 |
| At the crossroads... Middlesex Centre, ON August 2025 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
I’m one of the lucky ones, as I’m still here, and am largely back to who I was before my brain decided to reboot itself.
While others who recover from events like mine often like to celebrate new birthdays, that’s not really my thing. Still, the date resonates with me, as it marked a moment where things could have gone one of two ways, and we had no idea which one would win. Thinking about what it felt like to dangle there, not knowing, is stomach-churning, even all these years later.
I have a possibly unhealthy relationship with the spot where the entire episode began, the rural intersection where I made a u-turn on my bike to avoid construction and accidentally tore my carotid artery. Where Wonderland Road meets Nine Mile Road is as unassuming as intersections can be, surrounded by farmers’ fields for as far as the eye can see. But I like to return there every once in a while because somehow it helps me wrap my head around the entire misadventure.
I’ll ride my bike over, because that’s how I got into this mess. And riding today still feels like a quiet act of defiance to the universe. The difference now is the roads are wide open in every direction, and I’m more than capable of getting wherever I want to go under my own power.
12 years on, I appreciate the seemingly simple ability to ride a bike more than is likely logical. I write about it often - perhaps too often - because I never want to forget how grateful I am to still get to do this. That ride on August 5, 2013 might very well have been the last one I ever took for granted, because every ride since has been a hard reminder to cherish the small things, even the ability to pedal myself beyond the horizon.
Maybe my balance is terrible and maybe if you listen closely you’ll hear it ever so slightly in the way I speak. But I’d like to think I’ve been given 12 extra years (and counting) to be a better human being. That’s got to be worth something.
In the meantime, I’ll be the guy on the orange bike seemingly smiling at nothing. You’re always welcome to join me.
#strokeawareness #family #health #everything
Related:
START HERE: So, about that stroke - August 2014
#2: When even "thank you" seems lame - August 2014
#3: More stroke stuff... - August 2014
Stroke survivor shares his story, London Free Press, Aug 14, 2014
Coming up on Canada AM - Lookahead to February 2015 interview
Winding down the day that was - February 2015 - incl link to Canada AM/Heart/Stroke Month segment
Life at the crossroads - April 2015
Two years on... - August 2015
Three bonus years - August 2016
Four years later - August 2017
Five years on - August 2018
Luke Perry could have been me - or any of us - March 2019
The day everything changed - August 2019
Seven years on, August 2020
Eight years on, August 2021
#StrokeAwarenessMonth, the video, June 2022
Nine years on... August 2022
Ten years on... August 2023
Stroke Month, FAST, me, and maybe even you, June 2024
11 years on... August 2024
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment