Keeping Up With Clay Jones

Stroke day by Clay Jones

I visited Southern California last June. I got to hang out with friends. I ate fish tacos and sushi. I went to the beach, and I got to walk on the Oceanside boardwalk. I saw pelicans and sea lions. I had a great time. You might remember this. But near the end of this trip, I started to suffer from some shoulder pain. I thought it was just a pinched nerve, probably from sleeping on a teenage girl’s bed. No, she was not in the bed at the same time. She was in Ireland. The pain lasted for a few days, but vanished after I had gotten back to Virginia.

I had a pretty good summer. I went to the National Cartoonist Society’s convention in Boston for just an afternoon. I visited New York City for a few days, and I saw my good friend Alexandra. I went to the annual convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists outside of Washington, DC, and I won the Rex Babin Award for Excellence in Local Cartooning. It may have been the best time I’ve ever had at one of our conventions.

Next on my agenda was a trip to Europe. I was going to visit Berlin, then fly to Sweden, then take a train and visit Copenhagen, then Hamburg, and then Amsterdam, where I was going to visit the Van Gogh Museum. I was going to spend a night in Brussels, then spend a few extra days in Paris, and see the Louvre. I was going to wrap up my trip by revisiting old friends in London and Dublin. And a week before this European trip, my shoulder started to hurt again.

I thought the pinched nerve had come back. On Monday, October 6, the pain came back with a vengeance. The shoulder pain from June was no comparison to the pain I had two weeks ago. While the pain was brutal, it didn’t stop me from getting down on my hands and knees and cleaning my toilet because my Landlady and a plumber were coming to my apartment the next day. By Thursday, with my European trip just four days away, I thought there was no way I could go jet-setting with this sort of pain. I was still thinking about Europe that morning, but by that afternoon, I was thinking about the hospital.

The pain was at its worst on Thursday. I took some aspirin in the morning, and a couple of hours later, I took some ibuprofen. I worked on the day’s cartoon, not knowing it would be my last for a while. But a point came where I just had to lie down, even before my cartoon was done. I lay down for a short while, and when I got up, I noticed I was a little lightheaded. When I walked to the bathroom, my hands were along the walls so I wouldn’t fall. I finished my cartoon and realized that I was having a hard time putting the Apple Pencil where I wanted it to go. It was about this time that I started to think about the hospital.

I was in the mode of thinking that the hospital was kind of silly. I Googled about my shoulder pain, and I saw that it could be a symptom of a stroke. I thought, “Not on the right side, right?” Yes, even on the right side.

I decided to eat something first because I didn’t know when I would get a chance to eat again. I started to make some Chef Boyardee, which I don’t like at all, but I just needed to get something in my system. And I realized then that my right leg wasn’t really working. I could stand and I could walk, but I was kind of dragging my leg. A few hours later at the hospital, my entire right side pretty much collapsed.

I have a lot of friends here in Fredericksburg, but I thought of who would get me to the hospital the quickest. I thought about who would come running right away. Who would come running when I cried? I thought Melisa Casacuberta would be the quickest. I sent Melisa a message, simply asking if she could do me a favor and take me to the emergency room. I didn’t tell her why. She was at my house within 10 minutes. First, I had to navigate my stairs, which I did while having both hands on the handrails. I live above a restaurant, and as I stood outside waiting for Melissa, I leaned against a pillar, pretending to be Joe Cool as customers walked past me.

I live close to the hospital, so it didn’t take long to get there. I packed my iPhone, MacBook, and iPad (I was thinking I could still draw some cartoons) with me in my backpack. The security guard at the hospital made me walk through security three times because something in my backpack kept making the metal detector go off. Never mind, I was having a stroke. I didn’t sit and wait in the waiting room as the staff saw me immediately. Within minutes, I was in an MRI.

Yup. I had a stroke.

As you probably already know, I am now at the rehab center. Each day is filled with physical therapy as well as what you might call mental therapy. When I’m not in therapy, and I’m lying in my bed, I am working on some of my therapy. Today was Sunday, and I was supposed to have it off from therapy, but one of the trainers, one I had never worked with before, came in and asked if I wanted a workout anyway. She said she had some time and asked some of the other trainers who she could work with, and she was told I was pretty much good to go. She kicked my ass.

It bothers me that yesterday was No Kings Day, and I didn’t get to do anything with it. Several of my friends, even a few who visited me here, like Melissa Colombo, participated. I have cartoon ideas every day, and it kills me that I’m not drawing them. I wonder if there are any cartoonists out there who would actually want to use my ideas? Not that I would give them to them.

I think from this point that I should start blogging about news instead of just about myself. I don’t want to be a broken record. I am already a broken human. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to write about the stroke anymore, but I need to start writing about the attack the fascists on this country. I have time to think of the columns when the nurses forget I’m in the bathroom. Yes, they do that.

The columns are still hard to write as I am doing them by dictating into the MacBook microphone and typing with one finger. If you see any mistakes or boogers, you’re just gonna have to live with them, like boogers. That was a boo-boo.

I’ll leave you with something funny I’ll leave you with something funny.

One of my trainers is very serious. I have yet to hear him laugh. He is a nice guy, and he’s not strict. I just don’t think he laughs.

Yesterday. I was in a session, and I was walking in the gym. This requires a lot of concentration while I am walking. The trainer is right in front of me, and usually, there’s another trainer right behind me with the wheelchair ready for me to fall into it.

There are usually several trainers and patients in the gym at the same time. I could hear one trainer talking to his patient while we were walking, and he asked the patient what his favorite food was. The patient said his favorite food was baloney sandwiches. I looked at my trainer while I was walking and said, “Baloney sandwiches? Bleah!” I finally made my trainer laugh.

This is Melissa Colombo. She has been a godsend. She has checked my apartment, briefed my insistent Roomba, brought me clothes so I would not walk around here with my ass hanging out, checked my mail, taken out my garbage, thrown spoiled food out of my fridge, visited me in rehab, and has even done some of my laundry.

That dog hasn’t done shit. (snip)