OK, if you've been reading this in the order I numbered these posts, you've read about my syrupy optimism in the first couple of months following the stroke. Now I'll introduce the ugly reality of what the stroke ripped away from my life.

But first, before this becomes too damn depressing, we'll consider what the stroke DIDN'T do and could have. It didn't leave me unable to speak, something that a massive stroke certainly can do.

In fact, I just learned that a man I know and admire, a very active member of the Cascadians, that Yakima Valley collection of accomplished climbers, hikers and backpackers that I got to know well during my years as the outdoors editor in Yakima, recently suffered a stroke that robbed him of his ability to speak. That's a harsh gig. I lost a lot, but not that. I can still talk your ear off. Weirdly, my stroke went the OTHER way. It stripped away much of the ability to UNDERSTAND speech. I suffered moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears, but beyond that I also now have what might best be described as an aural ephasia.

Even with expensive hearing aids that enable me to hear the sound of a person speaking, my brain can't decipher what is being said or translate it into sensible sentences. it's just a jumble of soft noise. I avoid social situations for fear of having to seem rude by zoning out in conversations I can't hear. It frustrates the hell out of me. Rhonda, too, because she'll say something to me and, when I don't answer in a timely fashion, she'll say, "did you hear what I said?" my answer is usually no. So my beautiful wife has to spend her life with a man who can't hear and understand her and must repeat almost everything she says. Correction: She DOESN'T have to. She made the decision to stick it out and stay with me after a stroke took away the man she married 14 years before and left her with this depressed, virtually deaf, occasionally cantankerous old fart. And before you think, "well, she's SUPPOSED to stay, that's what the 'for better or for worse' part of the wedding vows is all about, I'm here to tell you it ain't that simple, and staying like she did is nothing short of heroic, especially when I went through my darkest times. Even my friends didn't enjoy being around me. One admitted that to me, telling me it's tough being around "Mister Negative." Rhonda absolutely could have left. She had friends telling her they couldn't do what she was doing, which included taking over all physical upkeep of our house and property, including yard maintenance (no small task when you have a huge wall of debris-shedding arborvitae), snow shoveling in winter and taking the big garbage can to the end of the driveway, things I can no longer do safely or at all. Plus she does all the shopping, the bills-paying and, of course, all the meal preparation, because in my one-handedness and broken-brained forgetfulness I am a kitchen accident waiting to happen. Her deciding to stay was not a slam-dunk, no-question deal. She could have left and I wouldn't have blamed her for doing so. Hey, she's nine years younger than me and is still, in Mike Myers parlance, quite babelicious. Had she decided to, she could have left and easily found any number of willing suitors who could hear everything she said and could also accompany her on long walks. She loves to walk for fitness and pleasure, and I can't begin to keep up with her, hobbling along with my cane. She's also the best dancer I've ever known, and I can no longer dance with her. Tried once since the stroke when a terrific regional combo, Stimulus Package, was performing at a local winery tasting room. My left leg refused to cooperate and I ended up feeling (and looking, I'm sure) ridiculous.

Okay, you're beginning to get the picture of my limitations. Between the non-functioning left arm and hand, the barely functional left leg and the balance issues of a broken body having to lug around the dead weight of a useless arm, here are a few of the things I can no longer do.

.

• play golf. Rhonda and I had taken the game up together several years pre-stroke and both of us loved it. I miss it big-time. Even nine years later, I still occasionally have golf dreams in which my shots always go in the desired direction. I guess In that way, I'm a much better golfer now. But damn, I miss playing that game. Rhonda has driven me to a local driving range a few times post-stroke and I've tried doing the one-handed swing thing, but I'm terrible at it, it doesn't feel like real golf and I have to be mindful of not losing my balance and falling after a big swing. Don't want to have to call the fire department to help me get up. They've got more important things to do.

  
  

• hike or backpack. If you're not a hiker or backpacker, this may seem like a picayune issue, but I was avid. During the four years I worked at a Bay Area newspaper, I went backpacking in Yosemite, a four-hour drive away, almost every weekend. I spent at least 70 nights camping in the Yosemite backcountry, usually in remote areas where I only occasionally saw other people. I've chased away more bears from my campsites than most people will see in a lifetime of going to zoos.

• enjoy reading a book. I can still read, sort of. It can be weird, because a major stroke residual called left-side deficit makes my brain not want to recognize things to the left, meaning I would sometimes finish one line and scan to the beginning of the next line, but not be able to see the first word or two of that line. That has gotten better over the years, but holding a book and turning pages while keeping pages from flopping open or closed with only the one hand that is holding the book makes the process frustrating enough to want to stop trying. And I had always been a voracious reader. I miss that.

• go for a drive. At least, not with me as the driver. The left-side deficit could cause me to not see a vehicle to my left, making me a potential danger to others or myself. I used to love going on long drives, even hundreds of miles. Never got tired. I had always dreamed of doing a cross-country, weeks-long driving tour of this beautiful country, taking only two-lane blacktops, no interstates allowed. That dream is dead.

• go camping. This is a significant loss for both Rhonda and me. We don't own a motor home, but we used to go tent-camping whenever we could, usually alongside one of the many beautiful rivers that criss-cross Central Washington. Can't do that now. I couldn't begin to get into or out of a sleeping bag and even if I could, with my new "I've fallen and I can't get up" status I couldn't get up from the ground to go pee in the middle of the night, as routinely required by my strokey bladder.

• Enjoy going to the beach. navigating beach sand is difficult even with my cane unless the sand is wet and flattened enough by the surf to be hard-packed flat. And I certainly can't venture into the shallow water because of that "I've fallen and can't get up" thing. If I lost my balance in the surf, bad news. Unless there was someone nearby strong enough to hoist my 200-pound mass up, I could lie there in the shallow water until the tide came in and drowned me. Rhonda and I used to love going on beach vacations. Just a week and a half before my stroke, in fact, we had gone to Cape Kiwanda, a section of Pacific City on the Oregon coast. The beach there is famous for its "Great Dune," which is precisely that. It has a 250-foot elevation gain if you trudge up the sand to the top, which naturally I had to do to see the great view from atop the great dune. Glad we went when we did, cuz 10 days later that kind of experience became no more.

• Play with my grandsons. This is a bit misleading, since they all live with their parents in Texas now while we still live in Washington, but the first four boys all spent most of their childhood just a drive away. We got to go cheer them on in their games and whenever we got to see them at home I got to do the granddad thing with those energetic boys, whether passing a football around, throwing a Frisbee or doing a little basketball shoot-around. the latter was sort of ridiculous because the four boys were all basketball phenoms, stars of their age-group AAU teams, while ol' Paca here couldn't begin to hang with them. I think each of the four could have trounced me in a game of one-on-one by the time he was 11 years old despite my being a head taller at six feet tall and able to block his shots. Now, even if and when they come for a visit to Washington, I won't be able to do the granddad sports thing with them boys, which is a major bummer.