I am so thankful.

It’s been 1,604 days since I woke up in the hospital in Columbia, Missouri; and I’m so thankful for my life.

I’m so thankful for the police officers at the concert on October 1, 2016 who stopped when I asked for help. They talked to me, listened, and asked me if they should call an ambulance.

I’m so thankful for the EMTs who helped me to the ambulance. I didn’t quite make it. I had a grand mal seizure just steps away.

I’m so thankful for my doctors, nurses, techs and all of the health care staff that helped me that day, during my path to diagnosis, throughout my treatment and still helping me today.

I’m so thankful to have such a wonderful family to support me through my battles with my health, treatment and recovery.

I’m so thankful for friends checking in on me even when I was too sick to respond. I’m thankful for my friend who works at the hospital – to find me when he heard I was in the ICU recovering from my brain biopsy to make sure I was okay and spend his break with me. And again when I was there for chemo treatment.

I’m thankful for my family and friends to sit with me and support me through my chemotherapy infusions.

I’m so thankful that I could feel myself healing and improving even during the months of chemotherapy treatment.

I’m so thankful that my recovery hasn’t stopped. That my friends and family continue to support me through good days and bad. When I have energy and when I don’t. When I can share me thoughts and when I can’t. When I say the correct words and the wrong ones. I’m so thankful that they continuously try to understand the neurological issues I still fight with and the physiological struggles that tag along.

I’m so thankful that God gave me life and that He made me stubborn enough to fight against my struggles and set goals to try and beat the struggles, to make them smaller and weaker. He made me stubborn, and forced me to be humble enough to know I won’t always reach my goals and to just keep trying.

I’m so thankful God introduced me to my wife, Nicki, at 15 years old. So we would be in each other’s lives from a young age.

I’m so incredibly thankful God was with Nicki and I the day a doctor said I may only have months to live. …God told me not to believe it.

I’m so thankful God was with us when another doctor told us I may not be able to have children post chemo. …God told me again, don’t believe it.

Shortly after a spiritual woman told me not to worry, that I’d have a daughter. When I shared what she mentioned to me with Nicki, Nicki responded with “she told me we’d have a boy with dark hair but it would take a little while.” I won’t lie, we thought it was crazy and it didn’t make sense since we were told different things on the same day.

I’m so very thankful it was all true. Nicki and I were blessed with a daughter who is now 2 years old and blessed again with a newborn son in early 2021, with dark hair (and going bald like me, but his will grow back).

So much has happened in the last 1,604 days, more than I could possibly mention, but I am most thankful for this life and my growing family.