because I kept walking into immovable objects and falling down. The LA County Fire Department paramedics took my blood pressure, which was astronomical, and loaded me into the ambulance for a ride to Cedars Sinai Hospital where the first order of business was to screen me for Covid. A negative result permitted me into the hospital. Close to midnight, I got wheeled into the room where they do CAT scans. I saw the image the following day -- a creepy looking white rectangle at the top of my brain.

I have already forgotten what if any therapy I got over the next week before I got transferred to a Rehabilitation hospital. I had to book my own ambulance ride but they were nice enough to give me the internet addy for the ambulance company. It cost about $100. Once again, at the second temple of healing, the first task was another stick up my nose to prove I did not have Covid. Luckily, I showed negative.

The following day I began working on how to live --- how to use the bathroom and take a shower, how to pick up things with my afflicted left hand, how to write on a chalkboard, how to walk without stumbling.

The progress was encouraging for two weeks, until I got yet another stick up the nose which convicted me of the crime of covid. The only way I could have contracted the virus would prove the mask and vax protocols had failed utterly.

I was the only person, it seemed to me, who noticed this irony. For my last week in the rehab hospital, the only rehab work took place in my quarantined hospital room. No more walking allowed as I might infect somebody else.

I began to wonder if I would ever escape from the clutches of modern medicine.

I did, thank Dog.

Three years later, I have recuperated about as much I ever will. I can walk a mile without discomfort. But I cannot run at all. When I try to do simple exercises like "jumpimg jacks," my affected left side refuses to cooperate. While my right foot and arm move like they are supposed to -- moving further to the right. But my left side stays put. My best guess is that my recovery work has created new circuits that allow my left side to function, but not simultaneously with the right side doing something different.

This is extremely frustrating. I was never a great athlete, but I was a tournament level bowler into my 60s.

As I have tried to build a new person to finish out my time on earth, the world has gotten steadily more absurd as I creep slowly toward my own new self.

The email, phone and text scams continue to con my retirement income out of me. Global news is a nonstop nightmare. I don't much like this century.

So far, I have kept my sense of humor.