Hello everyone. Your friendly regional blog runner here. A lot of you have wondered where I’ve been and what/how I’m doing.
It starts like this. I’ve been dealing with high blood pressure for some time though I haven’t done much about it. It finally caught up to me January 21, when I fell after having a stroke and multiple seizures. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t have the healthiest lifestyle out there, with all the bad foods and drinking. I was taken to the local emergency room and eventually transferred among three hospitals in the Dignity Health system in Phoenix. At the time I was 42 years old.
My twin brother Caesar, who is an occupational therapist at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, has been watching me like an eagle the whole way through, including the part when I was placed in a medically-induced coma for a month, and my eventual ongoing recovery. I’ve been making good progress on the recovery, as my mind has taking leaps and bounds. My body is taking longer, as I’m too weak to walk long distances and I’m mostly wheelchair and walker-bound. It should all come back as my core recovers (not that I habitually work my core out). I’m getting discharged from the hospital today, and I’ll be staying at my brother’s place for a couple months-plus while I get the walking part down. During that time, you may see me more active on the blog and on Twitter as I’ve been this week. I’ll be doing that until I’m cleared to work again.
When I emerged from the coma, my body had atrophied so much I had a hard time moving in my bed. For the first week, I thought I was in better condition than I actually was, leading me to have a couple of accidents in my hospital room, one involving me kissing the business end of a commode when I tried to stand up. I eventually was restrained until I calmed down and was transferred to Barrow, the Neuro Rehab side of this sprawling complex. There I got some religion and have been nice, compliant patient ever since.
The lengthy hospital stay is likely to incur massive bills, so I’m going to refer you to the YouCaring Page that was set up on my behalf to help defray the costs. Hopefully existing insurance and ACA will help with some of that as well. I was working for a small startup business when the accident occurred, and they decided to let me go last week as it was getting too expensive and the timeline for my return was still unknown. (Arizona is an “at will” employment state.)
I expect to come back the Bay Area for an A’s series or two in the summer. I hope to meet many of you (again in many cases) when I do. You may notice that I have stopped drinking, as I need to do that on doctor’s orders, to prevent any adverse drug interactions, and because, frankly, it’s time for me to do so. I’m also considered a mild Type 2 diabetic, so I have to watch that, although my treatment for that isn’t nearly as invasive as you might think.
If you have already contributed, thank you very much. To those who are going to do so, thank you all for your support. If you questions about what I went through, comment below.
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P.S. – Thanks to the great team at Barrow, Select, St. Joe’s, and Scottsdale-Osborn for your patience and professionalism. I’ll be back sometime, hopefully walking in and joking around.
P.P.S – Additional thanks to my family, including both of my brothers who have been kicking my ass during recovering, my sister-in-law Andrea who has witnessed some of my rehab up close (and is expecting in a few months), and my various cousins and other relatives who have been sending support from afar.
newballpark.org 
Long time reader, first time poster. Terrible to hear of your accident, but good news that you are on the road to recovery. Hopefully this blog and community you have created will be a boon in the healing process.
I’m just so happy (and relieved) to see that you’re on the road to recovery, and that you’re blogging and tweeting again.
It’s really good to have you back, and healthy enough to resume your writing activities.
When I was a kid (in my 50’s today), I would listen to older folks often say “All you have is your health” or some variation of that saying, back then I would always wonder exactly what they meant by it, because after all we do have more than our health theoretically. (most of us)
Anyway, after living over five decades I truly understand, and appreciate what they meant by it. Continue to get well ML.
I really feel for you, I went 3 days without being able to swallow anything, I went to the er, they took my blood pressure at reception, the next thing I knew I was on a gurney looking at the lights having a stroke. I was going to wait an hour before I went to the er because I wanted to watch the season final of Tru calling, but I had just got a dvr 2 days earlier, and right before it started I remembered I could record it. That 1 minute I saved probably saved my life, I started the recording at 7:59, 1 minute later I would have stayed home and watched it, I went down at about 8:20, I would have been home alone
Dosent the Port of Oakland own JLS?
If so, they should be willing to lease HT to the A’s for the some of one dollar for the first 25 years. There are a lot of people other then the A’s that would benefit economicly if a ballpark was in that location, they need to start acting like it.
Sorry, meant that last comment for the post befor this one.
Get well soon!!!
Glad to see that you are on the mend, ML. We’ve never met but I feel like I’ve known you by faithfully following your blog for 10+ years. I have to admit I was stunned when I first heard the news of your health. I did contribute to your health fund and hope to meet you in person someday at an A’s game. Until then, here’s to a speedy recovery.
Thanks Bill to you and all who have contributed. There’s more to come.
Glad to know you are on the road to recovery. I have been “follower” of your writings on New Ballpark for many years and was saddened when I initially heard about your illness. Again, glad to have you back.
Just catching up with this post — so sorry that you’ve had to go through all this, but glad you’re on the road to recovery. (A friend of mine had a stroke at a similar age, and while it took a few months for him to be 100% again, he got there.) Looking forward to having both you and the site back at full strength in the near future.
Neil – I’m on my way back. Thank you for the kind thoughts.
Get well soon, ML! Stay strong.