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 Original Notice of my Stroke for Friends, Clients, and Subscribers
On Nov. 26th, 2007, I suffered a stroke. A blood vessel ruptured in the left rear of my cerebellum at the brain stem, causing loss of balance, vision dis-coordination, and inability to swallow, among other serious symptoms. After ten days in the hospital, I was released on December 8th, 2007.
Needless to say, this is a life-changing event. The particular kind of stroke I had was rare, called Wallenberg's Syndrome, even more rare since my stroke was hemmorhagic rather than ischemic, meaning it was caused by a hemmorhage rather than by a blood clot. In the immediate aftermath, I couldn't stand or walk, and I had severe double-vision. Hand-eye coordination was badly impaired. The left side of my face and right side of my body lost all sensation, including temperature and pain sensitivity, and were initially numb. Over the next months, that numbness gave way to serious nerve pain. My consciousness, lucidity, and speech were unaffected by the stroke. I had to learn to swallow again, however, and even four months later I still suffer occasional choking episodes. I left my former residence in Olympia, Washington, and have moved to Florence, Oregon. 
I have just begun doing sessions again on a part-time basis. See the May update in the center column for details.
You may subscribe to the newslist, but I'm not writing essays, articles, or newsletters until I'm much further down the road toward recovery.
My astrological textbook, Houses of the Horoscope, has been re-published by Kevin Burk's new publishing company, Serendipity Press (thanks, Kevin, for all your work in getting the book out!).
This is the same revised and expanded 2nd Edition that I've offered here in an e-book PDF version, now in a wonderful new paperback. The book is priced at $24.95 and should be in bookstores now. You can order a copy online now at Amazon. (Order anything else with it to get over the 25 buck hump, and you'll get free shipping.) Here's a link to the book's page on Amazon: Houses of the Horoscope at Amazon.com To learn more about both my books, or to order the PDF versions, click here. 
This site won a "Web Site of the Week" award from Astropro. To read Astropro's review and check out Richard's informative site, click here. |
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Stroke Recovery Fund Donations
Without health insurance, serious illness or major injury in America means financial ruin. Since I'm now face-to-face with that unpleasant reality. I am gratefully accepting donations to help me survive while I recover from the stroke. To donate to my recovery fund via PayPal using a credit card, bank account debit, or PayPal account, please click on the DONATE button, then fill in the amount you wish to send. If you would like to donate via personal check, please make the check payable to Bill Herbst and note that it's a "recovery fund donation," then mail it to my new permanent address: Bill Herbst
822 1st Street
Florence OR 97439-9346
My sincere thanks to everyone who has donated thus far. Such open-hearted generosity is astonishing, especially since so many of the donations have been from people I didn't know — folks who've read my books, articles in TMA, and newsletter essays over the years. The money you've given is a godsend in keeping me afloat. 9 August 2008
I wish I had better news to report, but the reality is not good. My downward slide continues. Pain is worse, and balance is degrading, so walking is more difficult. The nerve pain on my right side that feels as if my arm and leg were bubble-wrapped in flammable gas and then lit on fire never goes away, but I can cope by directing my awareness away from the pain.
