I have shared with many people my miraculous story, but, hopefully you will be able to read about it as well. I am in the process of putting together a book chronicling my struggles, triumphs and the miraculous recovery. The book, entitled "Living the life of a miracle: experiencing God's grace in the midst of a deep trial", will be in two parts. Part 1 tells a little about my history, my life before the stroke and the reality that something was not right. Part 2 will be my various blog posts since my stroke, giving a "real view" of what I felt and how I responded as I followed this journey. I am trying to make sure I include the Doctor notes and some of my MRI and CT scans in the appendices. My prayer is that it will be a good read and bring glory to God.
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
Good luck on the book. I'm glad to see that you are planning on including your MRI scans. The other survivor books I have read are great for showing what persistence does but without the scans you can't tell whether the recovery was easy neuroplasticity of the penumbra or hard neuroplasticity of the deadd brain functions.
ReplyDeleteI opine on these subjects at www.oc1dean.blogspot.com
Dean