Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
I hope Bob does OK. Is he happy being a curmudgeon or a curmudgeon because he’s unhappy?
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He is one of the happiest guys I know, as long as he has something to be angry about.
Bob is the classic Norwegian - "you can always tell a Norwegian, but you can't tell him much...". He has always been the most hard-headed, stubborn man I have ever known. He was an engineering liaison lead that worked with a design engineering group I worked for in the middle of my career (I left that group about 20 years ago after a short stint, to return to my first love in AOG).
Bob retired a couple of years before I did. Under duress. Old friends in the group told me he had been downgraded from his lead position over his inability to cooperate with others - kind of a key requirement in a liaison position. He retired the same day he was given that news.
One of my doctor friends gave me a brief education about strokes. Apparently, the "big one" is quite often preceded by minor occurrences, known as "infarctions", wherein blood vessels in the brain swell (without rupturing) enough to cause damage to surrounding tissue. A "real" stroke is when they swell enough to rupture.
My doctor buddy tells me that these infarctions will often cause personality changes, mostly increased stubbornness, confusion, irritability, impatience, etc. It's one of those "slow creep" kinds of things, though, where it's hard to tell in "real time", while it's happening.
With the advantage of hindsight, that is exactly the road Bob has been on for years. All of us - his few friends and his family - can see it clearly, in retrospect. Infarctions are entirely detectable, treatable, and serve as "advance warning" to a stroke. That would require, however, that Bob see a doctor regularly. He had not seen one in 20 years or more. Because, well, they tell him what to do...
I'm worried about the guy. And I'm completely helpless to do anything. Advice is out of the question.