2025 Was the Worst Year of My Life (A Wacky, Funtime Retrospective!)
Without exaggeration or mincing words, 2025 was objectively the worst year of my
life. Let's all laugh at me and my misfortune, shortly before the calendar
blessedly turns.
It is the first day of the new year, and I wake up in the guestroom of my ex-wife's house after celebrating New Year's Eve with her and my son. Today, I am moving back out to my home parish, the greatest parish in all of Louisiana and even the world, Pointe Coupee, the land where three mighty rivers meet and divide. Home. Where I grew up and spent most of my favorite years of my life. I've already packed and loaded up my stuff, and I have my cousin and brother coming to help me. I am moving into my grandparents' old house in the country, a house where I have only good memories--the old folks died during my 80s childhood, and since then, the house has been home to dozens of renters, including some family members--but I intend to stay for life, surely a long time. I mean, I am 43 years old what's the worst that could happen? The second my ex-wife asked for a divorce in early 2024, I knew I'd be moving back out here to spend the rest of my days. I say goodbye to my teenaged son, promising him I'll have his new room ready ASAP. The majority of the rest of the month is a comedy of errors, if that comedy was written by Satan himself, as he plucks strings of garlic from his teeth, after angrily smiting scores of demons for failing to guess that him hopping around and itching was supposed to represent The Black Death. Before smiting them, he said, his red face flustered, "Remember? With the fleas? You don't remember?! We killed like half the world?! Goddammit! Die, you idiots!" Then he takes a big bite of garlic. At least, that's how I picture the story of the rest of my January being written.
First there is the bed. We stop by the bed warehouse, to pick up the bed I'd already paid for, only to find no one there. I call the bed company's corporate office, only to find that they mistakenly scheduled me on a holiday, and that my bed would have to be shipped to my house, later that week. Then there is the television. My brother and I lift the new television set I'd bought from Best Buy out of the box, only to find that the screen is shattered. Best Buy say they'l give me a full refund or an exchange, though they no longer stock that TV...but they do have the next model up, which costs almost twice as much. I had planned to watch the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at my house with my son, as we do every year, to bring a sense of normalcy, so I spend money I do not have on the nicer television. To be positive here, it is a very nice television, and I have enjoyed it very much this year, especially considering there was a long portion of the year when watching it was all I could do. Then, there's the dryer. A dryer that my ex-wife and I shared that had broke. I shelled out $80 to fix it, only to find upon arrival that the power outlet at the new house does not match it--hey, it's like if my ex-wife was an outlet, and I was a dryer! I have to have the outlet changed, which I unfortunately could not do with my ex-wife, though I guess she got a new dryer. Sad whomp whomp. And while my brother and I lift the dryer from the truck to bring it into the house, my phone vibrates--it's my ex-wife, who has decided that now is the best time to let me know she has had a dryer, I mean boyfriend for the last four months. That's fine. We have been separated for eight months at this point, and I'd already figured this out. But timing. Anyway, the repaired dryer breaks the next day after being used once, and I have to buy a new one.
So, for the first days at my new house, I have no bed, dryer, or television, and I have to keep calling my boss at work to take time off because the house just keeps being more and more of a project than I anticipated. Also, the ventilation ducts and...vents...ventilation vents?...that sounds weird, ventilation vents are clogged all the way through with thick black mold, so I have to have that remediated and can't run the heater, so naturally, though I am in South Louisiana, the temperatures get down to freezing every night. Thankfully, I find a vent cleaner a week or so in, and my very blood-related landlords take care of it, then have their own vents cleaned, which isn't a metaphor. They also help me paint and fix up the house, which feels barely livable for the first few weeks I am there. So, after building up a huge moving and new furniture debt, sleeping on the couch with no heat, if I sleep at all, staying up all night painting rooms and putting furniture and appliances together, I am able to at least get my cat and dog over to the house, and eventually, for a few days at least, my son, though many, many of my boxes remain unpacked, which probably also works as a metaphor. I also, somehow, keep training for the Louisiana Marathon, which is the 19th of the month. I had decided the previous year that I'd still run the full 2025 Marathon, using my negative life situation as power fuel during training.
Finally the race comes. My half-marathon running sister and I decided to hit the port-a-potties before the race, and for some reason this year (this was my eighth full marathon), the potty lines were exceedingly long. Spellcheck doesn't recognize the word "potty." No wonder we have never achieved world peace.
January (By far, the longest month)
It is the first day of the new year, and I wake up in the guestroom of my ex-wife's house after celebrating New Year's Eve with her and my son. Today, I am moving back out to my home parish, the greatest parish in all of Louisiana and even the world, Pointe Coupee, the land where three mighty rivers meet and divide. Home. Where I grew up and spent most of my favorite years of my life. I've already packed and loaded up my stuff, and I have my cousin and brother coming to help me. I am moving into my grandparents' old house in the country, a house where I have only good memories--the old folks died during my 80s childhood, and since then, the house has been home to dozens of renters, including some family members--but I intend to stay for life, surely a long time. I mean, I am 43 years old what's the worst that could happen? The second my ex-wife asked for a divorce in early 2024, I knew I'd be moving back out here to spend the rest of my days. I say goodbye to my teenaged son, promising him I'll have his new room ready ASAP. The majority of the rest of the month is a comedy of errors, if that comedy was written by Satan himself, as he plucks strings of garlic from his teeth, after angrily smiting scores of demons for failing to guess that him hopping around and itching was supposed to represent The Black Death. Before smiting them, he said, his red face flustered, "Remember? With the fleas? You don't remember?! We killed like half the world?! Goddammit! Die, you idiots!" Then he takes a big bite of garlic. At least, that's how I picture the story of the rest of my January being written.
