God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way – C.S. Lewis

In November 2018 I had a stroke from a blood clot resulting in emergency brain surgery.  I am writing these things down for my own remembering and hopefully for the benefit of anyone who might be experiencing something similar.  I searched the internet for anything to tell me if what I was experiencing was “normal” and I found very little. The thing I discovered was that everyone’s experience is different, but there might be a few things that are shared experiences and those are the things I want to address.

This entry is basically background information.  I was 49 years old when I had a stroke. I was fairly active, I had run a 10K a few days before the stroke with our oldest son and some friends.  I had learned in August that my dad had a genetic factor II blood clotting disorder. He was 70 years old before he got clots in his legs, so I intended to bring it up on my next doctor visit. I was not worried about it at all.

A few things of importance as I write, I have three kids.  At the time of the stroke I had a daughter in college, a son who was a senior in High School, and a middle school son.  I am a Christian and this affects all things in my world view. I have always been fairly healthy with minimal illnesses.  I lived in Istanbul at the time of the stroke and had lived there for several years.

Some things of not importance, I am a type A, clean freak,  enneagram 1w9, introvert, minimalist want-to-be. I read someone who said they were not OCD but they lived in the neighborhood next door and I thought that was a great description of me.  I had been slowly cleaning out my house of plastics and Teflon but it was not entirely complete before the stroke. I had colored my hair most of my adult life and around age 30 I started getting grey hair.  I had recently decided to let my hair grow out to be it’s natural color, which seemed to be very salt and pepper. Although I felt old after my stroke all the doctors kept saying that I was very young to have had a stroke.  Despite my 15 year old telling me that I am old, the doctors say that I am young. I prefer the doctor’s assessment 🙂