’Twas the Stroke Before Christmas
Chapter 1

by Steve Chiappa (blinkie)

Page 1

I used to fantasize about writing a book; I even got around to trying it a couple of times back in the day. The first 30 or 40 pages would come flowing out of me, usually during stolen minutes or hours while I was at work, but that’s as far as I would get: the murder mysteries and great American novels were each eventually abandoned, and I went back about my business. There wasn’t enough time for writing, anyway. I was too busy doing what most people do: leading an uneventful life, raising children, and making mortgage payments.

Then I had a stroke. A doozy of a stroke. It was the type of stroke that usually kills its victims: a brainstem stroke. I’d never heard of it—and now I wish I never had. Brainstem strokes are rare—at least, surviving one is rare. I survived. Rather, my mind survived: I’m kind of a thinking vegetable. I have a condition known as Locked In Syndrome. For those of you who have never heard of it (which is damned near everyone), it means that I am completely paralyzed and unable to speak.

It ain’t pleasant — but what a great story! People tell me that all the time. Of course, it’s not quite that easy. I’ve tried writing about it as a comedy, but it’s not funny. Even though my family has stayed with me, the story for most Locked In patients doesn’t have a happy ending: Doctors tell the families that their loved ones are not going to recover any functionality, and they give up. Friends fade, families are torn apart, and the patient is institutionalized and forgotten.

So maybe I don’t have a great novel in me, but I do have one helluva story. It’s the story of an ordinary life, with some extraordinary people. It’s a love story, a sad story, a happy story, but most of all it’s my story.