First there is the bed. We stop by the bed warehouse, to pick up the bed I'd already paid for, only to find no one there. I call the bed company's corporate office, only to find that they mistakenly scheduled me on a holiday, and that my bed would have to be shipped to my house, later that week. Then there is the television. My brother and I lift the new television set I'd bought from Best Buy out of the box, only to find that the screen is shattered. Best Buy say they'l give me a full refund or an exchange, though they no longer stock that TV...but they do have the next model up, which costs almost twice as much. I had planned to watch the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at my house with my son, as we do every year, to bring a sense of normalcy, so I spend money I do not have on the nicer television. To be positive here, it is a very nice television, and I have enjoyed it very much this year, especially considering there was a long portion of the year when watching it was all I could do. Then, there's the dryer. A dryer that my ex-wife and I shared that had broke. I shelled out $80 to fix it, only to find upon arrival that the power outlet at the new house does not match it--hey, it's like if my ex-wife was an outlet, and I was a dryer! I have to have the outlet changed, which I unfortunately could not do with my ex-wife, though I guess she got a new dryer. Sad whomp whomp. And while my brother and I lift the dryer from the truck to bring it into the house, my phone vibrates--it's my ex-wife, who has decided that now is the best time to let me know she has had a dryer, I mean boyfriend for the last four months. That's fine. We have been separated for eight months at this point, and I'd already figured this out. But timing. Anyway, the repaired dryer breaks the next day after being used once, and I have to buy a new one.
So, for the first days at my new house, I have no bed, dryer, or television, and I have to keep calling my boss at work to take time off because the house just keeps being more and more of a project than I anticipated. Also, the ventilation ducts and...vents...ventilation vents?...that sounds weird, ventilation vents are clogged all the way through with thick black mold, so I have to have that remediated and can't run the heater, so naturally, though I am in South Louisiana, the temperatures get down to freezing every night. Thankfully, I find a vent cleaner a week or so in, and my very blood-related landlords take care of it, then have their own vents cleaned, which isn't a metaphor. They also help me paint and fix up the house, which feels barely livable for the first few weeks I am there. So, after building up a huge moving and new furniture debt, sleeping on the couch with no heat, if I sleep at all, staying up all night painting rooms and putting furniture and appliances together, I am able to at least get my cat and dog over to the house, and eventually, for a few days at least, my son, though many, many of my boxes remain unpacked, which probably also works as a metaphor. I also, somehow, keep training for the Louisiana Marathon, which is the 19th of the month. I had decided the previous year that I'd still run the full 2025 Marathon, using my negative life situation as power fuel during training.
Finally the race comes. My half-marathon running sister and I decided to hit the port-a-potties before the race, and for some reason this year (this was my eighth full marathon), the potty lines were exceedingly long. Spellcheck doesn't recognize the word "potty." No wonder we have never achieved world peace.
My sister and I miss the start of the race (the half and full racers run
together until the half racers turn toward the finish line about 11 miles
in), and I spend the first few miles angrily passing people, which ends up
working out great, as I somehow set, by a large margin, a new personal time
for a marathon by the end. My sister and her family met me at the finish
line, along with my mom and my son, and for the first time I get my medal
engraved with my time, which was really swell. My son and I then eat gallons
of gumbo and jambalaya at the marathon finish festival, and it is glorious,
and I think the only reason my son shows up to the race every year. He is
now slated to stay with me for a full week, and the next night we watch the
college football championship game between two teams we don't particularly
care for. However, it then snows from Satan's dandruff-packed,
garlic-scented armpits, an unseasonable, record-breaking snow that traps us
inside all week. This is not the fun kind of snow we usually get every five
or six years where it kind of sleets, then melts the next day, so the week
ends up being a bit of a bummer. The snow finally melts that weekend, and I
go back to my normal role of LSU Chapel on the Campus bass player, which I
usually take off from in the fall and early winter to train for the
marathon. My son goes back to my ex-wife's place (my old house) that Sunday.
I'd had a blowout argument with her the week before, where I'd totally lost
my cool with her for the first time, something I'd never done in our 18
years of marriage, but I strongly disagreed with a decision she'd made, and
found it necessary. Immediately after that argument, I told my mom, "Mom, I
feel like I'm going to have a stroke." That Sunday night, at home with just
my cat (and dog outside, where she prefers), first full week back at work
slated for the week ahead, I sit on my couch to watch the film
Amadeus for my podcast. 3/4 of the way through the movie, I sneeze. I
don't really remember anything significant about that sneeze, other than it
felt like someone shot me in the neck. The pain does not subside the next
day, though I still go to work. That night, I accidentally drop a pile of
plates on my foot, and beg the Lord that I don't have a broken toe--I'd
never broken a bone in my life. Somehow, nothing seems broken, but boy does
my neck and head hurt. I keep thinking the pain will go away, but it just
won't. That night, I record a podcast episode through the pain (I'm happy to
say, despite circumstances, I haven't missed recording an episode this
year), and work from home the next day, take care of errands on my lunch
break, but the pain never subsides. I finally decided to go for a walk and
talk to my sister just beforehand. I think I've pulled a muscle or
something, and my sister, being a Physical Therapist Assistant, suggests
dry-needle therapy. I then walk down a long country road, think a maybe a
walk will heal me, but about two miles in, I suddenly feel weak. Suddenly,
with little warning, my left side goes completely numb and I can't swallow.
I say something to myself, but my voice sounds wrong. I turn around, and
though I feel as if I may lose consciousness at any second, walk as fast as
I can to a dry patch of dirt on the side of the road, call my dad, and say,
"I know this is weird, but I need you to pick me up. There is something
wrong with me." I just think I am dehydrated or something, but when I try to drink water
at my parents' house, it just shoots right back up, like my throat is sealed
shut. "I think I need to go to the emergency room," I tell my worried
parents. "Now! Well..after I call my insurance to make sure we go to the right
hospital."
