My cardiologist is the best. Always approached the process as eliminating the things that didn't cause the stroke, never approached it from the point of trying to find the cause. Although I was anxious not knowing the definitive cause, I know the 100 things that didn't cause it, which made me realize I am a healthy guy otherwise. It took a while, but I got to the point where I would leave each appointment excited that something else was ruled out.

The whole stroke thing made life pretty difficult for a quite a while. I had to re-learn a lot of things that were basic and it took more than a year to get to the point where I felt like I made good progress. Still making progress today, if I find something difficult, I focus on it until it becomes not as difficult any more. I am (re) building my porch, realized yesterday that I climb down the ladder starting with my right foot each time then lowering my left foot to the same stair. I started to work yesterday on right foot on a stair, left foot on the stair below that one, etc. I expect I won't have to think about that in another couple of weeks, will become 2nd nature.

Couple things that I started to realize a few months back. Although the stroke brought on a lot of challenges and a new norm, in my case, it is not terminal, just inconvenient, took me a lot of work to get some normalcy back. The other thing, I had someone that went through something a lot more serious and stressful say to me (a line from the Shawshank Redemption movie), "You can get busy living or you can get busy dying." That kind of hit home and I decided to get busy living. You never know what tomorrow holds, enjoy the day. I understand strokes affect each person differently, some have more challenges than I, that is my story though.