About my absence

By Nicholas Stix
I had a stroke on January 14th. However, I didn’t seek treatment for it until Monday, March 4th.

I could “explain” why, but much of it would explain nothing. However, one of what I consider the stroke’s most striking aspects was that it was not a bolt out of the blue. Far from it.

Actually, it was an extraordinarily slow-developing stroke. Consider that about 12 years ago, The Boss told me, “Just start your sentences; I’ll finish them.”

After all, we’ve been reading each other’s minds, and finishing each other’s sentences for about forever. That can be dangerous!

On November 8, I was walking on the boulevard. From the other side of the street, a complete stranger calls out to me. It’s an old lady (say 60), wearing a light blue, kung flu mugger’s mask, walking leaning on a black tubular, steel prescription cane. She calls out,

Her: Are you o.k.?

Me: I’m on my way to my doctor.

Her: I hope you make it.

And she wasn’t unique. Maybe I need to trade in my official doctors for a bunch of strangers on the street.

I spent parts of three days, Monday through Wednesday, in the city hospital in Coney Island (for a total of 49 hours), Brooklyn, because it’s much bigger than the hospital out here, and has a cardiac unit.

“And there’s Uncle Joe, he’s a movin’ kinda slow, at the Junction, Petticoat Junction!”