I had a good visit with Dr. Benjamin today. She had a student Dr. with her, and the student was absolutely amazed that a person with a double cerebellar stroke could do so well. What is interesting is that is the first time that I have been told that the worst part of my stroke was not the cerebellum...it was the brain stem stroke. She said that by the time the swelling gets bad enough to effect the brain stem, most people die. In my case, I am amazing every neurologist with my ability to do, basically, everything. Dr. Benjamin said that, probably, nobody in Des Moines had ever operated on someone with a cerebellar stroke that went double sided. Her exact words were that these types of things (me walking, talking, driving, etc.) just don't happen. It is not that they are rare, they just don't happen. In the end, I am a walking miracle and I am amazed every day that I live and breathe. Praise the Lord.
Tomorrow I will preach the funeral for a dear friend of mine. He was the definition of a selfless person. I truly appreciated all that he did, but, when I was meeting with the family on Wednesday a memory came to me suddenly and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Let me back up a little bit: After my stroke in December, 2008 my license was revoked for obvious reasons and it took me some time and practice before I was able to drive again. I finally got my license back in February, 2009. But, shortly after I got my license back the reality of the severity of my stroke became evident: my stroke had seriously impacted the PONS area of my brain stem, and therefore, a lot of my nerves were negatively impacted. One of the nerves that was damaged was the nerve that controls my eye movements; my left eye would would twitch, at times almost uncontrollably, and that made it really difficult to drive, particularly at night. That brings me to the memory that left me so emotional. Fast forwar
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