Last night I was blindfolded...but it was fun.

I was a little nervous last night. Our church had a "golf cart rodeo". In that, the driver is blindfolded and the passenger has to give directions through the course. My passenger was my 112 year old daughter, Shaylee. It was fun. My wife did a few courses driving and a few giving directions. It was really fun. We also had a silent auction and a spaghetti dinner. The benefits were for the building fund. We raised nearly $2000. I was a little disoriented with the blindfold on, but since I was not walking, it was fine. When I took the blindfold off, I drove pretty well. All in all, it was a good night.

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Making a BIG, but somewhat hurtful, decision...

A few years ago I was presented with the opportunity to come back to Stratford, Iowa, to First Baptist church, as their pastor; for those of you who have followed this blog for some time, FBC in Stratford was my first pastorate. Let's just say I prayed about it as I was jumping at the opportunity. The church has a parsonage, so I could live there and not have to worry about a houe payment; and I needed to slow down, and this was a part time position (which, as a side note, allowed for me to get a greater disability from the VA than when I was working full time with St. Croix Hospice...) We love Stratford, and absolutely love the church; the people are wonderful and accepted us, again, with open arms. This was, for me, the perfect position: I get to pastor a church I LOVE, I get to do life with people I LOVE, and I have already had the opportunity to do weddings and baptism services for kids (adults now) that I have known their entire lives. IT IS GREAT. The longer I have been here,

A stroke survivor's memory is tricky sometimes...

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 Let me back up a little bit: After my stroke in December, 2008 my license was revoked for obvious reasons and it took me some time and practice before I was able to drive again.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

Sometimes "firsts" are suck...but not always!

This February my wife and I did something that we have wanted to do for a long time, but since my stroke we did not know how I would handle it. No, we did not go sky-diving or jet-skiing. We went on our first cruise! Now, admittedly, that seems very peaceful, reflective, and, for lack of a better word, fun...and it was, but there was always a sense of worry since my stroke: how will I handle the flight there, how will I do being in an area with so many people, how will I do on the ocean if the ship starts to sway, what if there are areas with a lot of sensory input like strobe lights, what if there is loud music? Those are all questions that stroke survivors have to ask themselves on, nearly, a daily basis. I think sometimes a lot of people, even our closest cargivers, forget that our brain has suffere a severe trauma and many, like myself, have actually had part of their brain removed because of the dead tissue. Because of that we have to assess every interaction, every potential outi

a stroke survivor story

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