The muscle pains that affect my right foot, thigh, hip, and glutes whenever I stand are not manageable, however. These deep pains start when I stand up and intensify minute by minute whether I'm walking or standing still. After 5-10 minutes of being vertical, the pain becomes overwhelming. If I didn't sit down, I'd collapse, simply crumpling to the ground. After I get off my feet, the pain subsides in a minute or two. The left side of my face continues to be seriously screwed up, with no indication of any healing from the nerve damage to facial skin and tissues. Because I am not wealthy and possess neither special clout nor celebrity social status, I won't be able to see a neurologist until October at the earliest. And so it goes… Meanwhile, in the collective world beyond my personal travails, the financial cesspool of stinky institutionalized E-Z credit first sniffed out in 2007 through the subprime mortgage crisis is now revealed to have despoiled every nook and cranny of the economy, foretelling a disaster of global proportions. Turns out that not just one or two apples in the mercantile barrel were rotten; the entire barrel was filled with toxic applesauce. Corporate culture finally tripped itself up once too often through its normalizing of greed and arrogance as perfectly acceptable values (think Enron). Suddenly shorn of reactionary free-market evangelism, Wall Street and the Bankers are now revealed to be pigs at the trough of socialized welfare to save their own butts. Oh, they'll get their bailouts (at taxpayer expense) all right, since they make the rules, but it won't be enough this time. The whole system is in slow-motion collapse---fiat currency of worthless dollars, fake wealth through debt-based financing, and handing future generations the bill to pay. Those financial and economic pundits in the media who optimistically predict a 2-3 year or even 5-year period for recovery are misinformed, blind as bats, and dead wrong. Not just a little wrong, but stupendously, spectacularly wrong. Heads-up-their-own-asses wrong. The fact that these idiots don't have a clue is on much the same level as Bushco's insane optimism about our quick-'n-easy victory in Iraq. One by one, the institutions that comprise the heart of modern American culture are being revealed not merely to have feet of clay, but to be completely and utterly full of shit. Not just a little corrupt, but totally buggered. I have more to say on this topic, but I'll save it for newsletter essays, which I hope to start again within a month or so. 3 July 2008
To write that I'm very worried amounts to putting my feelings mildly. Seven months after the stroke, my "recovery" has all but stopped dead in its tracks. Some of the gains remain, such as reunified vision and normalized blood sugars. Other steps of progress back toward full function have relapsed and are now steadily degrading again. 20 pounds of new fat around my middle — a nasty but all-too-common side effect of insulin therapy — makes me feel like a beached whale, which is frightening. Even worse, my sense of balance is deteriorating, as is my ability to stand and walk.
Besides the constant nerve pain that surrounds my right arm and leg, I now experience agonizing pain inside my right foot, right thigh, and right hip whenever I attempt to stand and bear my own weight for more than about five minutes. This is accompanied by serious and sharp low back and gluteal pain that eventually overwhelms me, so that I have to sit down again to avoid crumpling to the ground. At this point, I can walk unaided only about 150 feet before the pain becomes unbearable. Also, stairs are looming as more of a problem than they were in the spring. Two months ago I lost a tooth, the #5 bicuspid that had been infected for 25 years. Today I had a second tooth extracted, the #30 molar. While linked to the diabetes rather than the stroke, worsening gum pockets and bone loss are now terminal, despite my best efforts and thousands of dollars already spent on periodontal surgeries over the past 25 years. Losing the rest of my teeth seems no longer a question of if, only when. While dentures are not the worst fate in the world, paying for them is. And therein lies the dark heart of my recent anxiety. Though I am seriously concerned about constant pain and not being able to walk, I am in fact less afraid of being crippled than of running out of money and unable to support myself financially. Looks like it'll come down to whether enough people will want astrological sessions with me. And that's another of those wildcards about the imminent collapse of the American way of life and the coming global economic meltdown that no one can answer. 27 June 2008
For many of us, pop music provides the sound track to our lives. Song lyrics are sometimes uncanny in nailing our private experience or the collective vibe we swim through, all the more so when the references are ripe with irony or shockingly unintended meanings.
Given my terrible troubles with very real brain damage and a body so broken it's headed downhill fast, plus my observation that civilization has now begun its inexorable descent into chaos, breakdown, and opposed revolutions, I've been hearing the Rolling Stones' song "Gimme Shelter" running around inside my head for the past week or so. Penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, with a killer vocal solo by Mary Clayton, it's from the Stones' 1970 album, Let it Bleed: Ooh, a storm is threat'ning my very life today If I don't get some shelter, ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away Yea-yah Ooh, see the fire is sweepin' our very street today Burns like a red coal carpet; mad bull who's lost his way War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away Yea-yah Rape, murder! It's just a shot away, it's just a shot away Rape, murder! Yea-yah, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away Rape, murder! It's just a shot away, it's just a shot away Yay, yea-yah, yeah Mmm the floods is threat'ning my very life today Gimme, gimme shelter, or I'm gonna fade away War, children, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away, it's just a shot away, it's just a shot away I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away, it's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away, it's just a kiss away, it's just a kiss away Kiss away, kiss away Ya-yay 21 May 2008 — I'm Doing Sessions Again
Well, it took two months, but my blood sugar is now as normalized as it can get using slow-acting insulin and an ultra-low-carb diet. As soon as my vials of fast-acting insulin arrive in the mail, I'll start taking insulin shots with meals to keep my blood glucose tightly controlled and in the normal range most of the time. Thank heaven for Canadian pharmacies, where many brands of insulin are available without a prescription and for much cheaper than in the U.S.!
