Good morning

3/21/07 Wednesday
Good morning folks. Cherie couldn’t get to sleep last night so got up and went to the office to piddle around. I was exhausted and had long since announced that I was going to slip into slumber. After she got up I ended up wide awake. By the time she came back I was on this laptop updating the blog I had earlier decided to put off till the next morning (this morning). I was up till two this morning.

Of course I have the standard pain I usually wake up with but the consequences of the physical work of the last few days are added to that. No big deal for me. I’ve endured pain of one type or another pretty much most of my life. The pain pills are a big help with this.

I’ve noticed, as I go back and read this journal, that I haven’t been having many slowdowns lately. That’s the way it usually goes. These things seem to run in patterns like the ebb and flow of the tide. They start back up slow and increase in frequency and severity for a week or a month or so, then reside again. It would be nice to find a way to stop these petite seizures all together. That is why I have requested to be looked at by the neurology department of the VA. I’ll have to travel to Albuquerque because that is where the nearest neurologist department is. Hope we can afford to go when it happens. Right now we are down to our last twenty dollars and that has to last us till the end of the month, about ten days. That money includes the three hundred dollar overdraft protection on the bank account. It costs thirty dollars to tap into it and we are using it like a thirty day loan. It’ll be paid off when we get my disability check.

Today I will finish filling the septic tank hole back in. The next thing on my to do list will be to load the trailer with all the stuff we must store. That will free up my garage which will give me the room to make Cherie’s sewing tables. I need to buy hinges for that job but it will have to wait till the check comes.

It looks like a great day out there though the weather man said there was a chance of thunderstorms and hail. Hail we have yet to experience here in West Texas. It is not uncommon out here. I wanted to build a carport to protect the vehicles from potential damage but that was when we expected to have twenty thousand in cash from the estate. Not going to happen now, at least not for a while.

Cherie fixed me a bowl of oatmeal, which I have forgotten about till this moment. When you don’t feel the sensation of hunger it is easy to forget to eat, at least for me. That is why I try to eat by the clock. Not feeling hunger was an advantage when I was wandering homeless and was lucky to get a dollar hamburger a day. Now it’s just another symptom of the brain injury I must compensate for.

Time to get moving.

1:36 – Here is how far I’ve gotten refilling the hole. I know it seems like a lot of work but I don’t regret it. Good exercise. I wanted to make sure there was no danger of someone falling through and was greatly relieved to see that it was still good. I don’t know how much rot is in the railroad ties though there is certainly some that was visible on the surface. It stunk, I was tired, so the hell with close examination, I’m covering it up. I know that this old tank will need to be reworked and sucked out sometime in the future but it’s working now so I ain’t gonna mess with it.

Right now I’m taking a break. I went in with the idea of laying down for a while to relax the back but quickly discarded that idea. I’m sweating so bad that it’s dripping off my forehead much less my back being soaked. It don’t take much for that to happen with me. Anyway, there was no way I was going to lay this sweaty head that was soppy again moments after being wiped with a towel on my pillows, much less the blankets. There are so many toxins this body is exuding through the sweat that it is unpleasant smell wise. That’s being nice.

So I decided to go back outside where there is a breeze that quickly cools one down when it hits the wet. Oh yeah. Here’s the chair under the pecan tree. I always try to keep a chair near wherever I’m working. Notice the chair way in the back. That is where the corn is planted so I dragged that heavy rascal from the front yard. It had ended up there when we cleaned the bus. I figure I’ll be doing allot of work in this corn so the chair will probably be there a long time.

OK, back on subject. Right now I am sitting in the shade of the old pecan tree. There are no leaves but the branches still provide some relief from the sun. I can’t wait to see this place leaf out, turn green, come to life. Think of the wonder and awe a child experiences when seeing something for the first time and you can taste a little of what this is for me. Since I woke from the coma life consisted of a long series of “Firsts”. So much memory was gone that much of what I experienced was as if I had never done it before. Imagine tasting chocolate for the first time. And tiramisu, and so many other things. A lot of these first time experiences are from visual and taste memories.

Point is this will be the first spring I’ve experienced in West Texas, so to speak. Haven’t been here in twenty five years on top of that. How do I describe this….It’s like being born again. Not in the Christian sense, though there are some neat parallels, but in the sense that much of the world is only six years old to me for that is how long it is since I woke up from the coma.

The born again analogy holds true all the way back to the moment I started coming out of the coma. I had to be fed, I had to have my diapers changed, then I was taught how to talk and walk. Then I had to learn everything else all over again. Things like social skills. Because of the Asberger’s my social skills have never been good but there is more to that. All of you react to people and situations based on your past history and experiences. These memories are a vital part of your ability to judge people or situations and without them you can be an easy victim.

So I’ve been learning about the world since I woke up. Perhaps I could call that time period A.C. as in “After Coma”. Everything before the coma could be called “B.C.”. Isn’t that cute. Probably won’t happen. I’m rested up so back to shoveling.