall, ON. That’s enough blogging for now. I’ll dial in again from Montreal. Au revoir.

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P.S. Check out my daughter’s latest blog post at httpwestmeetseast.wordpress.com

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Classic rock, a few beers and Fat Man

Years before I started making a few shekels as an ink stained wretch, writing paid off for me.

Starting in Grade 5 I figured out that my language arts and English teacher’s dug what I put to pen. It got me through all the way to graduation and balanced off my failings in math.

Almost.

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This has nothing to do with the blog. But i thought it was pretty cool. Clouds in downtown Edmonton shot from the 18th floor of Commerce Place.

Short stories, essays, reviews – I seemed to always hit the mark. I was also able to write my way through social studies. It was just a shame about math. And the sciences.

Anyway, I always took the writing thing for granted until…well, regular readers of this blog know all about my putting off the book writing thing until a stroke buzzed my brain’s ability to read and write, the struggle to relearn my abcs and all that jazz.

I’ve pumped out some good stuff since getting my writing groove back. But I’ve also struggled. When I was a news paper reporter I pounded out the stories of the day. In writing a feature on my stroke recovery, it was pretty easy to connect the dots. But I’ve done some flailing away on the edits to the book I’ve been working on about my stroke. And I’ve struggled with keeping my focus on the blog.

There’s just been something. Something wrong. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.

Then my bride asked me if I’d like to go to the K97 classic rock show Friday night in Edmonton’s Hawrelak Park. I try not to live in the past, but David Wilcox was playing. Non Canadian readers may not know this blast from my past’s work. If not, you should look him up and give him a spin.

Back in the 80s I quit a job to go see him play at a Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (I think they now call my Calgary alma mater SAIT Polytechnic) cabaret. When I asked for the night off to see David play, my boss asked me what was more important, the concert or my part time job doing grunt work at his crappy little motel.

“Thank’s for the clarity, boss,” I like to remember myself saying to him. “I’ve unplugged my last toilet for one of your guests.”

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David Wilcox

It was off to hook up with Joe, Jack and Brad, then off to see David and his band play.

Later, when I was entertainment editor of the campus newspaper I got to interview Wilcox before a show. Just me and him. No rush.

I asked him a question he told me nobody had ever asked him before. That was cool. As I recall, I asked about the way his eyes seem to bug out as he plays a solo. Also as I recall, he speculated that it may be because when he started out and he’d get into a riff, he stair off into the crowd, lost in his guitar. The thing is, the beautiful young woman dancing with her insecure and bulky boyfriend would think David was gazing into her eyes. And the trouble would begin with beefy boy and David. So, as a peace loving man, Mr. Wilcox said he just stated staring safely into the sky when he made his Telecaster sing. And that, he said, may be the cause of the eye thing.

That’s how I remember the convo, anyway.

Friday night David’s show was just as tight as it was back in the mid 80s. And he looked to be having just as much fun. It was awesome. Wilcox was followed on stage by Randy Backman of Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive fame.

He put on one hell of a show.

I don’t have the emotional connection to Backman that I do with Wilcox, but I was blown away by how great he sounded. And by how much fantastic music he’s pumped out. But better still, the passion he had in playing and in telling the stories behind the songs blew me away.

Backman shared intimate details of where he was when he wrote one classic. He explained nuances in the music and the work to get the stuff from his brain to his guitar to the radio. 

What a great night.

But it wasn’t until the Saturday night over a few beers at a bbq my wife and I through for the neighbors that I connected a few dots.

According to Google – and is Google ever wrong? – Randy Backman is 72 year old. Another Google search put David Wilcox at 67. Backman is a gazillionare world wide selling artist and will likely make more in royalties in the time you take to read this blog than I’ll ever make. Wilcox is a journeyman musician doing just fine but on a smaller scale.

And there they both were, on stage looking in love with what they were doing after all of these years. I’m sure there are lots of reasons. But a couple came to my mind over beers in my back yard 24 hours after the show, my ears still ringing from what poured out of their Marshall amps.

