I don't know what to write this morning. In truth, my situation has changed, and because of that everything has to change. But, at the same time, I HATE being treated like I am a stroke survivor. By this, I mean that every time I have borderline blood pressure, every time I have shortness of breath, every time I have some sort of pain, and every time I don't feel "right" people think I might be having another stroke, or worse. Nevermind that the stroke specialist has already told me that this will probably "never happen again". Never mind the fact that I can do other things generally well. It seems as though everything is being filtered by that one event. Now, I can deal with it. I am not going into a depression, I am not feeling worthless, it just annoys me. Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe I should just be grateful that people really care about me. OK, I do and I am. But it still annoys me. What I wonder is this: do people not trust me? I feel like EVERY situation MUST be worse than I think, EVERY situation MUST be something more than I am making it. No matter what I am experiencing, it is not a"normal" experience. Interesting, if I had a cold on December 8th, no one would think anything of a little coughing or a slight raise in blood pressure. BUT now my blood pressure has to STAY between 120 and 139 over 70 and 89. Regardless of whether I have a cold or not; regardless of if I feel bad or not. It is a little frustrating. I know, I know...it is only because people don't want a repeat of what happened. Granted. But, what happened to me is, by every Dr. estimate, a fluke. It was not caused by anything I did or did not do. It was caused by a collapsed artery in my chest, a tear, and a clot that went to my brain. My BP had NOTHING to do with my first stroke...Sorry, I just had to vent a little frustation.
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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