Yesterday was our children's Christmas Program...

Yesterday our church had its children's Christmas program and our family Christmas. It was a great time of celebration and remembering the true reason for the Christmas time. It was a great celebration, but even more meaningful to me was the fact that I could not be there last year because I was in the hospital. In fact, I could not be at my son's band concert. What is amazing is that I sang a song yesterday...pretty good for a person that was not supposed to walk or talk at all.

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Sometimes my new life stinks...

For the last few weeks I have been experiencing some pretty terrible headaches; not the kind that you can relieve by rubbing your temples or taking Tylenol, but headaches that radiate from the back of my head. It seems as though I have tried several things to relieve them: taking naps, lying down on heating pads, taking Tylenol, turning the lights of, etc. but nothing seems to help. Now, I don't have them all the time, only a few days a week and I can tell that they are more from muscle tightness than anything else. I have been instructed to go the ER if they flare up again, because of my past history of headaches before my stroke, but most likely it is due to the muscles that were cut in the back of my head for the Craniotomy. I would say that most days I do not struggle with headaches at all; but, the days I do have headaches they are a doozy. I don't have blurred vision with them or sensitivity to light or sound; it just hurts. As I look back over the past 3+ years I realize...

Does it get any worse than a stroke? Yes

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...

A little lethargic the last couple of days....

The last couple days I have been really, unusual. I don't know exactly how to describe it. I'm tired all the time. No matter how long I sleep at night I never seem to get enough sleep. The last few days I have noticed that my eyes have been acting a little weird. I tried to explain it to someone but it is like I just can't find the words to describe it right. It is worse when I have to change my focus, when I am looking at one thing and then have to change the focus to something else it seems as though it takes just a fraction of a second to refocus. Now, a fraction of a second does not seem bad until you are driving; then it can be pretty problematic. I also noticed that I seem to get a little dizzy when I stand up. It is not something that really bothers me, but it is a little irritating. It is not bad enough that I think "Oh, no, not this again." But it is something I notice. I don't know, perhaps it is because tomorrow will be the 2 year anniversary of the...

a stroke survivor story

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