These guys has the courage, the passion the whatever to do what they were meant to do. No matter what. It worked out on different levels. But it worked out. They didn’t do this music thing half assed. They did it full assed.

And that’s where Fat Man comes in.

Back in grade 5 I thought I was a pretty good story teller. And for a class early in the year I started working on a short story. My first effort was some kind of gumshoe crime fighter. Then I took a stab at a cowboy bit. Both were boring and un inspiring.

It was then that a sketch I did for art class caught my eye. I’d created and un-hero called Fat Man. He looked kinda funny in a loveablish way. I decided to call my short story The Adventures of Fat Man and I managed to put together a yarn that had all of the teachers at Chris Ackerman Elementary School in North East Calgary laughing.

The trick, I realized back then, wasn’t a trick at all. Being a writer is one thing. But to be a good or even great story teller means being true to who you are and telling those stories in the way they need to be told. Don’t try to be a great classical violinist if you’re a blue grass fiddler.

I’d like to be a jazz bassist. But I may be a punk rock guitar player. Gotta live with that and make it work.

Oh, by the way, my first born has a new blog. It’s westmeetseast.wordpress.com. The kid has game.

Oh again…if you have an Amazon Kindle, you may want to take a look at my short story, The Gunman Who forgot Who to shoot.

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Tick tock, tick tock – can’t stop the clock

Some things grab you by the throat and just won’t let go.

You fight for every trickle of breath you can coax in and you punch, scratch and kick with every scrap of fight remaining to loosen the grip of the thing, swearing that if you ever break free you’ll never ever get within a mile of its grip again.

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It’s been a year since my oldest and I drove from Edmonton, AB, to Toronto, ON where she’s now living. This shot is in Colonsay, SK. Time keeps ticking.

Sometimes the thing is a monster – like the bitch of a stroke that wreaked havoc on me six years ago.

But sometimes the vice grip is more subtle. Like time.

My youngest turned 20 in April. I’ve been in a tail spin ever since. I now have two daughters in their twenties.

It’s not a vanity-aging thing.

It’s just a brutal reminder that the clock keeps ticking. And with every second, minute and hour I keep realizing that there’s so much that I haven’t done. Stuff I feel I’m meant to do.

So why don’t I do it?

Tick tock, tick took.

My old English teacher – John Rollins – keeps coming back to mind. His farewell note to me at the end of grade 12 was a dagger about the sin of wasted time. It seems too benign to be a sin. But I think it may be the greatest one of them all. Is there anything worse than not doing something – wasting talent, wasting opportunity, missing the chance to help somebody, letting down your friends and family? All this by not doing something.

I’ve heard it told that as fond as the Devil is of history’s greatest villains, his best work over time is done by folks just sitting back. More evil is done by what’s left undone. It just sort of slowly happens, like rot.

I kept Mr. Rollins’ note for a long time. I eventually took it to heart on almost every level. Accept when it came to writing. That all changed after I stroked out, dealt with the pain of losing my words and then scratched back to the point where I could read and write again, albeit with the aid of technology. I published some stuff, started blogging and then…

Here I am – after getting a second chance — wasting time again. I’ve only taken my rekindled writing so far. I’ve either been too lazy or afraid of failure to take it all the way. A book sits waiting for loads of edits. Stories sit locked in my brain. I’m going weeks and months between blogs.

By contrast, in the weeks since my last blog, Anna – my youngest — went off on a trek around Europe with two friends. Kristina – my 23 year old — took off to start a new adventure in Toronto almost exactly a year ago. No fear with these kids, at least not enough to hamstring them.

They don’t seem hung up on what’s practical versus what’s possible.

I believe this, too. I just don’t act on it. Why?

I recently spoke at a conference for speech language pathologists. If you looked at me six years ago, this would have seemed impossible. But there I was, putting together words that made sense despite having had my brain fried by the stroke and my words taken away.

If I can do that, maybe I can be more like my girls?

