ides of march update

For those who haven’t seen me lately I’m pleased and proud to report that i've been working my ass off. can't wait to see you all and to show you all my new tricks! AS you may have read in previous update:i can skip! you know most men can't and that most men/people should...when i was discharged from st. david's my therapist gave list of exercise to do, and .on the list was "skip 2x" when asked was told to skip 30-50 yards twice daily. my reaction? “i think the world would be a better place if everyone skipped twice a day.” so, I've taken this campaign to the streets of Austin and regularly approach unsuspecting type “A” personae with the opening line "excuse me, have you skipped lately?" invariably I receive a quizzical, annoyed look which I address with an enthusiastic demonstration of my skipping form followed by explanation that I was recently flat on my ass in hospital bed a few months recovering from stroke and paralysis but that I'm skipping now -"so, what's YOUR EXCUSE? You'd be surprised at the conversion rate from annoyed, hapless victim of a random verbal assault to intrepid skipper. Anthropological observation: if victim is with a group there’s invariably a chorus of head nodding and" he/she needs to skip!" so peer pressure may be factor in conversion rate. For those of you in Austin. you would be thrilled but not surprised to hear that toni price skipped with me from the stage to the bar(of course) and back last Tueday night. This episode was witnessed by a hippie embroiderer named happy Jack who had sewn the word LEFT into the torn left armpit of my shirt in November of 2004(he was offering his trade at a fundraiser at a local coffee shop)at that time I somehow thought that since I was moving down to Austin from Cambridge, and that the shirt was blue and that the tear was on the left armpit that” LEFT would be appropriate…well on the night of the skipping with toni price, hippe jack somehow recalled that I was the guy with the liberal blue shirt he had worked on over a year ago…well one thing lead to another, and I was back to his table a few days later to repair new tear in the shirt same armpit..he told me his work was guaranteed and to stop by. When asked what I wanted embroidered, I reflected on how hard I’ve been working to regain use of my left arm and hand so naturally suggested”GO LEFT” this was received quite enthusiastically by happy jack an surrounding band of hippies who immediately raised their mid-aftenoon lonestars with toasts of “go left!” and “the left’s gonna rise again!” jack’s explanation of my stroke recovery only served to fan the flames and lead to a chaotic round of skipping and “go left” chanting.. quite a scene. Little did I know that I was igniting or rekindling a movement here in south Austin!

As for medical news: had been struggling with pain and cramping in left leg- which was running me down by waking me most nights. Got to the point that therapists were convinced that an epidural shot of steroid into injured disk was only course of treatment. This caught the attention of my neurologist, who (fortunately) intervened. After examination, he came to conclusion that cramping was sign of hyper tonicity(too much tone on left side) which is fairly common phase of stroke recovery - essentially brain signal out of whack causing muscles to be in constant state of flexion which can result in cramping and/or fatigue and in case of my left hamstring perhaps irritation of the sciatic nerve – he has prescribed drug called Baclofen usually used to relieve spasticity in ms patients. I going through period of adjustment of dosage level but see some improvement: now that I’m not so concerned about my back and herniated disc, I’ve returned to more rigorous exercise: have been biking to pool at st. david’s hospital for aqua therapy which includes water jogging (jogging in deep water wearing flotation device and doing some running on treadmill(they have an underwater treadmill! So I’m getting 40-45 minutes of jogging with som “impact jogging as well! Facility also has equipment that allows me to work on left arm which is critical to recovering use of my left hand.. they have underwater parallel bars on which I can do vertical pushups and various ab exercises – I’m trying to retain that “girlish figure” I acquired from marathon training followed by month hospital stay;-) the also have barbells with fins instead of weights which allow me to do arm exercises using water’s resistance instead of weight. With tricia’s april 1wedding and possibility that I might return to work in a few months lot’s more to report………
.but just wanted you all to know that your prayers and thoughtful words of encouragement have kept me moving along the road to recovery thanks again for your friendship and support,love,

Johnnie , uncle johnnie or murph as appropriate and
GO LEFT! AND
PLEASE SKIP AT LEAST ONCE A DAY FOR ME WOULD YOU?