Category: 1

Six month ago as I was lying in bed, flat on my back from the stroke that I had spent hours denying was happening, I said to Kath, “Put it up on my website.” I was in no shape to do it myself, so I dictated a quick statement that she typed verbatim (prompting one Internet genius to comment, “He can’t be too bad off; he’s typing on the Net.”)

For some reason, I honestly had no idea that it would take off. But it did. Within fifteen minutes it was on Bleeding Cool, and that was because Rich Johnston received three dozen emails during the intervening time.

From that point on it was all over the place. Every board everywhere, it seemed, was determined to spread the news. One áššhølë—just one—declared I had it coming. Otherwise there was an outpouring of support, prayers, etc.

Then followed ten days in the hospital, the first few of which Kathleen was informed that eighty percent of people who have this particular type of stroke tend to die, and she might have “tough decisions” to make. When I didn’t happen to do that, I then spent five weeks at Brooks Rehab hospital in Jacksonville, where Ali, my physical therapist, busted ášš to enable me to learn how to walk again. When I first arrived, the plan was that I’d leave in a wheelchair. By the time I left, I was using a cane.

Now, months later, I am done with physical therapy and next Tuesday is my last occupational therapy. My right shoulder still hurts and my endurance is not remotely what it was, but I am working to return to normal. It continues to be a long path, but with the relentless support of my wife and friends, at least I’m able to walk it.

PAD

Kath here-We would like to thank everyone for your help through this, for lack of a better word, adventure. We couldn’t have done it with out y’all.

This will be the last of these entries. I started with daily updates and then went to weekly and finally monthly as things kept getting closer to normal. We do still have a long way to go but we have made it this far and it is nice to say that after 6 months Peter is pretty much back to normal (or pre-stroke as the medical people are saying).

We still have a lot of doctor’s visits in our near and far future. It just has become a part of our lives. But these visits give us the information we need to continue his recovery and rehabilitation.

Again y’all have our thanks and gratitude.

Kath

Peter will be appearing at the Soho Digital Gallery tomorrow at 7:00 with Danny Fingeroth.

More information can be found here

Tickets can be purchased here

He will be signing and speaking. Sometimes at the same time.

Kath

Yesterday marked 5 months since Peter had his stroke. And what did he do? He went to the premiere of After Earth at the Ziegfeld and then to the after party. We saw our friends at Overbrook along with the rest of the floating heads for Mystery Trekkie Theater (yes, they have picked the episode and no, I won’t tell you what it is but it is gonna be a lot of fun so mark your calendars now for that Sunday slot at Shoreleave that we have grown to know and love). Caroline got to talk to Jaden so she is over the moon right now.

It is amazing to me how far he has come since the stroke stopped attacking his body. We have a tentative diagnosis for what has been going on with the shoulder. They think he has frozen shoulder syndrome. There are ways to counteract it but he has another MRI scheduled to make sure this isn’t any more damage.

He is typing now along with dictating. He is typing as long as he can before switching to dictate. He has been writing the end of X-Factor along with some other projects.

He continues both physical and occupational therapy. That is where we get our empirical evidence that he is improving slowly. They have been measuring what he could do when he got there and what he can do now and the results are encouraging.

Everyone who talked to him at Phoenix Comic Con can attest to how well he is doing. We also got to thank people in person for all their help and well wishes. Wil Wheaton told me that he boosted the signal for Peter on his twitter feed.

There are good days and bad days. He injured his right calf muscle just about right after he had gotten his gait pretty much back to normal so he didn’t need his cane of support. This has now solved itself. He bowled rather well this past Tuesday.

We are still very grateful to everyone who has helped us on this unexpected journey. Your good thoughts and support have helped us through a pretty dark time. I am seeing light at the end of this tunnel and I don’t believe it is the oncoming train.

I am opening this thread to questions you care to ask. Please do understand if we can’t answer it. We live in a household of NDAs and the like. This can be questions for Peter, Caroline or me.

In other household news, Ariel has her driver’s license and has been driving. She graduated from college but will be going back to finish up her masters next year. Anyone know anywhere that is looking for an early elementary school teacher to start in the Fall of 2014?

Kath here. I thought I would post our schedule and where Peter’s table is this weekend.

The table is at 2416. We are right across from the Mysterious Galaxy booth.

Caroline is selling her artwork at a 1.00 a drawing. I have a couple of Phluzzies for sale. Peter has a lot of books including Pulling Up Stakes and the Camelot Papers.

Peter’s Schedule is as follows

Friday

12:00-1:00pm
In Defense of Bruce Banner (presented by Drawn to Comics)
RM 126AB

3:00-4:00pm
Spotlight: Peter David
RM 124A

6:00-7:00om
A Day in The Strife: The Making of Babylon 5
RM 128

9:00-?
Phoenix Con Puppet-slam
RM 122
(We are doing Lord of Time again so if you missed it at DragonCon, here’s your chance to see it)

Saturday
We are at the table all Day

Sunday

1:30-2:30
Creating with Someone Else’s Sandbox
RM 104B

So come on by and say Hi.

After all, it’s Sunday. I figure any real comics fan saw it by Friday.

Personally I loved it. SO much better than Iron Man 2 (which I despised). Robert Downey once again makes the argument that no one can play Tony Stark the way he can: he comes across as a combination of arrogant and vulnerable, dealing with a massive case of PTSD after the events in “The Avengers.” Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper is more a damsel in distress than ever, but somehow manages to make it work. And the villains are great, especially Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin who will doubtless drive many of the long time fans nuts, but yet somehow totally works.

3D is wholly unnecessary. Save money and see it in 2D.

PAD

Things continue to improve for Peter slowly.

He can now touch the thumb of his right finger to his pinkie with pretty much normal effort. He has started to type again for limited amount of time. Between that and Dragon Dictate, he is able to get work done. It might not be as fast for him as his pre-stroke speed but he is getting a lot done for various projects.

His gait is returning to normal. He is only using a cane for very long distances. His stamina is returning slowly.

He is bowling again and starting to get his game back in order. He is throwing closer to his average these days.

Each normal activity that he can do is a victory.

And like any recovery we have our good days and our bad days and our OK days.

Next month is a busy one for us. Ariel is graduating from college. We have Phoenix Comic Con at the end of the month and a lot to do the rest of the month.

Caroline is doing fine in school. She is happy to have her ELA and Math tests behind her. She has her math and social studies left. Her flute practice is continuing. She is learning the flute part of the Star Wars theme.

My neck is doing fine, thank you. I am adjusting to things as they happen. I had my annual wellness visit and, after I take some other tests, I will find out if I am “well”.

You, dear reader, can still help us by spreading the word about Peter’s books and other works. We do still have some pretty steep medical bills coming in. The insurance company keeps deciding how much they are going to pay and how much we are going to pay. Just when I think we might be pretty much caught up on things, we get hit with another charge that was sorted out by all the other parties. It does wear one down but with your help I can say that I am not as worn down as I might have been.

Oh, in other forms of excitement, the brakes went on my truck and I managed to get to the service station before they were totally gone but it was pretty scary there. I was the only one in the truck at the time.

I am going to open this up to questions. So ask and I shall answer the best I can. If I can’t answer, I will tell you that I can’t and I ask that you respect that. Yes, you can post again.

Thank you to everyone who has helped us. We would not be here if it weren’t for your help and know that we are very grateful.

We’re experiencing some very heavy load on the servers here, and we’re taking comments offline for a while so we can deal with the problem. There may be other unannounced outages here in the next 48 hours or so. We’ll keep you posted.