A Note From Michael

By Michael Baxter

June 24, 2023

I want to apologize for my malaise in publishing lately, but also, possibly against my better judgement, want to take a moment to explain what’s going on in my world outside of Real Raw News.

It’s not my habit to discuss things personal—being vulnerable has bit me in the ass before, situations where people I trusted, now armed with some morsal of info on my life, turned against me. Therefore, I am hesitant.

I’ve admitted before that I’m going through health issues, some of which have resolved or are under treatment.

Ever here the only saying, “Catastrophes come in threes?”

Well, there may be merit to that old axiom.

On Monday this week, I experienced symptoms consistent with what are called TIAs– Transient ischemic attack, temporary period of symptoms like those of a stroke, usually a precursor to an acute stroke.

As I was sitting at my desk writing, a feeling of numbness overwhelmed the right side of my body—face, arm, leg, hand, feet. It wasn’t paralyzing numbness and lasted only two minutes. It was disconcerting but I shrugged it off.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I woke at 5:00 with powerful numbness rippling through my right body again. This time it was 20X more noticeable. Foolishly, I tried to stand up, only to collapse to the floor like a sack of bricks. This time, I had absolutely no feeling in my right leg.

After four minutes, the numbness had gone. However, I’d narrowly avoided striking my head against the edge of a desk and smashed my wrist pretty good (I didn’t feel at the time due to numbness) when my body crashed down on it.

I had already called an ambulance by the time the numbness was gone.

At the ER, I went through the usual barrage of bloodwork, X-rays, CT and MRI scans.

The tests ruled out things like cancer, MS, and tumors. They found spinal stenosis and some plaque in an artery, but said it was not enough to call for a stent. The neurologist who looked at my scans said he saw some sign of a stroke, but that TIAs, unlike acute strokes, do not typically present on scans. Given my risk factors—smoking, hypertension, high triglycerides, and weight—he said he was sure I was experiencing precursors to a major event.

I stayed in the hospital for 3 days for observation. I was put on drugs (and people know how much I dislike meds) to mitigate the risk of another episode. These included anti-coagulants, statins, and fibrates.

It takes a lot to rattle me. Even fears of Deep State retaliation seldom rattle me. But this incident, to be blunt, scared the living shit out of me.

I’ve had no further episodes since I’ve been home—but I have had panic attacks. Anyone who’s been through this can understand, I’m sure, that the thought of it happening again is beyond terrifying. I’ve immediately changed my diet and plan to exercise more. I want to be around my family, my friends, and the readers of RRN, many of whom are like family to me. I’ve only smoked 3 cigs a day since getting out of the hospital—I know I need to quit completely, but the anxiety is still with me.

So, again, I apologize for the delay between articles. I do plan to pick things up. I also plan to resume radio shows (but not on blog-talk—the platform sucks and is too expensive) as soon as reasonably possible.

I’m praying a lot, for many reasons.

P.S. You can make fun of the image. I know I look like shit.

SOURCE: https://realrawnews.com/2023/06/a-note-from-michael/