After a worrisome drive where I hold a bowl to spit in and text prayer requests to several of the more religious people I know, we make it to the emergency room, and I tell the receptionist I think I am having a stroke. That is definitely the magic word at the emergency room because I get to skip everyone in front of me and go right back. They ask me a bunch of questions and run a bunch of tests on me, but then put me in a room, alone, hooked up to a bunch of electrodes, and leave me there for hours. My mom stays with me, but after a few hours, I go stir crazy and try to rip off all the electrodes and monitors and IV, much to my mother's objections. I then try to chug the glass of water next to me, only for it to Vesuvius out of me to such a violent degree, I apologize to my mother, and put all the electrodes and things back where they were. No one at the hospital has any idea what may be happening to me (the doctor on call says "maybe it's an atypical migraine"), but finally, after many hours, I am brought up to a hospital room, where I stay for most of the next week. At some point early in the morning, the neurologist on call asks if I'd had a bad sneeze or anything like that lately. I say "yes" and he says that, based on imagery, it looks like I have experienced a very rare form of medullary stroke, randomly caused by a sneeze. Thanks, Satan.
February
The first week of February is unremarkable, other than the fact that I spend it strapped to a hospital bed, no feeling on my left side, without the ability to swallow. I find out really quickly who actually cares about me, as family and friends pour into the hospital room, and several people, including some of my ex-brother and sister in-laws, stay the night in my room, watching over me as I hack, cough, spit, and rarely sleep. Eventually, a tube is put up my nose and down my stomach to feed me, which feels terrible, like a tube is put up my nose and down my stomach. Several days in, the tube is thankfully removed, and a tube is placed directly into my stomach, where formula can be externally fed. I come to hate this tube, but admittedly, it keeps me alive for the next three months. It's a rad tube.
After a worrisome drive where I hold a bowl to spit in and text prayer requests to several of the more religious people I know, we make it to the emergency room, and I tell the receptionist I think I am having a stroke. That is definitely the magic word at the emergency room because I get to skip everyone in front of me and go right back. They ask me a bunch of questions and run a bunch of tests on me, but then put me in a room, alone, hooked up to a bunch of electrodes, and leave me there for hours. My mom stays with me, but after a few hours, I go stir crazy and try to rip off all the electrodes and monitors and IV, much to my mother's objections. I then try to chug the glass of water next to me, only for it to Vesuvius out of me to such a violent degree, I apologize to my mother, and put all the electrodes and things back where they were. No one at the hospital has any idea what may be happening to me (the doctor on call says "maybe it's an atypical migraine"), but finally, after many hours, I am brought up to a hospital room, where I stay for most of the next week. At some point early in the morning, the neurologist on call asks if I'd had a bad sneeze or anything like that lately. I say "yes" and he says that, based on imagery, it looks like I have experienced a very rare form of medullary stroke, randomly caused by a sneeze. Thanks, Satan.
February
The first week of February is unremarkable, other than the fact that I spend it strapped to a hospital bed, no feeling on my left side, without the ability to swallow. I find out really quickly who actually cares about me, as family and friends pour into the hospital room, and several people, including some of my ex-brother and sister in-laws, stay the night in my room, watching over me as I hack, cough, spit, and rarely sleep. Eventually, a tube is put up my nose and down my stomach to feed me, which feels terrible, like a tube is put up my nose and down my stomach. Several days in, the tube is thankfully removed, and a tube is placed directly into my stomach, where formula can be externally fed. I come to hate this tube, but admittedly, it keeps me alive for the next three months. It's a rad tube.
I try several swallowing tests, but unlike your mom, I fail all of them
miserably. I cannot even swallow my own spit. The only good thing is that,
though I had to have a million needles in my arm, I can request them all be
placed in my left arm, where I can't feel them at all. I start taking
showers, which are awful, as the feeling of hot water hitting my left side
can best be described as "gray." Still, because of years of strengthening my
mind through the discipline required to run eight marathons, overcome the
diagnosed PTSD of my younger years (ain't no room to go into that here,
insert a sarcastic "Boohoo, poor you!" I guess), and manage the dissolution
of my 18-year marriage, along with my religious convictions, I am met with a
"Wow, you have the best attitude of any patient in this hospital!"
from all the hospital workers, generally after they say, "Wow, we had no idea that could happen to someone, and now we are all
scared to sneeze!" Thanks to the great care of the Baton Rouge General, I am finally allowed
to go home, though we have no idea how to care for me, and don't even have
formula to feed me for more than the next few days due to an insurance hold
up, which is ended when I call them and outright state, "Why are you trying to kill me? Why do you want me to die?"
A few minutes after returning home, I realize my tear ducts no longer work. When my parents and aunt bring me home, I find that my poor cat, who'd had to move with me a few weeks earlier, is terrified and hiding under the bed in my son's room. I call him, but he will only sadly meow at me. I suddenly realize that with my condition and the new feeding tube, I can't hunch down and get under the bed. So I sit on the floor and start talking to him about how messed up I am, and feel the emotions and sensations that will generally precipitate crying, but am dismayed and a little shocked to find that my tear ducts have been broken by the stroke (the left one has since started working again...also I mostly only sweat from that side now...weird). Eventually, the cat comes out from under the bed and I haven't been able to get him away from me since. I settle into my easier chair home, feeding tube taped to my stomach, turn on my television, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is beginning, so I watch. When the film reaches the transformation scene, where a severely damaged and emotionally ruined Anakin finds himself in his awful new mechanized body, I feel the sensations and emotions that should go with crying again. I usually identify with Luke Skywalker, but now I identify with Darth Vader.
I spend the rest of the month in a medical haze. It sucks. I can't eat or drink or hardly even move around. As I said, my cat won't leave my side. I barely see my son. All I can really do is watch TV and movies and play video games, which in retrospect is kind of cool, if it wasn't surrounded by my mom having to feed me through my alien-like stomach tube as if I am a baby three times a day, and the unending, horrific pain in my head, stomach, and everywhere, coupled with my inability to complete most tasks or leave my house of my own ability. Thankfully, I now live close to my parents, and my mom is able to stay the night the first few weeks. She recently sent me my medication sheet from February as a reminder of how far I have come, and it is half the length of War and Peace, and twice the tragedy. Many visitors ask if all the marathon running caused my stroke. However, medical professionals tell me if I was not in such great shape at the time of the stroke, I might have had facial drooping, or lost mobility on my numb side.