Six months after the stroke, my physical recovery seems to be going nowhere fast. I'm in pain all the time, except for short periods when I'm able to distract myself, sometimes by focusing on a task, such as updating the web site or roasting coffee beans for espresso, or through a social interaction with a friend, whether in-person or over the phone. I'm thankful for those brief respites, and for the blessed relief of sleep.
The most important news this month is that I've begun doing sessions again. I had hoped to postpone this decision, but the harsh reality is that I need an income to survive financially. The stroke didn't affect my consciousness or speech, so I can actually do sessions, despite the damaged condition of my body.
For the time being, I'm doing only two sessions per week. Price for a session is $200.00 for up to 90 minutes. Those of you who are already clients may email me to schedule by clicking on this link: Request for Session. First-time clients should follow the instructions on the Sessions FAQ page.
15 April 2008 — Recovery Redux
Each chapter of this experience has contained crises that had to be addressed. Back in November, the journey began with the stroke itself and my landing in Madigan Military Hospital (where I was neither military nor insured). On the second day after the stroke, I learned that I would not be allowed to return to the house where I had lived for two years. So my life had imploded---I couldn't stand up, couldn't swallow, couldn't see, had no way to pay for major hospital bills, and oh-by-the-way was also suddenly homeless. That was all part of the first chapter's crises.
The social worker at Madigan tried vainly to find financial support for me, but I didn't qualify for Medicaid or Social Security Disability, nor did I want to become a ward of the state. It became clear that I would need to go it alone financially, paying as I could. Meanwhile, the neurology team of doctors at Madigan didn't know what to do with me. They wanted to release me to an "urgent care facility," which are centers run by private corporations that cost $3,000 per DAY (nearly 100 grand for one month). Since I didn't have health insurance, no urgent care facility would accept me. My friends in Florence, Oregon, found a group home there that would take me for one month for $2,500. Desperate, I took it.
The second chapter was leaving the hospital and moving from Olympia, Washington, into the private facility in Florence. That chapter lasted less than two weeks. The group home turned out to be a nightmare (a room with nothing but a twin bed and an overhead light, no tubs for baths, with meals that included such delicacies as hot dogs chopped up in white rice). This seemed to me the bottom of the barrel of America's for-profit healthcare system. I couldn't stand it. So, on Christmas Eve I left (after the owner of the group home refused to give me any refund for the 18 more days I had already paid for). Bethany, my new physical therapist, helped me move into The Lighthouse Inn, a rustic motel I like a lot and had stayed in often during previous visits to Florence.
That move initiated the third chapter, which brought the crises of driving my car, getting around with a walker to buy food, and finding a permament rental apartment. At this point, I had occasional pain, but mostly I was still numb on the left side of my face and right side of my body, with balance instability, continuing double vision, and serious muscle weakness.
In mid-January, I kicked off chapter four by renting my new apartment. That quickly morphed into chapter five that I wrote about in the February update below, when my brother Dave flew out from Missouri and moved all my furniture and possessions from my previous residence in Olympia to my apartment in Florence. Thanks, Dave! I wish i could have paid you a lot more for your help! February also included the major challenge of finding and establishing relationships with various health care providers, both western medical and alternative/holistic.
