Tag Archives: health

Tuesday Morning Ramblings

March 27, 2012 D.A. Adams 3 Comments

There’s one annoying aspect of my neurological symptoms that’s still lingering. When typing, I have difficulty timing how long I hold down the shift key to capitalize certain letters. Slowly, it’s getting better, but with as much as I type, it’s fairly annoying. The letter “T” seems to be the worst. I have to retype it several times to get it capitalized. I never really noticed just how often I begin sentences with a word that begins with this letter until I started having the issue. Now, I’m more aware of just how often it occurs from the sheer volume of retypes I have to make.

Another lingering issue is getting my fingers to land with precision. Before the illness, I was a fairly proficient, self-taught typist who could average about 60 wpm. Now, I often miss the key I want. I’ll think “E” but my finger strikes “F” for no apparent reason, and some letters I have a hard time pressing fully, mostly “A” and “O ” it seems. Again, it’s getting better, and typing today is much easier than just three months ago, but it’s still frustrating to be slowed by something I can’t really control. Hopefully, as I continue to heal, these issues will eventually fade away entirely, but there’s always the possibility that I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life.

In the grand scheme, it’s a minor nuisance, but for a writer, it’s pretty frustrating. I’ve always prided myself on my command of the language and efficiency with getting my thoughts down on the page, whether typing or handwriting. Now, I’m having to adjust and reread everything more closely to make sure I didn’t type the wrong letter or reorganize letters or completely miss one. One positive from this adjustment is that I am paying a lot more attention to what I write as I write it, so I guess I should focus on the positive and not just accept the inconvenience as my current reality.

So if you’re reading an entry one day and see something I’ve completely mangled, please don’t judge me too harshly. I really do know the language fairly well; it’s just that my fingers and brain aren’t completely back in sync yet. As I’ve been typing this entry right now, I’ve had to make at least a hundred typo corrections along the way, and this one is less than five hundred words long. That’s how frequently I’m still missing keys. However, compared to just three months ago, that’s a big improvement. Then, it seemed like I had to correct every single word as I typed. At my worst, I was down to about 20 wpm. Now, I’m back up close to 40, so I’ll accept that progress and hope that the healing continues.

For Collin and Finn

Friday Morning Ramblings

March 23, 2012 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

Dear sons, I want you to know what an amazing, beautiful place this world can be. Of course, there are difficulties and adversities to overcome, but there are also triumphs and splendors to relish. I want both of you to search for and see the beauty on this earth because life truly is what you make of it. If you wallow in the negative and allow the bad people to engulf you, your life will be miserable, but if you accept the bad as opportunities to learn and grow, then you can appreciate the good. Simply put, your life on this earth can be either heaven or hell, and the only thing that determines which is your attitude.

That’s not to say the hard times and bad people can’t be challenging. There will come moments in your life when you feel hopeless. There are obstacles that will seem insurmountable. There are pains that feel overwhelming. But even the worst storms of my life have eventually passed, and once they have gone, I’ve come out the other side a better man, not because there is anything special about me but because I’ve allowed myself to learn and mature. Sitting here at 39 and looking at my life, I can honestly say that today I understand the importance of how my attitude and perspective shape the way I respond to both the good and bad.

For you boys, I hope you learn this early and follow it throughout your lives. You will be much happier and healthier if you live with a positive attitude. Life has a way of giving back to you what you send out, and the people who are the most miserable, in my experience, are the people who wallow in self-pity and look for someone or something to blame and never learn to accept their own part in their failures. On the other hand, the happiest are those who take responsibility for their own lives, learn from their mistakes, and forgive the people who have wronged them. That’s the kind of person I want you both to grow into.

The best advice I can give you for achieving this end is to find pleasure in and appreciate the mundane. Notice and relish as many sunrises and sunsets as you can, for each is unique and spectacular. Notice the beauty and sophistication of nature, for even the simplest blade of grass is a miracle of complexity. Respect and appreciate the fragility of life, all life, for death is the one bond we all share, from the simplest bacteria to the most complex person. If you’ll wake each day aware of these simple things and appreciate each day as a new opportunity to have a positive impact on the world, you will be much happier, and my wish for both of you is to find your happiness and live your lives growing into the best of who you are.

General Posts

Thursday Morning Ramblings

March 22, 2012 D.A. Adams 4 Comments

After my illness last fall, I had nearly lost hope of ever launching the farm. With my left hand nearly useless and my balance all but gone, I knew that I couldn’t do the physical labor necessary to get it off the ground. Not knowing if I would ever feel normal again or if I would continue deteriorating compounded the problem because I didn’t want to pour a bunch of time and money into a project that I physically might not be able to sustain. Those feelings only added to my sense of helplessness and despair as I contemplated my future. At that point, I had no answers as to what was wrong with me; all I knew was that I felt terrible and seemed to be losing control of my body.

Today, I feel much better. Removing gluten from my diet has all but eliminated the vast majority of my symptoms. I still have some trembling and twitching in my left hand, and my balance is still a little suspect, but overall, I can do virtually everything I could before the onset of the illness. When I read the journal entries I wrote back in October and November, I’m astonished by how much healthier I feel today. Then, I wouldn’t have given you a nickel for my future because I was deteriorating so rapidly. Today, I honestly feel as if I could live a healthy, productive life for another 40-50 years. It’s an amazing turnaround.

So with that in mind, my attention again returns to the farm. I still believe in its potential to provide a long-term, sustainable method of not only providing food and revenue for my family but also for providing a blueprint for others in this region. Because of the efficiency of energy use and inherent purity of the produce, long-term hydroponic farming has many distinct economic advantages over traditional farming. Instead of being dependent upon the conditions of nature for sustenance, the plants receive consistent levels of full-spectrum light, water, and nutrients, therefore allowing for multiple crop cycles in a given year. Instead of losing 90% of their water to soil absorption, their roots are immersed in water and thus require much less total resources. Because of the use of liquid based nutritional supplements for each stage of growth, there’s no need for harsh fertilizers, and because of the indoor growth, there’s no need for dangerous pesticides and herbicides.

So again, I’m turning my attention and energy towards the farm. The wonderful thing I found the last couple of years, before the illness, is that working on the farm actually boosts my creative energy and allows me to write more than teaching does. After a full day of lecturing and grading, my brain is spent. After a day of hard labor, my mind is fresh and teeming with ideas, so long-term, if I can get the farm off the ground and operational, I believe it will improve my productivity as a writer. It’s a good feeling to once again have hope for a brighter, healthier future, and I plan on taking full advantage of my rebounding health to create not only entertaining books but also a viable, sustainable farm.