March
Hope is a rare thing, and I hold onto it like a giant eagle's talon, as I overlook a craggy, volcanic landscape five miles below. I still can't swallow my own spit. I still can't feel anything on my left side. My son comments when he comes over that there are still boxes everywhere, and thankfully, outside of the pain and issues caused by the stomach tube, my mobility isn't severely affected by the stroke and I can get around okay, so I start to unpack some of those, and move the rest out of sight into an office. My son had come over for the Super Bowl the last month with his mom (who broke up with the first boyfriend, and is on a break from men before she starts dating the second a few months later), and ate chicken wings--they smell good and I wish I can eat them...the chicken wings, not my ex-wife's boyfriends.
A few minutes after returning home, I realize my tear ducts no longer work. When my parents and aunt bring me home, I find that my poor cat, who'd had to move with me a few weeks earlier, is terrified and hiding under the bed in my son's room. I call him, but he will only sadly meow at me. I suddenly realize that with my condition and the new feeding tube, I can't hunch down and get under the bed. So I sit on the floor and start talking to him about how messed up I am, and feel the emotions and sensations that will generally precipitate crying, but am dismayed and a little shocked to find that my tear ducts have been broken by the stroke (the left one has since started working again...also I mostly only sweat from that side now...weird). Eventually, the cat comes out from under the bed and I haven't been able to get him away from me since. I settle into my easier chair home, feeding tube taped to my stomach, turn on my television, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is beginning, so I watch. When the film reaches the transformation scene, where a severely damaged and emotionally ruined Anakin finds himself in his awful new mechanized body, I feel the sensations and emotions that should go with crying again. I usually identify with Luke Skywalker, but now I identify with Darth Vader.
I spend the rest of the month in a medical haze. It sucks. I can't eat or drink or hardly even move around. As I said, my cat won't leave my side. I barely see my son. All I can really do is watch TV and movies and play video games, which in retrospect is kind of cool, if it wasn't surrounded by my mom having to feed me through my alien-like stomach tube as if I am a baby three times a day, and the unending, horrific pain in my head, stomach, and everywhere, coupled with my inability to complete most tasks or leave my house of my own ability. Thankfully, I now live close to my parents, and my mom is able to stay the night the first few weeks. She recently sent me my medication sheet from February as a reminder of how far I have come, and it is half the length of War and Peace, and twice the tragedy. Many visitors ask if all the marathon running caused my stroke. However, medical professionals tell me if I was not in such great shape at the time of the stroke, I might have had facial drooping, or lost mobility on my numb side.
March
Hope is a rare thing, and I hold onto it like a giant eagle's talon, as I overlook a craggy, volcanic landscape five miles below. I still can't swallow my own spit. I still can't feel anything on my left side. My son comments when he comes over that there are still boxes everywhere, and thankfully, outside of the pain and issues caused by the stomach tube, my mobility isn't severely affected by the stroke and I can get around okay, so I start to unpack some of those, and move the rest out of sight into an office. My son had come over for the Super Bowl the last month with his mom (who broke up with the first boyfriend, and is on a break from men before she starts dating the second a few months later), and ate chicken wings--they smell good and I wish I can eat them...the chicken wings, not my ex-wife's boyfriends.
I am finally able to take care of myself enough that my mom doesn't have to
stay the night anymore, so for Mardi Gras break, my son finally spends a
couple of nights at my house again. Mardi Gras is the day my hope briefly
turns to anger. I miss the New Roads Mardi Gras parade for the first time in
14 years...it is one of my favorite occasions. Without me there to
decisively and assertively lead things, apparently the parade isn't as fun
for everyone. My son is bummed out by how things go. Then, that night, I
wakeup to take some pain pills, step in my hall, and almost slip in a giant
puddle. I turn on the light and am dismayed to find that my entire hallway
and office are flooded. I call my parents in a panic, they come over, and we
get the water out. Unfortunately, the boxes I moved in the office, some of
which contain dear items which are 30-40 years old, are destroyed. The cause
seems to be an overflowing toilet, which we fix. I feel bad for my son. I
feel like every time he comes here, there is some sort of disaster, none
bigger than myself. My parents leave, my son goes to bed, and I angrily get
back in my own. However, when I bitterly slam my head into the pillow, I
feel like I swallow just a little bit of spit.
For the past few weeks, a red-haired girl named Coco has been coming to my house, armed with electrodes that she puts on my throat. She shocks me while I try to swallow. She tells me to let her know when the shocks become uncomfortable, but I tell her that I am essentially a psychotic person who came to terms a long time ago that I can endure any pain if I know something won't kill me or seriously injure me--this is how I have run eight marathons. I have to bring a spit cup everywhere I go, since I cannot swallow my own saliva. I start teaching my son to drive, as he is turning 16 later in the year, but I have to bring my spit cup with us, as I have him go up and down the driveway, while I hack, cough, and spit. Hopefully this properly prepares him to drive a car in Louisiana.
I tell Coco that I think I feel like I might be getting close to swallowing again, and she has me add ice cubes to the countless swallowing exercises I perform throughout my day. Eating is one of my most treasured activities. I get emotional about food, and missing the entirety of kingcake season was a tragedy. I am determined to eat again. I add the ice and swear that I am swallowing just a little bit of melted water from it. Eventually, after having failed to swallow water countless times (Just realized that I could have probably set a breathing under water record during this period! Oh well, I don't want to go back to find out!), I gain the courage to grab one of my little measuring cups and drink a little water from it. I am overjoyed when I get a little down. I get too enthusiastic with the next sip, and a bunch shoots back out, but I don't care. I've made major progress. I immediately tell my parents, who have gone through the trauma of seeing their prized oldest child be struck down in his prime both personally and physically over the last few months, and they are extremely excited. Coco starts ramping up my exercises. Eventually, she has me try to eat applesauce and pudding. I can do it, albeit slowly and with much difficulty...but it is something! This leads to one of the most optimistic and enjoyable periods of the year. I very slowly start to ramp up my eating and drinking. At the same time, I feel some of the brain fog leaving. I watch a lot of movies, play a lot of video games, but now I am enjoying them more because I can eat a little when I watch them, and I feel like there is real, tangible hope for the future. I even go on short walks outside. I am able to grab some things, including boxes of old, unlabeled VHS tapes from my parents' house, and I watch and label them--this is my definition of fun, and I lament that I never finished the project. Maybe next year, hopefully under different circumstances.. My great boss at my great job insists that things are covered, and that I take all the months to recover that I need. I was never really sick much in the previous decade, so I have hundreds upon hundreds of sick hours to use. I stay up late listening to music and watching movies and I feel so hopeful and magnificent.
