alpinejunkie

This is pretty simple. On October 17, 2005 I was leaving work and I got dizzy and sick. I drove home and went to bed. I woke up and rode for an hour on my bike and went to work. Two nights later I woke up again with a headache that was about a 8 on the 1 - 10 scale and I had double vision. At the ER they found blood clots in my brain stem from a left vertebral artery tear. Smaller clots had also broken off and gone to other parts of my brain.

God blessed me and made a miracle out of me. I ended up with damaged short term memory, greatly degraded cognitive function overall, a lack of positional awareness (that one has been fun) and a seizure dissorder. However I have comparatively small amounts of physical issues like only 20% or so left side weakness, some balance issues, left side blindness and nerve pain .

Normally people who have the brain stem involvement have a much more difficult time both during the stroke and the rest of their lives than I have, that is actually an understatement. Brain stem stroke survivors have always been of great inspiration for me.

So, I was a Software Engineer and did consulting for a large nationwide firm. I was one of their more experienced engineers and they placed me with companies to do work in the areas of telecommunications, aerospace and Department of Defense. Unfortunately employers and clients don't like their engineers to not be able to do basic math so my career ended.

I would love to be able to go back to doing even simple software development. I don't need to consult or architect large systems. I have worked on simple programming at home. My job was one of my passions and I was a person who always loved going to work. There were no "Monday Blues" for me. Unfortunately even what I am able to do now takes me way to long to be useful in the work place. For now I thank God I have my physical ability and I try to take care of myself and put myself in the service of others any way I can in thanks for what I have.