Step one was publishing a short story on Amazon Kindle yesterday. The Gunman who forgot who to shoot, under the name T.J. Seefeldt. It’s a very short yarn about a stroked out 1800s western hit man. More shorts are coming soon.

I’ve always been a fan of short stories and novellas. I still re-read Hemmingway’s and Steinbeck’s all the time. And Elmore Leonard’s. I only discovered his short stuff  after years of reading his novels. The great movie 3:10 to Yuma is based on the short story of the same name. The Hernando Tellez short, Just Lather, That’s All is amazing in how much it says with such economy of words.

I pumped out quite a few short stories myself years ago. But I couldn’t find any place for them. I got discouraged. This seems to have changed these days with Kindle Singles. We’ll see.

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Strokversary Six

Six years ago today started with a sizzle.

Sadly, it was my brain that was frying. It’s the day I stroked out.

Few days go by without some reminder of my March Madness. It began months of craziness, confusion and fear. It really, really sucked.

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But on this first Monday of Day Light Savings, I drink a solo toast, say thanks to whoever will listen and vow not to waste the time I now have with a well functioning brain. Well functioning by my standards, at least.

I’m often haunted by terrible memories when I think of stroking out. The confusion and fear of the first days was actually a pleasure compared to the fright that followed my earliest recovery. That’s when I was together enough to realize just how messed up I really was.

And that my shaky melon could keep me from meaningful work, make me forever dependent and cause me to fail my girls and my wife.  Anna and Kristina were 13 and 16 when my brian buzzed. I felt they still needed me. And I wasn’t keen on the raw deal I was leaving my wife with, either.

Add guilt over what I was doing to my girls and Patricia to all of the other emotions.

But those bad memories aside, I’m also jazzed when I think of getting through those darkest months. That – with loads of help – I could get back to a meaningful life. That, while still unpublished, I’m writing the books I never penned pre-stroke. Every great experience feels like a bonus. Something I snatched back from the devil stroke.

So, with that, I’m going to make my toast, have my drink and put a little more into one of the books I hope will be on bookshelf soonish.

Cheers.

 

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Neil Young’s question: Why do I keep f___ing up?

I find myself asking this poignant — if crude — question these days.

Or maybe the question is: “why can’t things run like a fire engine on all cylinders all — or at least most — of the time?”

I’m in an awesome new job. I love it. Great people, heady stuff every day and it’s in communications, my wheel house. On top of that, I’ve got a great opportunity to get my book in front of a publisher thanks to an amazing supporter that I was connected to through a Toronto friend. I had a fantastic road trip from Alberta to Toronto with my oldest just a few weeks ago, followed by an incredible week in Toronto at her new digs, joined by my lovely bride.

Amazing. Colossal. Fantastic.

But now back in Edmonton, my bride is going through intense, brutal medical treatment and there’s little that I can really do. The edits I’m making on my book before shipping it off  have  stalled for some reasons that I understand and others that I’m battling with my brain over. And I’m constantly feeling like I’m letting down one of my ladies as they cope with the myriad challenges they’re facing.

Angering. Crappy. Frustrating.

It would be nice to be able to stop time for just a few hours to put together a game plan to figure out how to get everything right all at once. Clearly that can’t be done, and I keep having vivid reminders of this. To that point, I’ve posted a pair of pictures taken from my office of the construction of the new arena – Rogers Place – being built in Edmonton.

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Before…
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two weeks after.

The first pic is the day before I left for Toronto on my road trip. The second is from my first day back to work, two weeks later.

Look at all of the change in such a short time! When I saw this, it made one thing crystal clear — there ain’t no slowing down the clock. Tick, tick, tick.

So then, with all of the moving parts in life, how does a fella keep excelling at what they’re excelling at and try to bring other bits up to speed without dropping the ball on it all — like a beginner juggler? And how do you control the things you can’t control?

On the second question, I guess you just can’t. A guy just has to learn not to try to control these things and spend the time in hand as well as possible. And to be open to the opportunities and needs of whatever comes.