There are setbacks, of course. I go too hard on the eating, and almost choke a few times. I still have to supplement with formula. But I have to rely on my parents less and less, and can more easily take care of my son. He starts to stay every weekend.
April
The hopeful times continue. I start taking long walks around the family farm (I even drive across the state and go on a hike), eating more, doing more of the things I like, just at a slightly muted level. I can drive just fine, and now I don't have to constantly spit, though I still have to take my spit tube with me in the car--at first, back in my March, I couldn't stay in a store long without having to spit, but this is starting to fade. My son is now heavily into Pokémon cards, and I get back into an old hobby to bond with him, collecting sports cards--mostly baseball, which I already covered in this piece linked here. I even start watching baseball again. After a couple false starts, I realize that my stomach does not want the formula food anymore (I throw up every time I use the feeding tube) and I decide I will absolutely not use the feeding tube again. I go to the movies again (Sinners), and find that I barely have to get up to cough anymore. I even...eat popcorn! My mom and I go to a "genius" neurologist who ends up being a completely non-helpful jackass. He doesn't help at all and only tells me discouraging things, set off by the marathon shirt I am wearing. He is supposed to run imaging to see if the stroke site is healing, but he doesn't--I guess he really, really hates running. Instead, he just acts like a discouraging jackass. This only gives me more fuel. I, probably unwisely, throw the eating rules I've been given in the trash, and start eating everything. Coco is impressed, and has a swallowing test run on me. I don't show enough promise to have the feeding tube removed the first time, but I do on the second, and get permission to finally have the thing removed from my stomach. I get it pulled out (While awake! Ouch!), then meet my cousin Adrian to see the rerelease of Revenge of the Sith for its 20th anniversary, which feels quite significant on that particular day, given the new meaning the film gained for me months before. I bleed through the bandages on my stomach as I eat popcorn and cough, but eventually the spot closes up and heals, though it never goes away, and I still look like I have two belly buttons to this day.
May
I am possibly full of more hope than I have ever had in my life. I go to my favorite pizza place and eat pizza again while reading Hemingway. I eat ice cream sandwiches. The doctor tells me to take another couple weeks off work. I finally start working again, but only from home a few hours a day, then I drink coffee and eat cookies and watch a movie. What a life. With the stomach tube now out, I might even be able to run again. And then it happens. One night, I am walking to get something from the closet, and I ding my right pinkie toe on the closet door and it just goes painfully crooked and immediately turns black. With a horror, I realize that my lifelong broken bone-free streak has ended--ironic, given my relief during the stroke that the broken bowls didn't break my foot. Unfortunately, I am not unbreakable. What a horrible revelation. I drive to the after hours clinic, and the nurse looks at the X-ray and says the toe doesn't look broken, only to call me back on the way home to let me know a doctor looked at the X-ray, and my toe is definitely broken. Streak gone. Chance at running again soon...gone.
June
Thankfully, the toe starts to heal, and the previous month I had bought comfortable, wide Skechers that my ex-wife would have never let me leave the house with. Things will surely get back on track now. My son is off for summer, and we decide to head down to the Louisiana island paradise of Grand Isle. We pack up my car, and stop at the super Wal-Mart just miles from our destination. We both buy cards, and he gets hits and is telling me what they are, and I am driving down the marshy night highway without a care in the world, when some guy pulls out right in front of me, and we are in a violent car accident. My car, which I was going to give to my son, is destroyed. My airbag goes off, severely impacting my left side, which was still nearly 100% numb. The police, thanks to several witnesses, find the other guy at fault (somebody tell him that), so I am not ticketed, but we are very banged up, the car is gone, and we have to grab all our stuff, get a ride to Grand Isle, and then get picked up by my mom in the morning and taken to the emergency room--where everyone remembers me! I am tired of them! Thankfully, nothing is broken, except my toe...and my car...and any sense of invincibility I ever had. At least LSU wins the College World Series! Baseball rules.
July
I originally planned to give my car to my son on his 16th birthday and buy myself a truck. That plan has been destroyed, and I have to buy myself a truck and get him a completely different vehicle later in the year. I finally have to go back to work in person several days a week, after the fourth of July, where we successfully return to Grand Isle without incident. My office has now moved next to the campus hotel, and I go there for lunch everyday, eating in the sparsely attended lobby dining room while reading or watching something on my phone, as sad jazz music plays over the speakers, and I feel like a king. This is one of my favorite things from the year...a quiet place of rest within the maelstrom. Also, my toe heals...and I can finally run again.
August
And it's back to the grind. I work, I come home, I host my son on the weekends. I take him to his first card convention and he continues to be the luckiest person I know. Life goes on. Then one day, my cat goes to jump on my computer, I lift him into the air with my left hand, and I suddenly say, "Hey, I can kind of feel my left shoulder...and it HURTS!!!" Turns out I have extremely bad whiplash in my shoulder. I have to start going to physical therapy twice a week for it. Thankfully, the therapists are great, the techs are helpful, and my PTA is very pretty. I happen to mention that she is very pretty in front of my mom, and as she's done with the mention of any woman all year, shouts, "Ooh, is she single?!" to which I reply, "No, and she's a lot younger than me...and I am recovering from a stroke...and my life is chaos." My son then replies with his general "YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE ANOTHER KID!" This is my life. I end up in physical therapy for four months.
