As I sit to type, the date is March 31, 2025. Though I did not and could not know it at the time, exactly one year ago today was the last day I would have on this earth with an un-damaged brain, and without the life-changing results of a stroke. That day was spent doing the fun things you do to prepare for surgery [a right carotid endarterectomy for those with inquiring minds] that would take place the next morning – scrubbing clean with anti-bacterial soap, fasting, packing a few things for a quick overnight stay in the hospital, and walking through the things my friend would need to know to take care of Little Ambrose for the few days of my expected quick recovery.
All surgeries come with risks, and I knew that one of the risks of this surgery was a stroke. But, that “small” risk was the furthest thing from my mind one year ago today. I had already undergone this same surgery on my left carotid artery several years before, and that procedure had been a breeze. I had no concerns about this surgery at all – well, except for one small thing. The first surgery had left behind a small, nearly-invisible, “perfect” scar, so I was a little worried that the scar from this surgery would not turn out to be as “perfect” as the first scar! Can you imagine that? Whoever said: “Vanity – thy name is woman”, only got it half-right! [Funny thing – after typing that last sentence, I decided to look up this quote. It turns out that what I wrote is a misquote that has, somehow, worked its way into the English vernacular. The actual quote is: “Frailty – thy name is woman”, from the brilliant mind of Shakespeare in “Hamlet”. Either way, it certainly fits both the male and female ego.]
The surgery took place on April 1st. It wasn’t long after coming out of anesthesia that I realized something was wrong. I remember being terrified, and telling my sister-in-law, “I can’t feel my arm, I can’t feel my arm!” The rest is a blur as nurses and doctors whirled around me, asking questions, running tests, and then rushing me back into surgery. Of course, the damage was already irreversibly done. I’ll spare you the details of the next few days - it was not pretty. And then, when I finally got home, things got worse when the dizziness hit.
Yes, I realize that I am fortunate in many ways. This could have been much worse. And, yes, there has been some recovery over the last 12 months. So I am grateful.
But as I sit here having lived exactly one full year with stroke-related injuries and disabilities, I find that the hope with which I faced my “new” life one year ago – hope for a full recovery, hope for a return to my previous “normal” life - has pretty well faded now into an attempt at acceptance of everything that is now my life. After a full year, the chances of any significant improvement from where things are now are disappearingly small. I should be able to just accept that “it is what it is”. But I say “attempt at acceptance”, not because I am holding out hope for a miracle, but because my acceptance has not come with much grace. All of this has made life difficult: buttoning shirts is hard; tying shoes is hard; bathing my son is hard; holding a sandwich is hard; opening doors, or actually anything, is hard; swinging a golf club is hard [ok, that one has always been hard, but now it’s really hard]; the list goes on. The question I so often hear myself asking the emptiness inside my head and heart these days is, “Why is everything so…hard?”
And I just realized that maybe the question I keep asking is at least a little bit better than, “Why me?” That’s great, I guess.
Just three days ago was Renee’s birthday – the fourth one to come around without her. This isn’t the world I ever imagined I’d be living in – a world of disability, of difficulty, of despair, of dizziness, of dark thoughts, and of forced acceptance of all of this. Sometimes I imagine I that if she were only here, it would all be so much better, that it would be so much easier to accept this new normal, that I would know that everything was going to be all right.
But then I remember, and I realize that, in the words of The Temptations from 1971, “it was just my imagination, once again, running away with me.”
Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd
