Our Current Home

By August 2005, we had battled the seizures for two years.  Because we had two houses, my Mom was at our house every day helping me.  It was very difficult, and we finally decided to sell our two houses and buy one together.  We found one that works great for our family.  It is only ten minutes from our old house and our church.

Difficult Times

This has been a very hard year for us all.  We continued to try and find a medicine that would help with my seizures and our lives revolved around therapy.  It was my full time job and I tried to work all day on it.

Therapy Begins

One of the best things about moving here was the therapy I found.  I go to a clinic called Southwest Advanced Neurological Rehabilitation (http://www.swanrehab.com/).  If you are reading this and know someone who has had a stroke, I highly encourage you to explore this option.  Neuro therapy is different from normal therapy.  It is all about retraining the brain through repetition.  It is like playing the piano.  The more you practice, the better you get.  The program is based on intense therapy and the regular program is six hours a day.  When I was not there, I was working at home.  I had my own therapy room, and it was my full-time job.  Although I am not working as hard, I still work on therapy today and have a lot I still want to get back.  I have learned to live with my disability and it does not define who I am.  I have control over how hard I work but only God controls my recovery.  The ultimate goal in therapy is to get you to a point in your life that you can function independently and be closer to the old you.  I have my life back and that is the most important thing.  Your faith and heart is the most important thing to God.  When you take everything away and you are down to nothing, God will always be there.  He does not care about all of the earthly things we do.  It is truly a miracle that I am where I am today and I have the privelege of being a Mom!

Obstacle Three For Our Family

We had gotten settled in and liked Goodyear.  One afternoon in September, disaster hit again.  I was shopping with my parents and Dainis was at work when I had my first major seizure.  I was rushed to Mayo clinic, where I stayed for several days.  So, I was sick again and we had no doctors or resources.  My neurosurgeon in MN said I looked great and had no signs of seizures so he took me off my medication.  We now know that anyone with a brain injury should never go off anti-seizure medicine.  We learned quickly to be our own advocate.  The next two years were very hard and almost worse than the stroke.  We were always in a panic mode.  After two years of battling the seizures, we finally found a medicine that worked.  I have now been seizure-free for 5 1/2 years. We started to get our life back and new opportunities came about as I got stronger.  Becoming involved in the Women's Ministry at church was my first step for going out and meeting new girlfriends.  It has changed my life.

Our New House

We moved into our new house in August and started getting settled in Goodyear.