There is nothing funny about a stroke.

I was confident that I could mine a bit of humorous material from my Labor Day Weekend incident, but I have abandoned the idea. I'm not offended when friends joke that my bumper-car approach to problem solving shrouded the effects of my stroke. I'm more concerned for those in my ward who did not bounce back from their strokes and are facing long rehabilitation.

Some are curious as to just what it's like to have a stroke. I wish I could tell you. I was almost oblivious to the situation. I thought I was perhaps just having an off day and crashing my car, forgetting where I was, and not being able to locate letters on my keyboard were simply due to lack of sleep or a reaction of some sort. Only after I was finally convinced to voluntarily check in driven by ambulance to the hospital that I thought that maybe I belonged there.

As is turns out, I had thousands of microscopic strokes. My vision was effected, with me literally not being able to see straight. My mind would go completely blank for a minute or two, I could not tell time or dial a phone. While various neurological tests were undergone, I started snapping out of the perplexing funk. After one week in captivity, I was released and almost all the vestiges of the attack have disappeared.

The worst part of the seven-day hospital visit turned out to be the best.

I need Xanax to deal with tight spaces like airplane cabins or even sitting in the middle of a row at a concert. I made damn sure I was loaded up for the MRI scan. There wasn't enough Xanax on the planet. I declared "I can't do this!" with such urgency that they pulled me out of the tube at once. A nurse came down and arranged for a special injection of a magic potion. Ten minutes later, I was groovin' to the cool sounds inside the tube. If an MRI is in your future, go the claustrophobia route. When the scan was over I wanted to go again. Drugs rule.

So that's all I have. I'll try to get back to posting via social media. I have plenty of catching up to do.