Bruce

Hello to all of you in Bruce's blog land.

My name is Bob Young, I'm a friend of Bruce and live in Bellingham WA

It was 2 years ago on Super Bowl Sunday when I got a call from Bruce and he sounded a bit funny. I was at friend's watching the game and asked him to go to my house and watch the game and I would be home after.

Bruce had spent some time with me and helped me out with work around my property in the months previous. I thought that he had left town the week or two previous but apparently he had stayed in town longer to work for a disabled woman with a large and maintenance deficient house.

When I got home and sat down to talk with him, within 30 seconds I knew he had had a stroke and Off we went to the hospital. He had aphasia and could not get anything out that made sense. There were no physical indications and other than the aphasia he was healthy as a h orse.

I spent a few hours in the hospital Bruce and his nephew Carl going through his phone and calling his relatives. The next day he was still not making much sense but seemed to be getting better at pushing his thoughts past the damage. The second day I brought him a notepad and asked him to start writing in it. As we all know Bruce has a lot to say and I was afraid he might get backed up. His first day writing was total gibberish, the next words started showing and within a week of me haranguing him daily about it, he started writing and speaking normally. Well, nearly so.

Bruce was doing pretty well in just a few weeks and was on the road again soon thereafter. His goal was to write a book about his adventures and if you have started reading this blog from the beginning you know it could be a good one.

He was gone from Bellingham for a few months and I can't recount what he was up to but he had to come back when he found out that his doctor had had his drivers license suspended. After doctor visits and retesting at the DMV Bruce had his license back in hand and once again prepared to travel. I know that he cleared out and gave up his storage locker and was getting ready to go to his eye doctor on the east coast.

As the readers may have noticed, he never really was able to fully recover his writing skills. He struggled getting logged in and writing but did amazingly well considering where he was when he had the stroke.

This brings us up to around super Bowl last when Carl called and told me that Bruce had had another stroke. This one was much more serious, one side of his body, as I understand it, is permanently paralyzed and as before he has aphasia, which I hear is improving to the point that he can communicate fairly well.

He now lives in assisted living near his son Ron.

I think that Bruce would love to hear from his friends. Please send him a postcard to the following address. Do not reply to his blog. I am also going to remove his donate button.

Thanks to all of you that helped Bruce realize some of his dreams.

Life Care Center of Federal Way

1045 S. 308th St., Federal Way, WA 98003

I will provide an update in a few weeks when Bruce's friend Wendell and I go Dow to visit him.

Thank you,
Bob

January 02, 2017; Bellingham, Washington

Bitter cold  has settled over the Pacific Northwest.  My new Sleeping bag has made the inside of SPIA tolerable.

Many hours have been spent in front of the GEEK Squad Table to relearn how to use my new computer.  Seems much of the knowledge I took for granted the many prior years has eroded and been lost.    To create this simple sentence is taking many minutes of intense concentration.  The Geek Squad has invested some 15 hours over the past week or so at $70.00 (value) per hour and still I struggle.

Even so, SAM and SPIA are prepared to leave BELLINGHAM this week.   I plan to push SAM in short spurts of ten miles or so, before returning to SPIA ..... thence driving forward some 20 miles before parking for the night.  In this way our Walk and Roll will progress some 140 miles forward each week.

In keeping with my desire to help others as we cross America, we will always stop as we encounter the needs or opportunities to help others.

As a measure of my progress to create / update this blog, it has taken two hours so far.  I certainly look forward to do much better as we go forward.