On the first part though, I may have found the answer in a quote hanging in my home office for so long that – until today – I stopped paying attention to it. It’s from Marianne Williamson. She said: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”

Maybe she has something there? I’m going to think about it for a spell.

Meanwhile, I better get back to those damn book edits and then think of some ways I can support my wife and girls without trying to fix everything.

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Blogging volcanoes and crickets

It’s been a few months of blogging now and it’s starting to make me feel like an insecure kid in my early 20s. Again.

Maybe you know what that’s like? If not, I’ll fill you in.

There are some weeks where you feel like a million bucks. The “beautiful” people have all the time in the world for you. No matter what you say, they’re digging it. At work or school you’re a rock star. You can do no wrong, your ideas are brilliant, your execution flawless. Folks tear up laughing at your jokes. No wrong can be done by you.

Then there are the other days where you could swear you bathed in garlic and that your brain and mouth are horribly out of sync. You can do no right.

This is how it feels with the blog. Some weeks I hit ‘publish’ and the readers flow like lava from a volcano. I’m on fire. The reader numbers tick away faster than I can count ‘em.

Other weeks, it’s crickets. The reader numbers seem to be going in reverse.

What did I do wrong? Why don’t they like me anymore? Why? Why!?

That’s part of the reason why I haven’t hit ‘publish’ for a while on a new blog. There are two other reasons, though.

First is that my bride, Patricia has had a new hurdle thrown at her on her health battle. We’d thought she was on a steady road to recovery when she got a sucker punch. Now she’s facing a few more tough rounds in her fight. She’s gonna win, but damn.

It really pisses me off and I’ve let it mute my words for a while.

The second thing is that my oldest daughter, Kristina, is heading to Toronto for school. It’s unbelievable that the little bundle we brought home from the hospital in what seems like not that long ago is going to be working on a post grad program in the Big Smoke.

What a mix of joy, sadness, excitement and fear. There’s no reason for fear — it’s going to be amazing for her — but she’s lived with me and Patricia all of her life an now…

…Sorry, I needed a moment there, I’m verklemmt!

As I write this, it’s our last day living together as the family that became complete when my youngest, Anna, was born 19 years ago. Very, very weird.

But there is an adventure to be had. We spent yesterday filling a rental truck with all of Kristina’s worldly goods. Tomorrow, she and I will hit the road for Toronto. We’ve got ‘till

Thursday to get there. For all the times I’ve made the flight, I’ve never done this trip by ground.

So to mark the journey – and the experience — I’ll be posting daily Road Blogs.

Stay tuned!

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Wow, thanks!

It may not be Thanksgiving, but with Canada Day and Independence Day this past week and with summer in full swing, it’s pretty hard not to be thinking about what a fella is thankful for.

There’s life itself, great parents, an amazing wife and daughters who’ve managed not to inherit my faults and have taken in all the good stuff – and there’s plenty of that — their mom was able to pass on to them.

There are friends, travel, work, volunteering and seemingly random experiences that have enriched me and challenged my thinking.

There’s also a great country and province to call home, a place where the son of a bricklayer and secretary gets the same breaks and has the same opportunities as anybody else.

Of course, there’s also the shite. But there’s even stuff to be thankful for there.

Post stroke Tim looks at a stunning mountain range, a perfectly maintained ’64 Porsche and hears the subtleties of a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo differently than pre stroke Tim did. The moment isn’t to be taken lightly; I drink it in and savor the taste. I try to lock it in my memory banks as brain food to draw on later. This sounds a little dorky when I play it back out loud with my robo reader.

But it is what it is. And it’s true.

Post-stroke, I write every day, I put out this blog, I’m sprucing up a book and I may even have a bead on a publisher. Pre-stroke Tim mostly just thought about writing.

I’m also thankful for timing and science.

If I’d stroked out when Canada was born – 148 years ago – I’d have been done for. The damage would have been even worse and the rehab non-existent.  I can’t bear to think about what life would have been like if I’d had a family. I’d have been useless to them and myself.