September
The grind continues. Work, dad, rehab, baseball cards, movies, I can eat. I visit a real neuromedical doctor's office and get some real diagnosis work started. His office wants to confirm that my stroke was caused by the sneeze, and also check to see if it is healing, since the dumbass jackass doctor didn't do that.
October (Almost the best month...)
In March, I was supposed to travel to celebrate the 40th birthday of one of my dearest friends. That didn't happen. However, as I started to recover, I told him and his girlfriend that I really wanted to drive up to see them at their house on the Yale campus, where she is getting her PhD. A few years before, I made a vow to never fly again, and in early October of 2025, I get in my new truck and drive up to Connecticut...and it is magnificent. 20 years ago, when I was only 24, I thought this would be the kind of trip I'd be frequently going on as an adult. Turns out it took me 20 years to get started, but this trip is more than worth it. I don't think anyone who hates America can still hate it after driving across it. From the backroad bayous of home, to the towering stone hills of northeast Georgia, to the misty mountains and glittering caves of Tennessee, to the majestic peaks of Virginia, to the rolling fields of Pennsylvania (where I see two Amish women in bright dress turning their plowshares in time, sun setting behind them), to the towering skyline of New York, I see it all from my truck, which is far more personal than from 35,000 feet out a plane window. I get to drive through Appalachia and New England during the autumnal foliage change--wonderful! And then I get to spend a week in a delightful old house on the Yale campus with one of my favorite people on Earth and his incredibly awesome girlfriend. We ate so much great pizza (praise the Lord, I can eat!) in the pizza capital of the world, and hiked stone hills, and ate ice cream, and went to the movies, and traveled around the state, and looked at the Halloween decorations, and went to the farmer's market, where I ate three ice cream sandwiches!, and I went on lovely runs and it was all just so great, it was very difficult to leave. Eventually I do, and then I stop at the Knoxville, Tennessee mall, and zoom with the judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana while in my truck, and I have my divorce finalized right there in that parking lot. And then I go home and get a bill from the neuromedical doctor that blows my mind, as I thought they were on insurance, and then I try to leave for work and step in a puddle in my driveway and see my lawn is flooded because my water heater is busted (thankfully, nothing inside the house is destroyed), and thankfully, with the assistance of family, all is taken care of, after the headaches. Then I watch great baseball, and start my training for the Louisiana Marathon in New Roads, and have great times, and watch a lot of horror movies, and take my nieces trick or treating, and am going to pick my son up Halloween night from a party to watch even more horror movies with him, but then he does something exceedingly stupid, and is grounded for a very long time.
November
There is a shakeup at work and I get moved to an off-campus facility. It is interesting. Goodbye hotel lunch. The LSU football team is terrible. My son and I still go to every home game, but it is one of the worst slates ever and the games are lousy--the coach is expectantly fired before the season ends. A bright spot are the New Orleans Saints. I start watching every Saints game this season after my long runs, using the second quarter for a nap, and when people raise their eyebrows that I am consistently watching such a bad team, I answer that I am getting in on the ground floor of future greatness. The Saints make a change at QB halfway through the season to Tyler Shough, and I am so sold after one game, I buy a ton of his rookie cards, including six signed ones, for almost nothing, as no one was expecting him to even play this year, and no one is watching the Saints. As of my writing this piece, he is currently in the running for Offensive Rookie of the Year, and his cards are no longer cheap. This is my favorite Saints season since the Super Bowl run in 2009/2010. I might be on hiatus from playing bass on stage, but currently, Sundays are a day to look forward to.
For the past few weeks, a red-haired girl named Coco has been coming to my house, armed with electrodes that she puts on my throat. She shocks me while I try to swallow. She tells me to let her know when the shocks become uncomfortable, but I tell her that I am essentially a psychotic person who came to terms a long time ago that I can endure any pain if I know something won't kill me or seriously injure me--this is how I have run eight marathons. I have to bring a spit cup everywhere I go, since I cannot swallow my own saliva. I start teaching my son to drive, as he is turning 16 later in the year, but I have to bring my spit cup with us, as I have him go up and down the driveway, while I hack, cough, and spit. Hopefully this properly prepares him to drive a car in Louisiana.
I tell Coco that I think I feel like I might be getting close to swallowing again, and she has me add ice cubes to the countless swallowing exercises I perform throughout my day. Eating is one of my most treasured activities. I get emotional about food, and missing the entirety of kingcake season was a tragedy. I am determined to eat again. I add the ice and swear that I am swallowing just a little bit of melted water from it. Eventually, after having failed to swallow water countless times (Just realized that I could have probably set a breathing under water record during this period! Oh well, I don't want to go back to find out!), I gain the courage to grab one of my little measuring cups and drink a little water from it. I am overjoyed when I get a little down. I get too enthusiastic with the next sip, and a bunch shoots back out, but I don't care. I've made major progress. I immediately tell my parents, who have gone through the trauma of seeing their prized oldest child be struck down in his prime both personally and physically over the last few months, and they are extremely excited. Coco starts ramping up my exercises. Eventually, she has me try to eat applesauce and pudding. I can do it, albeit slowly and with much difficulty...but it is something! This leads to one of the most optimistic and enjoyable periods of the year. I very slowly start to ramp up my eating and drinking. At the same time, I feel some of the brain fog leaving. I watch a lot of movies, play a lot of video games, but now I am enjoying them more because I can eat a little when I watch them, and I feel like there is real, tangible hope for the future. I even go on short walks outside. I am able to grab some things, including boxes of old, unlabeled VHS tapes from my parents' house, and I watch and label them--this is my definition of fun, and I lament that I never finished the project. Maybe next year, hopefully under different circumstances.. My great boss at my great job insists that things are covered, and that I take all the months to recover that I need. I was never really sick much in the previous decade, so I have hundreds upon hundreds of sick hours to use. I stay up late listening to music and watching movies and I feel so hopeful and magnificent.
There are setbacks, of course. I go too hard on the eating, and almost choke a few times. I still have to supplement with formula. But I have to rely on my parents less and less, and can more easily take care of my son. He starts to stay every weekend.
