It really went very well. I did not know what to expect. A lot of the things I suspected were made clear; for instance, the stumbling is not in my imagination but is a result of the compromised nerves in the brain stem. The "jumpiness" in my eyes is not a perceived problem, but is a real problem based upon real nerve damage. The good news is that many of the problems can be fixed, i.e. the weakness in the arms and legs can be addressed with more physical therapy and specialized exercises. The jumpiness in the eyes and the pulsating sound in the ears are probably permanent problems that need to be accepted. They are not a bother all the time, just periodically. The problem is that they seem to occur at the worst possible times. I am in the last week of my MDiv class and am having problems with my eyes. It is really hard to work on my final paper when my eyes don't always focus right. Concentration is an issue as well. I have a harder time multi-tasking; which poses a problem when my kids are trying to talk to me while I am doing church work. I used to be able to listen to them, do my work and think about the solution simultaneously. I am finding that I have to do one at a time, rather than multiple tasks at once.
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 Let me back up a little bit: After my stroke in December, 2008 my license was revoked for obvious reasons and it took me some time and practice before I was able to drive again.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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