One year ago.
5.40 PM
I had a stroke.
Today I am a stroke survivor. It still feels weird to say that.
Today is that anniversary. It is also the last day of my "Lost Year". A year that has been challenging, frightening and hectic. My recovery put me MONTHS behind in my work and I spent most of the year scrambling to catch up. I did. Mostly. Nothing ever fell through the cracks but a couple things came entirely too close.
It felt like I would never fully recovered. As soon as I thought I was I'd realize that I was wrong. The physical frailty was bad. The first time I went out of the house after the stroke I needed to lean on my lady wife's arm at times. I wore down in a very short while. Hard to accept when I had been training for a 5k just weeks before. But it was the mental frailty that was really the hardest. The lurking fear of "What if it happens again?". Am I pushing too hard? The weight gain and loss of conditioning made it worse. Just weeks before the stroke I had run up hill for a block in downtown Jamestown and hadn't been breathing hard at the top. When I walked up that hill a month or two later it was slow, labored and I was breathing very hard at the top.
I've spent a lot of time this year talking about the stroke. It's begun to sound like excuse making to me and I hate excuse making. At the same time the reality is that I was sick That's not an excuse. I'm tired of talking about it and I'm tired of feeling guilty about it.
It all ends today.
The stroke is part of my history. It always will be. So is when I broke my arm, and when I broke my ribs and when I got married and when my daughter was born. I don't talk about them all the time. They don't control my life. I celebrate the anniversary of good things in my life. I note several less happy events each year in memoriam. This will be one of them. I will remember and give thanks that I survived.
Every day since then has been a gift. Every day from now on will be a gift.
It's time to move on.
Peace
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