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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. 
Right now, during the long and problematic recovery from the stroke, I'm not working with clients. I'm simply not well enough to do sessions. I need this time to focus on myself and my own healing.
You may subscribe to the newslist, but I'm not writing any 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. 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. Stroke Recovery Progress Update, 15 April 2008
Each chapter of this experience has contained crises that demanded solutions. 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, where I also began to work with my new physical therapist. 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 days more I had already paid for). Bethany, my 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.
Stroke Recovery Progress Update, 23 February 2008
Earlier this month, my brother Dave moved my furniture and possessions from Olympia to my apartment in Florence. 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, and live pretty much like a normal person. 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 working much harder at independent living, and also because my brain is 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.
Stroke Recovery Progress Update, 15 January 2008
Today I moved out of the motel and into my own one-bedroom apartment in Florence, Oregon. This is a major milestone, as it means that I am no longer homeless. Long-term physical recovery and financial survival remain serious, sobering challenges, of course, but at least one crisis has been resolved.
Stroke Recovery Progress Update, Christmas, 2007
I've left the group home---which was hell on earth---and relocated to The Lighthouse Inn, a lovely, rustic motel in Florence where I've stayed many times in the past. I continue to work with Bethany, my physical therapist, who has been terrific, along with my dear friends Nancy and Jan and my brother David. Without their help, I don't know how I would have made it through this ordeal so far.
My physical recovery seems painfully slow. One day I'm better; the next day I'm worse. Double-vision continues to be aggravating, as do facial and body numbness. Walking is a serious challenge, even with the aid of a metal walker. I persevere, however.
 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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