Now it's April. This next chapter brings to center stage my most serious ongoing crisis, that of my worsening diabetes and the challenge of normalizing my blood sugar, which has been dangerously elevated since before the stroke. For the first time ever, I've begun daily self-injections of insulin. Unfortunately, after three weeks, the insulin therapy isn't working. My blood sugar, while somewhat lower, is still elevated and nowhere near normal. I started out injecting a very low dose of insulin, five units. Now I'm up to the fairly major dose of 25 units per day. The fact that it's still not bringing down my blood sugar is frankly very frightening, because it casts a shadow of doubt on my chances of recovery and healing from the stroke. Nerves do not like glucose in the blood, especially nerves that are trying to come alive again in new networks.
In addition, my body is giving me fits. The left side of my face still feels weird, and the right-side body numbness that characterized the first month after the stroke has been replaced with constant nerve pain. I'm in pain now all the time---24/7, with no letup. During February, I experienced this nerve damage as icy cold inside the right half of my body and my left cheek. Now that iciness has changed into a hot burning sensation, a more classic expression of nerve pain. Obviously, my brain is trying to rewire and reactivate the nerve pathways, but it's hell on me to go through this process, healing or not. Between the pain and the weakness of muscles and tendons, I have a lot of trouble walking now, as I'm overcome quickly by muscle weakness and nerve pain. Making it up the stairs to my bedroom is a climb that takes considerable gumption.
As a final exclamation point, I'm also suffering sporadic but intense shooting pains in my head, mostly on the left side and around my eye. These are like lightnining bolts---sudden and sharp, lasting about 3-5 seconds, enough to make me cry out. Not exactly the most fun I've ever had.
I don't mean to imply that anything is necessarily "wrong," or that I won't heal eventually, assuming I can get the diabetes under control through diet and insulin. According to my physical therapist Bethany, current medical opinion holds that full recovery from a major stroke can take up to 18 months, so I try to remind myself that I have more than a year to go before concluding that I'm screwed. Still, this isn't exactly what I expected by a "healing process." Instead, it's one step forward, two steps back, then two more steps sideways. To look at me or listen to me talk, anyone would assume that I'm fine. And many friends I see in Florence do indeed tell me that I look healthy. My reality, however, is much different. I am one sorely damaged puppy.
There is some good news amidst the suffering and concerns. My vision continues to improve, and with it my hand-eye coordination. Best of all, my troublesome tooth finally gave up the ghost and fell out after 25 years. Eventually I may have a dentist rig up a removeable plastic bridge, but for now I'm fine with a gap where #5 was, since it's on the side and not visible or cosmetically disfiguring. For the past decade, I wasn't able to chew on the right side of my mouth, and now I can again.
Not to put too fine a spiritual point on everything, but this journey is teaching me to appreciate and enjoy whatever favors life offers, even the small ones. Especially the small ones.
23 February 2008 — Progress Update
Earlier this month, my brother Dave moved my furniture and possessions from Olympia. Washington, 300 miles south to the apartment in Florence, Oregon, I rented last month. In addition to my wonderful physical therapist Bethany, I've found a primary care physician and an acupuncturist with whom I'm now working. Recovery continues to be slow, and interrupted or complicated by other health crises, such as elevated blood sugar from my diabetes and imminent loss of a tooth that's been troublesome for a decade. In fact, it's been one thing after another on this journey through the Land of Broken Bodies. So far, I've made it through each challenge. The walker has been retired, and I now walk entirely on my own, including up and down the stairs of my two-level apartment. I drive, shop for groceries, cook my own food, wash clothes, etc. My balance is not very good, though, and I'm in much more physical pain now than two months ago. That's probably because I'm through the initial numbness of physical shock and working much harder at independent living. Also, my brain is now trying to rewire the damaged nerve pathways to restore the body's muscles. So, nerve pain from my right side is present whenever I move. It's not sharp, but vaguely nauseating and makes me feel like I'm going to throw up, so it's no picnic.
