Skip to main content

Holy Cow...I was not paying attention I guess...

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?)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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,
Post a Comment
Read more

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
1 comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more