Even if I’d stroked out 10 or 20 years ago, I’m not so sure that I’d be working and living a life I’d call living.  There has been loads of improvement in stroke awareness and treatment. I’m sure that I benefited from this knowledge and thank God for that.

Had I stroked out today in another part of the world, I fear that my brain buzz would have had more dire consequences.  Would I have gotten the treatment I needed when I needed it? Time is money when it comes to this stuff. The more a brain fries, the more damage is done. And that makes it much harder to put humpty dumpty back together again.

I sometimes wonder if there’s another guy about my age who stroked out at the same time that I did in the same part of the brain, the only difference being that he lived in a part of the globe without the access to care that I had. What’s that guy’s life like today?

Yikes.

I’m also thankful that there’s hope today for the hell and the fear that people are facing right this second. I’m thankful that there are folks – like you and me — that can lend a hand. And that there’s hope for a lot of great moments to come.

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Dummy! Or, stupid is as stupid does

Brain buzz or no brain buzz, I can be a first class fool. And, sadly, I can’t blame it on sizzling my melon when I stroked out.

Last week I was cut off while driving.

“Idiot!” I shouted to myself in the car as I hammered on the horn. “Where do these people learn to drive?”

A day or two later, I cut somebody off. I figured it out when their horn sounded an attack. They went with a long first trumpet then followed with a series of short bursts. It sounded to me like; “Idiot! Where did you learn to drive?”

“Jerk,” I thought. “He must have been speeding. Where’d she come from, anyway? I bet they changed lanes. Where do these people learn to drive?”

It was only later that I pondered my reactions. What did I mean when I thought “these people?” I didn’t see the driver in either case. Man, woman, young, old, race, I had no clue. Did I have an unfortunate stereotype of what a bad driver looks like? My pondering made me uncomfortable, so I shelved it.

But I couldn’t forget what shelf it was in and I had to open it up again when I went out for a walk with my wife a little while later. Patricia is convalescing from a major, painful and scary surgery. Among other things, it’s made it tough for her to walk. And speed, right now, is not an option. But she has to walk as part of the rehab.

Some of this walking has been outdoors, but shopping malls have a nice even track with no worry of rain or wind, so we’ve made use of them.  The down side of malls is that they can be very busy. And choppers and staff are often intensely focused, determined and aggressive as they get from their Point A to Point B. I’ve learned they’re not super keen about slowing down to get around slow pokes convalescing from major surgery.

Now, the surgery was such that I can’t have my bride getting checked by aggressive mall types.  So, I’ve developed a few blocking techniques. Turns out that those years spent playing football weren’t a waste of time even if there was no room in the pros for a 5’10’ slow corner linebacker and special teams dude. I know how to block and, if necessary, how to tackle. Maybe not to the level needed in the NFL or CFL, but I do fine in a mall.

However, needing to run interference to protect Patricia from contact while in a shopping mall put me in an ugly game day state of mine. And I’d become tense and angry that people were putting her in harm’s way.

“Can’t people see that you’re not ship shape?” I steamed. “Jerks. Where did these people learn to drive, I mean, walk through a mall?”

Then Patricia said something I hadn’t considered. Something that somebody with my history of stroke and being the one time victim of stereotypes should have had top of mind.

“You don’t know what’s going on with them, Tim, just like they don’t seem to know what’s going on with us,” she said. “Maybe their boss just screamed at them, or fired them. Maybe their child or their mom is in the hospital.”

In Patricia’s job she drives a lot from client to client and walks through harried stores. She always has stories about bizarre road mayhem.  So if she can throw out a little empathy I suppose I can. And should.

She made me think about a story I heard Stephen Covey tell years ago when I went to an event he spoke at in Edmonton. Covey was a thought provoking speaker and the author of many books including The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

On the day I heard him, Covey told of being on a New York City subway on a weekend morning when a man walked on with a pile of rambunctious kids. To hear Covey tell it, they were running amuck on the train, yelling, knocking in to people while the dad did nothing.

Covey eventfully became too angry and frustrated to stay silent and asked the dad why he didn’t do something about his kids.