April
The hopeful times continue. I start taking long walks around the family farm (I even drive across the state and go on a hike), eating more, doing more of the things I like, just at a slightly muted level. I can drive just fine, and now I don't have to constantly spit, though I still have to take my spit tube with me in the car--at first, back in my March, I couldn't stay in a store long without having to spit, but this is starting to fade. My son is now heavily into Pokémon cards, and I get back into an old hobby to bond with him, collecting sports cards--mostly baseball, which I already covered in this piece linked here. I even start watching baseball again. After a couple false starts, I realize that my stomach does not want the formula food anymore (I throw up every time I use the feeding tube) and I decide I will absolutely not use the feeding tube again. I go to the movies again (Sinners), and find that I barely have to get up to cough anymore. I even...eat popcorn! My mom and I go to a "genius" neurologist who ends up being a completely non-helpful jackass. He doesn't help at all and only tells me discouraging things, set off by the marathon shirt I am wearing. He is supposed to run imaging to see if the stroke site is healing, but he doesn't--I guess he really, really hates running. Instead, he just acts like a discouraging jackass. This only gives me more fuel. I, probably unwisely, throw the eating rules I've been given in the trash, and start eating everything. Coco is impressed, and has a swallowing test run on me. I don't show enough promise to have the feeding tube removed the first time, but I do on the second, and get permission to finally have the thing removed from my stomach. I get it pulled out (While awake! Ouch!), then meet my cousin Adrian to see the rerelease of Revenge of the Sith for its 20th anniversary, which feels quite significant on that particular day, given the new meaning the film gained for me months before. I bleed through the bandages on my stomach as I eat popcorn and cough, but eventually the spot closes up and heals, though it never goes away, and I still look like I have two belly buttons to this day.
May
I am possibly full of more hope than I have ever had in my life. I go to my favorite pizza place and eat pizza again while reading Hemingway. I eat ice cream sandwiches. The doctor tells me to take another couple weeks off work. I finally start working again, but only from home a few hours a day, then I drink coffee and eat cookies and watch a movie. What a life. With the stomach tube now out, I might even be able to run again. And then it happens. One night, I am walking to get something from the closet, and I ding my right pinkie toe on the closet door and it just goes painfully crooked and immediately turns black. With a horror, I realize that my lifelong broken bone-free streak has ended--ironic, given my relief during the stroke that the broken bowls didn't break my foot. Unfortunately, I am not unbreakable. What a horrible revelation. I drive to the after hours clinic, and the nurse looks at the X-ray and says the toe doesn't look broken, only to call me back on the way home to let me know a doctor looked at the X-ray, and my toe is definitely broken. Streak gone. Chance at running again soon...gone.
June
Thankfully, the toe starts to heal, and the previous month I had bought comfortable, wide Skechers that my ex-wife would have never let me leave the house with. Things will surely get back on track now. My son is off for summer, and we decide to head down to the Louisiana island paradise of Grand Isle. We pack up my car, and stop at the super Wal-Mart just miles from our destination. We both buy cards, and he gets hits and is telling me what they are, and I am driving down the marshy night highway without a care in the world, when some guy pulls out right in front of me, and we are in a violent car accident. My car, which I was going to give to my son, is destroyed. My airbag goes off, severely impacting my left side, which was still nearly 100% numb. The police, thanks to several witnesses, find the other guy at fault (somebody tell him that), so I am not ticketed, but we are very banged up, the car is gone, and we have to grab all our stuff, get a ride to Grand Isle, and then get picked up by my mom in the morning and taken to the emergency room--where everyone remembers me! I am tired of them! Thankfully, nothing is broken, except my toe...and my car...and any sense of invincibility I ever had. At least LSU wins the College World Series! Baseball rules.
July
I originally planned to give my car to my son on his 16th birthday and buy myself a truck. That plan has been destroyed, and I have to buy myself a truck and get him a completely different vehicle later in the year. I finally have to go back to work in person several days a week, after the fourth of July, where we successfully return to Grand Isle without incident. My office has now moved next to the campus hotel, and I go there for lunch everyday, eating in the sparsely attended lobby dining room while reading or watching something on my phone, as sad jazz music plays over the speakers, and I feel like a king. This is one of my favorite things from the year...a quiet place of rest within the maelstrom. Also, my toe heals...and I can finally run again.
August
And it's back to the grind. I work, I come home, I host my son on the weekends. I take him to his first card convention and he continues to be the luckiest person I know. Life goes on. Then one day, my cat goes to jump on my computer, I lift him into the air with my left hand, and I suddenly say, "Hey, I can kind of feel my left shoulder...and it HURTS!!!" Turns out I have extremely bad whiplash in my shoulder. I have to start going to physical therapy twice a week for it. Thankfully, the therapists are great, the techs are helpful, and my PTA is very pretty. I happen to mention that she is very pretty in front of my mom, and as she's done with the mention of any woman all year, shouts, "Ooh, is she single?!" to which I reply, "No, and she's a lot younger than me...and I am recovering from a stroke...and my life is chaos." My son then replies with his general "YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE ANOTHER KID!" This is my life. I end up in physical therapy for four months.
September
The grind continues. Work, dad, rehab, baseball cards, movies, I can eat. I visit a real neuromedical doctor's office and get some real diagnosis work started. His office wants to confirm that my stroke was caused by the sneeze, and also check to see if it is healing, since the dumbass jackass doctor didn't do that.
October (Almost the best month...)
