Thanks for that very interesting account, Patrick. It sounds so very much like Ray, and it reminds me of my grandmother as well. Although she did not have a stroke, she needed to be hospitalized several times near the end because she kept falling and breaking or fracturing various bones. She gave my mother such a hard time, even threatening to call 911 from her hospital bed if my mother wouldn't take her home again. It was a very difficult period. Dandelion, don't beat yourself up over how you handled it when your father had his stroke. You loved him and were doing what you thought was best. He had to be happier being at home as long as he was, and that counts for something.

Thanks for the kind words, Imskipper. The father of one of my friends spent years caring for his mother who died of Alzheimer's. Almost immediately afterwards, my friend had to go take care of him while he died of cancer! Another friend came into the kitchen one day and found her grandmother curled up ON THE FLOOR. Her grandmother continued to scold and threaten that she was "in big trouble" if she called for medical help. My friend called the hospital and when she got there her grandmother was discovered to have one or more ulcers and would have bled to death had she not received help then. Sometimes you do have to go against their wishes.

We should all be thankful for Patrick, and daughters like Alexandra. I met Alexandra a couple times long awhile ago and she was a very happy -go-lucky outgoing person. Her helping her dad in this way is beyond being commendable. It's a blessing.

Patrick, if you find the time,and don't mind to do so, tell us something about yourself. There are a lot of us out here in 'cyberville' that would like to get to know about you a little more...

After placing calls on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I finally reached Ray on Monday.
When I told him I spoke to his wife on Thursday, he said, "Well, she never told *me* you called; she didn't say a thing about it."
I said, "Actually, I didn't give my name."
"Well, what good is it when you don't give your name?"
"I said I was the moderator of the message board on your official website, and there's only one moderator, me."
"I don't have a computer so why talk to me about message boards? I don't go online, and I don't HAVE an official website." By now sounding rather annoyed.
This was interesting, since I had sent him printouts of a few of the better discussions from the message board, but when we saw him in June he didn't show any recognition of what the website was. He knew the advance copy of the 100 stories book must have come from his agent or publisher, but didn't acknowledge anything I said about how it related to the website. (True, whoever sent it didn't identify themselves, but my only communication with the publisher regarded the website.) I *suppose* someone there has told him about the website, though it's hard to tell with *them,* but if so it just hasn't registered with him.
I said, "Well, people on the message board talk about YOU all the time, don't you care about THAT?"
"No, I don't, let them talk about me all they want."
(Uh-oh, I think he just gave us license to say whatever we want, but don't go TOO far with it!)
He said he'd had eight plays recently and many more coming up next year, and is basically booked till at least after New Year's! When I said something about being busy, busy, busy he said, "I try."

Sounds like Ray. Ah, he must be feeling better.

When you really think about it, the Internet is the great unknown to a LOT of people. Not only the Internet, but simply 'computers'.

Worked in graphics industry for a long time, and knew a fellow who was Art Director for a bunch of automobile magazines on the west coast. It was just when 'they' (the computers) were arriving on everybody's desk at the art department that this fellow was retiring. His words.. "Thank God I'm retiring now because I could never deal with THIS!"

The Computer Graphics to the old way of doing page make-up and design is as much a change as horses being replaced by the automobile.

Why should Ray interest himself in something that is not really going to be beneficial to him. He is more in touch with everyone via his way of communicating, than he ever could with the computer. It's an unknown and just as well remain that way....and for good reason!

To clarify on points raised earlier, I've gathered somewhat more complete information on stroke treatment. At the time my dad had all three of his strokes, there was only ONE available stroke treatment, the"clot-buster" drug, and it had to be administered by a certain time, such as within three hours of the first symptoms of a stroke. His first really bad stroke was that second one, and we had no idea of when the first symptoms appeared! Mom and I returned from church and found Dad on the floor, having fallen trying to get out of bed. He'd been lying there an hour or more, and all I knew was it was unusually difficult getting him up--we had no idea till much later that it was a stroke. For all we know, the stroke itself could have occurred in his sleep. Then the clotbuster works only on strokes which are caused by clots, not other factors, and then only when the clots are small enough for it to work--it is ineffective on some types of strokes. There is still some important reason that the victim needs to get to the hospital, but if there is really no treatment, I guess that's for stablilization, monitoring, or prevention of some kind? (Anyone?) Anyhow, there's a new treatment where evidently they can locate the blood vessel that's blocked, stick a little corkscrew into the clot and yank it out of there. What will they come up with next?

dandelion: Well, no matter what treatment or new discoveries in medicine, if there was no Patrick-intervention, there very well might be no Ray today.

Hey!
About the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" play at Edgemar Center for the Arts in LA area ! Look here! A website to check, out, and it comes with a couple photos. Yea!!

(click on, or type into finder http://www.reviewplays.com/something_wicked.htm