He Saved Us,

not because of righteous things we have done, but because of His mercy. — Titus 3:5

It has been a few years, in fact I forgot about this Blog, ran across it by accident.

When I noticed the date of my last entry, I realized why I haven't posted and realized too, why I need to now.

As some of you know my husband had a stroke in December of 2018. Life as we know it has not been the same.

It is by the grace of God that he is still alive. There are a lot of little things that happened leading up to that day, that cannot be a coincidence. 1 - I would get off work everyday at 5pm. I never called him before I left the office. I would call him as I was leaving the parking lot, to see if he needed anything. On this day, I called him at 4:50 pm, December

11, 2018. I told him I would be a little late, I was going to drop off some product to a potential customer. This time when I asked if he needed anything, he said "No, but I have the worst headache ever." It was making his vision blurry. Had I not called at that exact moment, this story would have been so very different.

2 - Now, at this precise moment, Howard, my husband, said he thought Dustin, our son, just drove up. I asked him to have Dustin check his blood pressure, he's a firefighter. He asked, I could hear them talking and then Howard said, "let me put my shoes on." This is crucial for a few reasons; * Had we not been on the phone when Dustin came home, they might have had pleasantries, but that would have been it. No conversation.

* Had I been the one driving up, he would have told me of his headache, but he would have never agreed to go have it checked.

* Dustin took him to St. Mary's, specializing in strokes. Up until July, my insurance did not allow the use of this hospital. The doctor on staff was/is the only one in our area that specializes in cranioplasty. Howard would have never survived being life lighted to Atlanta.

I'm going to go off on another tangent... When I began my Neora journey, being the selfish person that I am, I thought it was all about me. Money, travel, friends, great skin... on and on. But I soon realized with this stroke, it wasn't about me at all, it had been about Howard. It had been about preparing his brain over the last 4 years for this stroke.

After Howard's first surgery, his brain was still bleeding, they were going to have to go back in. This time they were going to remove a portion of his skull, on the left side, to allow for swelling. They wanted the swelling to go out the opening to prevent any further damage to his right side.

Dr. Woodall, came in to explain what was going to happen. They would leave the skull open for approximately 4 months and then come back and put Humpty Dumpty back together. I mentioned that the nurse said a few times, under her breath, she didn't like the way his eyes looked... what does that mean exactly? Well, what that means, at this point in stroke victims, his eyes were unlevel and unresponsive. What does that mean... according to Dr. Woodall, at this point we have lost them.

We didn't lose him. In fact, he was home within 30 days. Within 6 months Dr. Woodall released him. Is he 100% no, but he is 100% home and is still making progress.

He is blind on the right side of both eyes and cannot feel his right side, but he can still use it. He cuts grass, trims hedges, helps me in the house & loves his goats.

Moral of the story, He saved us. Life is short, shorter than we realize.

"If you got a chance, take it, take it while you got a chance.

If you got a dream, chase it, 'cause a dream won't chase you back.

If you're gonna love somebody. Hold 'em as long and as strong and as close as you can.' Til you can' t'."

'Til You Can't - Song by Cody Johnson