Today, as I sit to write this, is December 18. I had noted on other sites (mostly on Facebook) that December 8 was the 5 year anniversary of my stroke. You read that right 5 YEARS. Sometimes it is hard to believe that it has been that long. To bring some comparisons and insight: I was youth pastor in Louisiana for 3 years, I was in college at Trinity Baptist college for 3 years and 9 months, I was in the Army for 4 years and 10 months. What do all of those things have in common? They were major life accomplishments for me, but they were less than 5 years. It is amazing to me all that changes in my life; I cannot express enough how supportive my wife has been for me. I can't even begin to imagine how much her life has changed in the last 5 years, and yet she has always been with me. I survived a terrible 2012 as I experienced the deaths of 5 loved ones, to include my mom and dad. It has been a difficult 5 years, but with God's help I have been able to survive it. I remember asking my neurologist a simple question 4 years ago; I had just survived 1 year since my stroke and I was sitting in her office and I asked a relatively simple question: what can I expect, what will my life be like? Her answer surprised me and my wife. She had a relatively blank stare on her face, she looked at me and Laura and said, "Seriously? You should not have lived. You tell me what your life should be like." Well, 5 years later it is pretty good. Life has its difficulties, but it is good. Thanks, God, for a gift of 5 years. I will just pray that it will be another 5, 10, 15 or maybe even 50 years. (Okay, maybe 50 is wishful thinking, but, hey, I can dream can't I?)
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
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