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?)
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...
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