SKIP!

—“Uh-oh, ‘Disconnect-from-Reality’ again. Why can’t he just get over it?”
SKIP!
The reaction I get to “Disconnect-from-Reality” is similar to what I’m told when I say I have a slight aphasia, an after-effect of my long-ago stroke.
Difficulty getting words out, or putting thoughts together in my head.
“You talk just fine!” I’m told.
“My brothers hear it. Just because we’re not lifelong acquaintances doesn’t mean my slight difficulty speaking doesn’t exist.”
I have to tell people I may lock up, or hafta ask them to slow down or repeat. Usually I get understanding, but sometimes it’s “you talk just fine!”
“Why do things seem more real tonight than six weeks ago?”
I asked that to myself last night.
“Disconnect-from-Reality” has happened twice: first 26 years ago after my stroke, then eight years ago after my wife died.
I was in the real-world, but it didn’t feel real.
“I feel like I been hit by a PeterBilt,” I said after my stroke.
I had just chased a restored railroad steam-locomotive with my brother down in WV. I was so excited my doctors thought it a stroke-effect.
I’d say at least six years passed before I began to feel life was real. For a long time I was just going through the motions.
“Is it because my dog is gone? That I no longer have a dog around to distract me?”
There was a no-dog period after I put Scarlett down. Things were not as “real” during that time.
For the longest time I just went through the motions after my wife died — and that was over eight years ago.
Dogs to walk, both my camera and lawnmower failed, laundry to wash, computers, eat-outs with fellow bereavers.
I did all this, but felt disconnected-from-reality.
Is this a mental function to avoid thinking about what terrible things happened?
Congratulations if you read this far.
Maybe before I kick the bucket I can “reconnect-with-reality.”

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.
• My brother and I are both railfans.
• My most recent dog was “Killian,” a “rescue Irish-Setter.” He made age-11, and was my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. A “rescue Irish-Setter” is usually an Irish-Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. Or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He was my fifth rescue. (Yet another dog lost to canine cancer — five so far.)