31 Days in Seuss, Day 12: My Scariest Moment

Still trying to catch up on the 31 Days in Seuss Challenge, but I’m determined to get them all done before the end of the month! I posted the whole (non-rhymed) account of today’s story on my blog before. It’s here if you’re interested, but here it is in verse:

MY SCARIEST MOMENT
Here’s a true story from 2 years ago
The scariest of all the moments I know
When I woke up one morning and went into work
And everything, suddenly, went completely berserk.

I was feeling quite strange when I rolled out of bed
Nauseous and dizzy, with a pain in my head,
But nothing too serious, or so I thought,
No reason it seemed to get too overwrought.

I made it to work, but things just got worse
The stairs to my office seemed hard to traverse
I couldn’t quite get my bearings about me
My hand was shaking as I turned the door-key.
I took some deep breaths, drank some water and tried
To ignore the symptoms that wouldn’t subside,
But I wasn’t okay and I knew pretty fast
That whatever this was could not be surpassed.

I went down to my classroom. I couldn’t teach.
But when I tried to announce that– Oh no!– NO SPEECH!
I stood there bewildered, a stammering mute
I must’ve appeared to have wits subacute.
My students just stared, waiting for direction
While I was lost in a fog of confused introspection.

Where were my words? Why wouldn’t they come?
I knew what I wanted to say, but was dumb.
I could think in full sentences and intend with full will
But the sound all around remained stubbornly still.
Something was definitely wrong, I knew that.
It was my turn, but I stood there, at-bat.

To the ER I went in dystopic fantasia
Where the doctors informed me that I had aphasia.
The result of a stroke, my speech had been taken
A little spasm in my brain was the cause for my achin’.

After a whole lot of tests and a hospital stay,
They finally said it would all be okay.
Just like that, a second chance was transplanted
For me to never take my own words for granted.

About the Author
Philosopher, podcaster, technophile, raconteuse. In and from and all about Memphis.

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