By Paul Lathrop | Conributing Editor
Readers of The Gun Mag, I feel I must lead with an explanation and an apology.
Almost a year ago, my life turned upside down. I was six months into my dream job. I worked for The Second Amendment Foundation and operated under the supervision of two of my heroes, Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman. My job entailed producing seven video programs a week and writing three to five columns a week for The Gun Mag.
On Sunday morning, April 11, 2021, my mouth would not work as I sat down to talk with my wife, Susan. Thoughts in my head were still forming, but my mouth could only make mumbling sounds. No words would come out. I thought it was odd but wasn’t overly concerned, chalking it up to being extremely tired.
Later that day, I was talking with a good friend on a video call, and she recommended that I go to the emergency room as she thought I might have had a stroke.
She was correct.
After being seen in the emergency room and having several tests performed, the doctors found that I had suffered a stroke with continued bleeding in the right frontal lobe of my brain.
That diagnosis started a long list of tests and plans, as they found that one of the carotid arteries in my neck was more than 90 percent blocked. My doctors wanted to wait for surgery until the bleeding in my brain had stopped entirely, setting up a wait until surgery to clear my carotid artery could be done.
About two weeks into this ordeal, I started experiencing some chest pains. After another trip to the emergency room, the doctors found that I had a blocked artery in my heart, so emergency surgery followed, along with a longer wait for the surgery to clear my neck.
Finally, in June, I underwent surgery to clear the blocked artery and started the long process of recovering from the stroke.
As I write this in late March, my speaking ability has mostly recovered, almost a year after my first stroke symptoms. I have returned to broadcasting “The Bullet” and “The Polite Society” podcast. However, my ability to read and write is taking a lot longer to recover.
If you were to meet me “on the street,” I doubt that you would think that I had had a stroke, other than the fact that I speak a little slower than most people do and have a tendency to close my eyes when the correct word does not pop up in my brain.
Luckily, in my ten years of Second Amendment advocacy and broadcasting, I have developed many friendships with great professionals who have jumped in to help me with the broadcasts.
My ongoing physical challenges related to the stroke have been limited to a slowing in all communication, and a particular difficulty in reading and writing.
I am slowly returning to full capacity in my duties. Last fall, with a lot of help from the planning team that I work with, we were able to pull off “Amm-Con 2021” in Dallas, and we have just hit the planning stages for “Amm-Con 2022.” Amm-Con is a conference for Second Amendment media held in conjunction with SAF’s Gun Rights Policy Conference, where we can share best practices and help improve all pro-freedom media.
Going forward, I hope to return to writing on a more regular basis, as that is one of the things that I was brought on to do for SAF.
In the immediate future, my plans are for my wife Susan and I to travel to the Atlanta area in mid-May to report on The Women’s Meet and Mingle, an annual function invitation-only event put on by The Complete Combatant. The following week I will travel to The NRA Annual Meeting in Houston and report on the happenings there.
Further plans for the year are attending and reporting from Rick Ector’s Women’s Training Day in July in the Detroit area, and of course resuming my duties broadcasting the 2022 Gun Rights Policy Conference September 30 through Oct 2nd in Dallas.
(Editor’s Note: We’ve enjoyed our association with Paul, and anticipate hearing more from him as his recovery continues. No apologies necessary, amigo. )