In March, I was supposed to travel to celebrate the 40th birthday of one of my dearest friends. That didn't happen. However, as I started to recover, I told him and his girlfriend that I really wanted to drive up to see them at their house on the Yale campus, where she is getting her PhD. A few years before, I made a vow to never fly again, and in early October of 2025, I get in my new truck and drive up to Connecticut...and it is magnificent. 20 years ago, when I was only 24, I thought this would be the kind of trip I'd be frequently going on as an adult. Turns out it took me 20 years to get started, but this trip is more than worth it. I don't think anyone who hates America can still hate it after driving across it. From the backroad bayous of home, to the towering stone hills of northeast Georgia, to the misty mountains and glittering caves of Tennessee, to the majestic peaks of Virginia, to the rolling fields of Pennsylvania (where I see two Amish women in bright dress turning their plowshares in time, sun setting behind them), to the towering skyline of New York, I see it all from my truck, which is far more personal than from 35,000 feet out a plane window. I get to drive through Appalachia and New England during the autumnal foliage change--wonderful! And then I get to spend a week in a delightful old house on the Yale campus with one of my favorite people on Earth and his incredibly awesome girlfriend. We ate so much great pizza (praise the Lord, I can eat!) in the pizza capital of the world, and hiked stone hills, and ate ice cream, and went to the movies, and traveled around the state, and looked at the Halloween decorations, and went to the farmer's market, where I ate three ice cream sandwiches!, and I went on lovely runs and it was all just so great, it was very difficult to leave. Eventually I do, and then I stop at the Knoxville, Tennessee mall, and zoom with the judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana while in my truck, and I have my divorce finalized right there in that parking lot. And then I go home and get a bill from the neuromedical doctor that blows my mind, as I thought they were on insurance, and then I try to leave for work and step in a puddle in my driveway and see my lawn is flooded because my water heater is busted (thankfully, nothing inside the house is destroyed), and thankfully, with the assistance of family, all is taken care of, after the headaches. Then I watch great baseball, and start my training for the Louisiana Marathon in New Roads, and have great times, and watch a lot of horror movies, and take my nieces trick or treating, and am going to pick my son up Halloween night from a party to watch even more horror movies with him, but then he does something exceedingly stupid, and is grounded for a very long time.
November
There is a shakeup at work and I get moved to an off-campus facility. It is interesting. Goodbye hotel lunch. The LSU football team is terrible. My son and I still go to every home game, but it is one of the worst slates ever and the games are lousy--the coach is expectantly fired before the season ends. A bright spot are the New Orleans Saints. I start watching every Saints game this season after my long runs, using the second quarter for a nap, and when people raise their eyebrows that I am consistently watching such a bad team, I answer that I am getting in on the ground floor of future greatness. The Saints make a change at QB halfway through the season to Tyler Shough, and I am so sold after one game, I buy a ton of his rookie cards, including six signed ones, for almost nothing, as no one was expecting him to even play this year, and no one is watching the Saints. As of my writing this piece, he is currently in the running for Offensive Rookie of the Year, and his cards are no longer cheap. This is my favorite Saints season since the Super Bowl run in 2009/2010. I might be on hiatus from playing bass on stage, but currently, Sundays are a day to look forward to.
But then, I am running early one morning and pull out my phone to take a
picture of something. I drop it and twist my left leg oddly to catch it.
Immediately, my once numb thigh is filled with immense and burning pain. I
have felt the ghost of this since the car accident, but now it is alive. My leg hurts the most after I've had to sit for awhile. It hurts so badly, physical therapy can't help, and I now know I have to see a specialist, as it
is a nerve issue--possibly an encapsulated nerve. After everything I've been
through this year, for some reason, this is the thing that finally breaks me
just a bit. I am experiencing pure joy running long distance again, and now,
after a stroke, a broken bone, a violent car accident, a divorce, a
whiplashed shoulder, I've got something wrong with my leg that might stop me
from running? That's just a bridge too far. My thoughts, finally, after
everything, become dark. I keep running anyway. Who dat?
December (Mercifully end this thing)
It is pouring down raining outside. I get ready for work and walk into the kitchen. There is a puddle near the fridge, but my first thought is that my son must have dropped an ice cube there, and it melted. I then remember my son hasn't been here for four days...and I trace the water to a leak in the roof of a wall cabinet. I climb up into the attic, and find, to my abject horror, that water is coming in where my air conditioner vent comes out, and there is a bunch of mold, mildew, and rotten wood that shows that this has been happening for years. Eventually, the issue is taken care of, and I am thankful I am only renting my grandparents' old house this year.
December (Mercifully end this thing)
It is pouring down raining outside. I get ready for work and walk into the kitchen. There is a puddle near the fridge, but my first thought is that my son must have dropped an ice cube there, and it melted. I then remember my son hasn't been here for four days...and I trace the water to a leak in the roof of a wall cabinet. I climb up into the attic, and find, to my abject horror, that water is coming in where my air conditioner vent comes out, and there is a bunch of mold, mildew, and rotten wood that shows that this has been happening for years. Eventually, the issue is taken care of, and I am thankful I am only renting my grandparents' old house this year.
My birthday comes. I have to think
hard to remember it, and it just happened, and also, despite the stroke, I
still have a near photographic memory (I just say the wrong word a lot now).
I do some things to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 2005, the first full
year I posted here. I watch King Kong just like I did and wrote
about here 20 years before. That's surreal. Strangely, I kind of lost my mind painting this very house by
myself between renters 20 years ago. Now I live here, and often, I am alone. Considering the
ridiculous, laughable amount of misfortune I've had this past year, I am glad
my mind is stronger than it was 20 years ago. I finish physical therapy for my shoulder. The last appointment is bittersweet. Christmas comes and it is
fine. New Years is coming and I am ready for the calendar to change. I am
ready to get my leg checked out. I am ready to see if I can still run a
marathon. I am ready.
Today I ran 20 miles. It felt great. My leg feels best when I am running.
I am ready.
LSU has hired Lane Kiffin as coach and the Saints look primed to make a playoff run next year.
I am ready.
I don't know what the future holds. More strokes, wrecks, nightmares?
Joy, pure joy, great runs, no more pain in my leg, the numbness slowly leaving, my swallowing improving even more, greater purpose, no strokes, no wrecks, no busted pipes, no leaks, no problems that aren't easily corrected minor inconveniences, more time with my son? A woman? No woman, but I am happy anyway?
I am ready.
Get this damn year out of my way.
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