I'm telling this in hopes of edifying medical students and encouraging other rehabs.

On May 12, 1998, at about 6:20 PM, I became aware of having suffered a stroke in my sleep.

I had been working at the computer in the afternoon. At that time, we had only one telephone, a portable one, connected to my computer for my MODEM. (Now we have two telephones, the portable one as before, the nonportable one on a swinging shelf beside Esther.) I forgot to bring the telphone in with me when I lay down for an afternoon nap. (Later, doctors said my forgetfulness was part of the stroke coming on.)

Wife Esther had difficulty waking me to remind me that I'd said I'd drive to the Mall for take-out dinner. For years now, Esther doesn't sleep well at night, so runs the overhead light and bedlamp lightt and radio or TV all night. (I learned to sleep under comparable conditions in the Weather Station when, as Station Chief for up to 20 weather observers, I had to pull 3 1/2 months of 24-hour 7-days-a=week duty, as the only forecaster on the Field.) But I awaken quickly if Esther needs me, as described in the associated file, "Nurse John".

However, my torpor seems also part of the stroke condition. When I got to my feet, both legs seemed numb. I stumbled over to Esther's walker, planning to lean on it and exercise my numb legs. I immediately fell onto my back and discovered that I could not even sit up.

Esther had been bed-ridden for months, having broken her paralyzed leg for the seventh time. She could not get out of bed to help me.

I scooted on my back for 12 hours to get to the telephone at the other end of our Condo apartment. Early on, I vomited -- only watery bile -- but I pulled off my soaked nightshirt and scooted along naked. Later, at the hospital, the nurses discovered that I had rug and floor burns from shoulders to calves, particularly on my buttocks.

But, for reasons I still do not understand, I was in a cheerful mood and perceptive of the need to exercise my brain. I solved algebraic and differential equations in my head, pondered lattices and Galois connections, and thought over different schools of Mathematical Foundations. I recited poetry, passages from The Bible, and prayed.

And, every few minutes, I would tell Esther -- now in total darkness -- where I was and what I was doing.

After nearly 12 hours of scooting, I reached the telephone. But I knew I couldn't immediately call 911. After Esther's fall, the previous January, a friend called 911 for an ambulance, before notifying our HMO, so we had to pay $400 for the ambulance. I first sought help from the security guard, on duty for the weekend. But he didn't have a passkey. Lying on my back, I managed to telephone my HMO, then 911. I had to explain that help was needed for my bedridden wife.

The Fire Station personnel had to break the lock on the kitchen door to get in. I shielded my "privates" from the woman in the group by a plastic market bag loin cloth.

In the back of the ambulance, while one paramedic put electrodes on me and took "vital signs", the other paramdic asked me about the computer he saw near where they found me. I told him about the many files I'd written (some of them at this website), hoping to get on-line. Our conversation surprised the other paramedic: "You talk as if nothing happened to you!"

After a few yours in ER at Mt. Vernon Hospital -- and learning that Esther had been taken to a Care-Home -- I was taken to Fairfax Hospital for examination. I'd only been in a hospital as an adult once before, an Army Air Corps hospital, for checkup on LOW BLOOD PRESSURE -- "82 over 48" -- "normal for me", and I was quite mobile there. So, now, unable to sit up without back support, I tried to make the nurse understand that I'd never used a urinal before. Thus, after a few hours and the changing of wet sheets, I suffered the humiliation of having a diaper put on me. "I'm not incontinent. I'm incompetent." I couldn't extract the urinal, after using it, without spilling the contents.

The next evening, our son Tim came from Elmhurst, IL. Just before his arrival, I suffered an attack of indigestion, something entirely rare for me. I couldn't eat my supper. While trying to talk to him, raised up in bed, I suddenly felt about to upchuck. I jumped out of bed, hopped two steps and spit into the bed pan on the window sill. Just bile, again. But this is how I discovered that, 48 hours after my fall, I'd recovered my legs.

The next day, I was sent back to Mt. Vernon Hospital, to the Rehabilitation Unit, where I spent 9 days in exercises and tests. I recovered rapidly and was returned home 12 days after my fall. Esther arrived the next day. And we had nursing, therapy, and housekeeping care for several weeks, until I could take over.

My left leg has never entirely recovered from the stroke. If I don't think about it, I shuffle along like an old man. If I think about it, I can stride along almost as well as before.

But I'm coming to the point I want to make. I HAVE PROOF THAT I CAN THINK BETTER AFTER THE STROKE THAN BEFORE!

Over the years, there were many things in math and in physics which I could memorize and "parrot", but did not understand enough to put in my own words. Two important examples are "D'Alembert's Principle" and the "Euler-Lagrance Equation". As exercise for my brain, I returned to my old books and discovered that I NOW UNDERSTOOD SUBJECTS I HAD NEVER UNDERSTOOD BEFORE. And this has continued, lo, these two years.

I have had many blessings in my life -- my wife, children, grandchildren, my work -- and this is surely one of them! I hope this is encouraging to some of you. BE DEBONAIR AND LOVE EACH OTHER!