Hey there past, it's me, Zach

I wonder how many times in my life I will have to tell the story again. It’s the best story I have to tell, and as someone who’s written books and short stories to fill a hard drive, I’ll never top it. It’s a reminder of my mortality.

My primary doctor suggested that I visit a neurologist. Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis needs no further explanation.

I promise that I went through my blog history and could not find an entry on the subject, so here goes. This is the tale I told the neurologist who looked more at least as much like a grandmother than a doctor. In August of 2001 I started to feel badly. I felt so bad that on August 14, after being in the office for about an hour, I called my agency to say that I was going on short-term disability. That’s the last thing I remember until the first week of September. I was in a coma for three weeks as my body fought a Staph infection and a blood clot that shut down my lungs. As shocking as that is to read, imagine waking up in a hospital having not remembered entering the hospital. I had back surgery to remove an abscess full of the bad stuff. Over another two months, I eventually recovered. I didn’t completely recover. I have numbness on my left leg from my waist to my toes. I can feel some but not all of it. For example, the arch of my foot is fine but the heel is nothing.

It’s almost eight years later. Will the feeling ever come back? That’s what I want to find out. The neurologist suggested two MRIs. One on my lower back and one on my brain. It’s another golden opportunity to self-deprecate. Noticing that I’m off mentally would be like being able to tell when a cat has been drugged rather than being sleepy.

I could have some scar tissue causing the numbness. It could be something completely different. I want to know, as long as my insurance pays for most of it.
For me, it’s time to make a full inventory of what “normal” is. Normal seems to be a moving target.