The left side of my face is seriously messed up. I've had a bloody left nostril since the stroke that scabs up but won't heal, plus various other cuts and abrasions -- under my left eye and on my left jaw under my beard. The skin tissue itself is damaged and tears easily, presumably because of the nerve damage. A couple weeks ago, my left inner ear filled up with blood. I don't know what caused that, but I'm glad it healed or at least stopped, because it scared the hell out of me. Basically, looking out of my face feels distinctly abnormal, as if a phantom-of-the-opera half-mask were bolted to the left side of my face. That's not a perfect description, but close enough. I can actually feel my left eyeball and the muscles surrounding it. The experience is weird, disconcerting, and with me every waking minute of the day.
 I'm a professional astrologer with 34 years' full-time experience. I've done more than 11,000 astrological sessions, mostly with individuals, but also with couples, families, and groups.
I didn't set out to be an astrologer (far from it), and, though people understandably regard me as an authority on the subject, I'm really not obsessed with astrology itself. Yes, it's an extraordinary, elegant system in the right hands, and the information it provides is endless and often unavailable from any other source. Still, for me at least, astrology is only a means to an end, just a useful tool to explore something else, something much more important.
What I find compelling — what really interests me — is not astrology, but human beings and the incredible, almost overwhelming experience of being human.
We wake up in these bodies one day, and we don't know where we came from, how we got here, or where we're going. But here we are, as long as we breathe and our hearts beat. And while we're here, we have to figure out how our machinery works, how to live in these awkward bodies and difficult personalities, and how to connect with other, equally complex human beings along the way. It is all a bit much, and often more than any of us can handle.
Despite being members of the same species and sharing much in common, we are very different as individuals. Just beneath the ordinary, commonplace experiences of everyday life, we live alone inside ourselves. Our inner realities are custom-tailored, profoundly unique, and often unseen, much less understood, by anyone else. Most of the time, through happiness, suffering, or just normal life, we remain hidden even to ourselves.
I use astrology to explore those differences that make us unique, to probe into the heart of the puzzle, to reveal what can be revealed, and to reach out across the void to make contact, to find a way for us (and for myself as well) to feel not quite so alone.
For those of you who might be curious, I've posted my own chart and provided a little background info about myself.
Being an astrologer does not require any specific spiritual beliefs, nor does it imply any particular social or political leanings. Some astrologers lean to the right, others to the left. Some focus exclusively on the lofty realms of metaphysics; others are more pragmatic, integrating real-life concerns into their work.
For me, all three levels are relevant, and I tend to have deep feelings and strong opinions about each, as anyone who reads the newsletters and essays archived on this site will no doubt see. That said, I can't claim to have achieved transcendent wisdom or even personal serenity in reconciling the contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies of these often conflicting arenas. Spirituality, culture, and politics continue to be an ongoing challenge for me. Indeed, they comprise a significant part of the struggle in my life to understand and mature.
What I lack in certainty, however, I try to make up for in reverence, the feeling of awe and respect for the often unexpected and always profound mysteries of life.
 
Below are the MP3s from my 1994 Celtic Fusion CD, "Beyond the Emerald Isle." The selections include Irish, English, and Scots tunes in traditional and original jigs, reels, hornpipes, and slow airs, plus a lullaby, a lament, and an English madrigal. All the instruments were synthesized, and the music was sequenced and mixed on a Mac. My own little one-man show.
Click on the title links to listen to the cuts, or download the MP3s for free. 1. Old Hag You Have Killed Me, Delaney's, Morrison's … medley of three Irish jigs
2. When the Winds Begin to Sing … permutations of an Irish melody
3. Song of the Chanter … Irish slow air
4. Saucy Sailor … English seafaring song
5. The Weavers, Kail and Pudding, Loch Roag … another medley of Irish jigs
6. The Old Woman's Lullaby … slow air from Scotland
7. Drive the Cold Winter Away … Irish melody
8. Harvest Home, The Little Beggar Girl … two English tunes, the latter by Richard Thompson
9. The April Green, Kasha in the Window … original hornpipe and reel, with an embedded jig
10. Taking Missionary Ridge … original call-and-response marches 11. Oh the Cutters … English slow air 12. Love is Worth it All … original English madrigal 13. The Cruel Brother … rave-up of a Scots lament |
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