The dad, a stunned look on his face, took a peek at his marauding brood and said something like; “Ya, I guess I should. We’ve come from the hospital where there mother just died. I guess I just don’t know what to say or do.”

Covey told us that he immediately made the shift from anger to empathy. A few words changed everything. The circumstance made the facts seem different. Nothing practically had changed. Yet everything had changed.

We can wait for these shifts of points of view to happen and maybe they will or maybe they won’t. If Covey hadn’t said anything, he’d have left the train, angry about the many and disgusted with his children.  But, if as my wife suggests, we try to shift our point of view on our own, well, we’ll be in a better place. That’s good for our own minds and souls. And we may even be able to lend a hand to somebody else from time to time.

Go figure.

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Technology & research are key helpings of brain food

I always talk, think and write about being back to normal. After a stroke, that’s what a fella wants. Normal = good. You want to blend in. At least for me, there’s still a fear that somebody will notice a slight hesitation in my speech or catch me struggling to retrieve a memory. If a regular Joe or Jane forgets a name it’s just a sign of a busy life. If someone whose brain has been sizzled does the same, could it be a sign that they aren’t firing on all cylinders? Are they damaged goods? Are they capable? Do they require pity? Arggg! I imagine it’s much the same for folks who’ve suffered other assaults on their minds. The fact is though, that you’re never the same after your brain has been blitzkrieged. The difference can be in how you feel, how you function or both. It doesn’t mean that you’re not capable. But it might mean that you need some help or tools to do what you used to do. Imagine if a mind like Stephen Hawking’s was trapped inside his disability? What if he was born in a time and place where sharing his mind with the world wasn’t possible? Or if his part of the world had been cut off from the possibilities that helped set his brain free? I fear that that could be happening today. I’m actually pretty sure that it is. I’m certainly not in Hawking’s league. But whatever I have to offer would be largely muted without the help of technology. As I’ve written before, even the healed Tim Seefeldt’s reading speed is just over 50 words per minute. An average person reads at between 150 and 190 words per minute. You can’t do the work I’ve done through my career without being able to read and write. And, you sure can’t write without being able to read. Or to find a cheat. It doesn’t take a mind like Hawking’s to figure out that I’d be up the creek without a little help. More than a little. My equalizer is software originally designed for kids with learning disabilities called WordQ. WordQ literally allows me to keep up to the rest of you in reading the reams of material that comes across my computer each day. It allows me to edit my own writing to make sure that it’s up to snuff. I use it to edit and review everything I spit out, with the exception of very short emails. Bottom line is, without it, I don’t make a living the way I’ve been trained to make a living and I’m in a spot of bother when it comes to paying the bills. And, there’s no book (BTW, agents/publishers I’m still waiting to hear from you!) and there’s no blog. Beyond the practical, a large part of me would be gone without being able to write. Technology is a game changer for many of us in regular day to day life. And it can be especially critical for those of us who’ve suffered a few bumps along the way.  It’s not just high tech tools that can help heal damage and improve brain function for the unbroken, either. I’d also like to be a clearing house of ideas for stuff that’s working for folks whether it’s some form of physical exercise or meditation.  Personally, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the spiritual piece. And today, a big part of my day to day is yoga. My downward facing dog looks more like a rat, but it’s helped me a lot, from shoulders to toes and between the ears. The thing is, there’s so much out there and things change so quickly that it’s virtually impossible to keep up to speed without help. And to separate the good, the bad and the ugly. So, in that spirit, here are a few things readers have mentioned. What do you think? Some American readers have noted the work done by Bioness Inc. Their electrical stimulation devices are being used to help people with arm and leg mobility issues. Their stuff is aimed at helping folks with foot drop or hand paralysis as a result of stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, incomplete spinal cord injury or cerebral palsy. I’d love to hear from more folks who’ve used this and to see if there are other tools targeting these issues. I’ve also heard from readers who’ve read about potential benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for those suffering ischaemic strokes. This one’s right out of left field for me. Are there any professional readers who can shed some light? Let’s try to work as a clearing house of sorts for some of the stuff that’s out there for stroke survivors and those suffering other brain trauma. Also for brain health. The way I understand it, it’s never too late to start trying to make the ole ticker work better. As well, the thinking that the clock was ticking after a stroke and that you could only make improvements within a short window of time is now, I believe, considered bunk. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Meantime, I’m also waiting to hear from a concussion expert. I’m expecting some pretty interesting stuff to share with you on this front soon. -30-

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Brain health clearing house

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog, but I’m back with a different state of mind.

