Ok, so I know it has been awhile since I have posted, and I know that I said that the focus of the blog was going to change, but, not so much. I was thinking that I was done writing about my experiences for my stroke, but I'm not. Today, I went to the Rec Center for the first time by myself since my stroke. The first thing I'm going to say is that, if you have never seen a man with no cerebellum try to play basketball, then you have never lived. Actually, I did pretty well. I played basketball and walked a few minutes at a time. I did not get over tired, because I am not supposed to my first time back. It felt really good to play basketball again. I could not spin (not that I did it well before) and I could not do layups very well (see the last parenthetical comment). It really was great. I missed the opportunity to lift weights, and I walked around the weight room (but I did not lift at all). I plan to go to the Rec Center more often, maybe every day.
On December 8, 2008, my life changed forever. I had a double sided cerebellar stroke with 2 brain stem compressions. It was not until December 10, 40 hours after my stroke, that surgery was finally done to relieve the pressure. Dr. Piper, the neuro-surgeon from Iowa Methodist hospital in Des Moines, told my wife that surgery was nothing more than an attempt to save my life, but that it would not erase the deficiencies as a result of the stroke. Although she admits that she did not really understand what Dr. Piper had just said, my wife, Laura, agreed to the surgery and the care team performed a decrompessive craniotomy, to hopefully relieve the pressure and allow my brain to function somewhat normally. For those who have followed my blog for the last 14+ years, the surgery was successful, I returned to the church and I now live a relatively normal life, although I do have some pretty severe, though not always visible, defieciencies. I really thought that life could not get any worse th
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