September 17th The day I can never forget!

September 17th

As fast as lightning strikes I become a stroke survivor.

This morning’s W.A.M. (What’s on Aaron’s Mind)

Today stands as a memorial.
A date I nor my family can ever forget!

This day in 2010 I survived a category 5 subarachnoid brain aneurysm

and two weeks later I suffered a massive category 5 stroke.

My family and I have called this day for seven years my “Celebration Of Life”

Why?

Because on this day in 2010 I most certainly should have died.

So sure were the medical staff that I was going to die, the doctors would not intervene for 24 hours.

(why waste resources on a person who was 100% going to die).

So sure was the medical staff I was going to die they wheeled my now lifeless body

Into a separate room so my family could say their last goodbye’s.

But it was revealed to me that if I lived or died was not up to the skill of a Neurosurgeon, no,
through a near death experience
I learned God himself held the power to defy all odds and allow me to live when I was definitely supposed to die.

So now seven years later, on this Celebration of life, I found myself slipping into a dark state of depression. I was focused on my deficits. Still unable to walk and still in an extremely painful rolling prison (my wheelchair). Still have a terrible speech deficit and a thousand other things. I became so depressed I asked Rebecca to please call off my celebration of life. I told Rebecca I just wasn’t feeling my celebration of life this year.

Than God opened my eyes to the truth!

The cause of my depression and my inability to be grateful for my gift of a second chance at life was being caused by what I was focusing my mind on.
God laid on my heart that gratefulness and happiness is up me!

I can choose to either focus on the negative and dark areas of my life or I can choose to focus on the positive aspects of my life.

This awareness to the truth sparked a realization that I’m to my core grateful for being alive when I most definitely should be dead.

Alive to tell my amazing wife Rebecca I love her with every fiber of my being.

Alive to tell my awesome son Ryan I love him and couldn’t be more proud of him as a young man. Alive to hear the birds singing. Alive to hear the carefree laugh a child.

You see peeps it’s not what happened to us that defines us, it’s how we respond to the hard times in our lives that defines us as a person.

Our attitude towards what stroke has done to us is 100% dependent on how we respond.

What we focus on determines our attitude.

I WILL CHOOSE NOT TO BE A STROKE VICTIM BUT RATHER LIKE MY BELOVED BROTHER Sean Entin HAS TAUGHT ME,

I CHOOSE TO BE A

STROKE WARRIOR!

If there is any good in your life, think on that!

I'M SO GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE!

LET MY CELEBRATION OF LIFE BEGIN!

ALL STROKE SURVIVORS AROUND THE WORLD CELEBRATE WITH ME!