My Story: After The Tragedy (Part 1)

As I start writing this section let me say I do not believe it will be as long as the others because I know God is just getting started on the after.  I’m in a very different season of life with all this going on.  I listened to a video today where they talked about seasons of life.  I have never seen a season coming but looking back I can see how it came.  Just when I think I am in a more permanent season life changes and here comes another.  If you look at my story there are a bunch of zig zags but I feel this is a very different kind of change. With this challenge I have been able to eventually return to parts of my life but in nearly every situation I have a “you can do this but this will be the challenge” moment.  In all my challenges in life after this I’ve had a “but” in nearly if not all situations.  I struggle today with frustration, frustration that I am a 36 year old, who has always lived a very active life, that is living after a stroke and all the stuff that goes along with that.  I am thankful for the opportunity to still be alive but frustrated in what I struggle with.  As I continue to improve I know that one day the can do’s will be more than the list of can’t do’s but today that is frustrating.

This morning I was walking in the driveway before I left for work.  I did something a bit different in my walking.  I got to where I would normally go inside.  I was starting to feel a little tired from walking.  In any type of exercise the ones I know that do it successfully get their gains from stretching themselves a bit.  I have never been one to exercise but I am working on walking some more.  As I was feeling a bit of stress I decided I would stretch myself and walk on an extra lap.  By the time I got up to the house on the extra lap I sure was feeling it (we live on a shared long driveway).  Since I am walking around my house I know I could call any of my neighbors or my wife and they would help me out if I got into any trouble with the walking.  I feel that I want to stretch myself a bit in my exercise.

At many points during this process of recovery I could have taken many points to stop but I want to push myself as much as I can.  I know many that I have been through something like this and could not go to where I am in recovery so for this reason I feel God has given me a blessing of an opportunity.  Hopefully part of this blessing is an opportunity to inspire someone.  I know that while in the wheelchair I could have said I’ll just sit here, with the walker I could have just walked with that and taken it as an improvement from the wheelchair,  when I was walking with a cane I could have said hey this is enough.  Many would comment with the cane hey you carry that thing as much if not more than you use it.  I finally decided yes I was carrying it more and it is still in the backseat of my truck unused just in case I need it.  The friends making the comments did not know at the time that their comments were being used to push me and I am so thankful.  Just as I have pushed beyond using the assistance devices I am now trying to build the habit of walking more daily.

In November of 2021 as I was doing therapy I started back to work.  My co-workers helped with the transition.  They set me up in a vacant office we had downstairs because my office was upstairs in our building.  My teammates were very helpful during this time.  Not only did they cover my job while I was out but would also come by my office just to visit.   I was even able to attend our year end board of directors meeting out of town in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was my first out of town trip since being in Little Rock for so long. My teammates took my python scripts that automate much of our process and ran them daily as well as worked to improve and add automated functionality plus did the support, training, and other responsibilities of mine.    I did not think of work at first because I was beyond out of it cognitively.  I did not think of work a little later when the cognition returned because all my energy and time was spent on rehabilitation work.  When I did return to work I did focus on it but thankfully I was able to focus on rehab and recovery when it was time for that.

On days that I did not have therapy I would go to work.  Christy had to return to work in November as well.  I eventually started going back to the office at times that I did not have therapy if it was even for a half a day.  If Christy was unable to pick me up a friend would come get me from therapy and take me to my office where I would change clothes and eat lunch then get back to work (gotta eat – especially after therapy).  Even though the doctor said this was a tragedy and I would never work again, I was able to return back to it.  Cognitively I have little struggle.  Most of my struggle is physical.  I know that to those who do not know me I must look like a 36 year old drunk but I promise I am not.  I stumble in my walking and slur my speech but it is improving slowly.

After therapy was finished I felt I needed to continue doing exercises.  If you look at the step counter on my iPhone you can clearly see the time I was in the hospital.  I did not have my cell phone until I was in rehab but I would not carry my cell phone around the rehab hospital even when I had it.  When I sit around even for a few minutes my legs get very stiff.  In light of this and my current health I decided 10,000 steps per day was a minimum that would push me.  I have found 10,000 steps takes me a significant amount of time and exercise to get.  To get that minimum I must walk multiple times per day and if I don’t have that minimum I finish it at home in the evening by walking my driveway.  If I can’t get the minimum before we go inside I have found how many laps inside my house equals 1000 steps.  Before I made this as a daily goal I was averaging 5000-7000 steps per day on my iPhone step counter so going to 10,000 steps was a stretch that would take some work and commitment.  In the summer of 2022, one year after all this happened I started working with an exercise coach twice a week.  She worked in physical therapy for years as a licensed PTA so there is a bit of therapy in our exercises.  It is nice to continue working on recovery.  With the attention being on exercise but also having a therapy mindset is nice.  I am still making progress a year later.  Some have said my progress has slowed if not stopped.  I feel this could not be further from the truth.  I continue to see progress and as I work on it I get better.  I have found one activity that was a NO.  It is running. No big loss for me there.  I have never been one to run much so it’s not a big reason for concern.  I believe that if I wanted to run I could work more at it and get there but right now it is not a big deal to me. Even though I struggle today with running I am exercising to get better.  I am not running but I RUN towards getting better with walking and exercising.

In my recovery, starting back to drive was a huge goal.  I would go out to the country and drive back roads on the weekends.  In true December fashion we were busy on the weekends to where I drove little to none during that time.   During all of my recovery time a friend would pick me up from the house and drive me to work.  On days he was unable to take me home Christy or one of my co-workers would take me home at the end of the day.  In April of 2022 I started back to driving myself.  Thankfully our office is out of town and we live out of town.  There is a bypass nearby our house that has little traffic.  This bypass takes me near our office.  Driving has not been a big issue but being around other drivers makes me nervous so I have not driven uptown yet.  It’s because of this nervousness that I’m thankful for the bypass.  As I continue to drive it has gotten better and has become more of second nature for me.

Setting small attainable goals have been huge for me during my recovery.  I quickly found that if I just said I want to drive (and I have – even some uptown) it would not be as attained as saying I want to drive to work in April.  The first of April fell on a Friday which is a day I did not have someone lined up to drive.  My friend drove me as usual to work Tuesday through Thursday but then Friday came.  That morning I drove to work.  Everything went well, not as easy or routine as before but it was well.  So I drove that evening back home.   Goal checked, I drove!  The next Monday I did it again and have driven to work each day since April.  My next goal is to be more present with the kids.  I want to take my son camping again.  I have many friends that have offered to make this happen.  I am so thankful for their help.  My daughter and I have worked to plant a flower garden together again and I want to continue to work on that.  She has shown some interest in photography so I am working on that with her and even getting my first camera ready so she can use it.  Having goals has been such a huge help for me.  I have found that having smaller goals works better for me than having bigger goals.  I am on a different timeline now than I have ever been so the smaller goals work better for me.  One of the books I read is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and he talks about working on building habits instead of goals.  I highly recommend this book if you have not read it.  I will probably read it again as there is so much I need to learn about habits.

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