I spent last Friday and Saturday in the hospital and that has turned this week into a long bout of catching up and getting myself back in rhythm. It probably wasn’t a big deal, so we haven’t made much of it here at CiRCE, but I do feel I owe an explanation and that I should prevent this from growing into more than it was. So here’s the story.
On Thursday night somewhere around 11:30 or 12:00, I had one of those things they call episodes in the novels. Briefly, I developed a blind spot through my eyes and I gradually lost coherence. I couldn’t read and I couldn’t remember very basic facts. When my wife, Karen, noticed that I was becoming more incoherent than normal she insisted we go to the hospital, so my kids loaded up the Kernmobile and drove me over.
The long and short of it is that after an MRI, EKG, electro something else or other, EEG, and lots of temperature and blood pressure checks, they were unable to find anything where my brain was expected to be. Also, my blood pressure is great and apart from my ailment collection I’m in great health.
It took until Saturday afternoon to find all this out.
Of course, I’ve received plenty of suggestions from people about what might have caused it, ranging from sodium to stress (what’s that?) to stroke to seizure (which I guess isn’t much of a range, is it? – so, st, st, se). The doctor was quite clear that there could be any number of explanations, but we can’t know what it was. So I’m not going to worry about it.
I would appreciate your prayers, however, in two areas. I’m rather concerned about the medical expenses and am praying that they’ll be manageable. And I do want my brain to keep working more or less properly. I have been very, very tired all week and I suspect that’s just because of the resort visit over the weekend. But the demands of work don’t really slow down. So if you think of me and/or CiRCE, I’d be grateful for prayers for my health. To live is Christ and to die is gain. While I’m living, I’d like to be serviceable.
But please don’t treat this as any more than it is. People have experiences like this all the time; I just didn’t want stories to grow in the circulation. Thus this perhaps unnecessary post.
Thanks for your prayers and kindness.