Some travel set me behind. Then, interviews I was planning for a few posts on concussions were delayed. I didn’t want to just tell my story all of the time. I felt I’d hit a wall. And it was compounded by that personal issue I wrote about a few blogs back.

Then I got an email from fellow ex-reporter, Ron, that set my mind right.

Ron’s wife had a stroke 18 months ago. He’s by her side at their home just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Ron read about my story while doing some research on the National Stroke Association’s website (http://www.stroke.org/) where I’d posted a piece on their ‘faces of stroke’ page.  He tracked me down.  Reporters, even us ex-reporters, are good at this stuff.  Now two ex-newspaper guys — one from the South Eastern US and one from Western Canada – were connected.

Reporters — again, even us ex-reporters — are also good at asking questions. And in his emails to me, Ron asked a lot of good questions about life after stroke and support, tools and the like that are out there for recovery. He made some excellent points, like the ‘facts’ on the time after stroke that a person can still make gains seems to be greater than the experts used to think.

I realized from his questions that I’d forgotten one important thing about my recovery. As much as we now know about stroke, we’re still at the early stages of understanding the brain. New ideas are being floated every day. And advances and aids for stroke victims – and those suffering other brain conditions and injuries – are being made and discovered all of the time. And it’s happening all around the world. The point is, if you suffer a stroke or a brain injury in Vancouver or Miami or anywhere in between, all of the brain power you’ll need to help you isn’t sitting in a neat package in one convenient spot. You’ve got to do some digging.

As I’ve written, I had amazing care in Edmonton. And still, I learned about the reading feature in the Amazon Kindle through a speech language pathologist I connected with in Chicago. In our conversation, I told her how I was getting books from the library, then finding the same book on CD. I’d play the CD while following the words in the book. As I’ve said in earlier blogs, I can ‘read’ along with words being read out loud at normal speed, but I slow down dramatically when the recorded voice is shut off. Letter combinations don’t immediately appear to me as they do to you.  But they do when I hear the word along with seeing it. Weird, I know. At first I used this technique to speed up my reading. I seem to have hit a wall with speed, so now I need help just to keep up with the rest of you and not spend a frustrating month reading a short book.

The Chicago speech language pathologist asked me why I didn’t just get a Kindle, which has a feature where a computerized voice reads out loud, allowing me to follow. I’d not heard of this before. What a breakthrough that was for me.

I also craved having someone like me to confab with who understood exactly what I was going through with my lost words. Nobody I met or heard about had my reading issues. Then, by chance, I spotted a documentary featuring Oliver Sacks, the UK born, American based writer/neurologist who suffers a unique brain issue himself. The special talked about a Canadian novelist who had a stroke and lost the ability to read. His circumstances were different, but still. I tracked Howard Engel down and had some great, helpful and inspiring telephone conversations with him.

These were watershed moments for me. Colossal breakthroughs, huge inspiration.

Ron reminded me that I can use this blog to help spark some breakthroughs for others who’ve suffered stroke and brain injuries. To provide a voice for those who’ve come up with devices, tools and techniques to help with brain function and improvement. Whether it’s help for those of us who’ve been buzzed or those trying to fight off decay.

So, please, reach out to me with what you know and what you have. Share research you’re working on or have heard/read about.  I’ll share them in this blog. I’ll dig into them and do some old fashioned reporting on them.  I’ll spiderwep from your ideas and tips and dig up more exciting and helpful stuff.

Ron’s already started me with some great ideas you’ll read about soon.

Thanks, Ron!

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