Mike McCormick doesn't remember much about Christmas ten years ago.
“I had a brain aneurysm and my brain was bleeding,” recalls Mike. “I don't remember how I felt, I don't even remember going to the hospital.”
It happened in December of 2006 and turned Mike and his wife’s lives upside down.
“I was, in many ways , like a young kid and an eighty-year-old man,” says Mike. “There wasn't much I could do on my own.”
“It is the most frightening feeling,” says Mike’s wife Sue. “You have no control over your future, both financially and both as an individual. You're almost paralyzed with fear.”
Mike had to start all over again, learning to walk, tie his shoes and button his shirts.
“When I learned how to put my socks on again, that was a big deal if you could believe it,” says Mike.
Much of that relearning was done at the Stan Cassidy Centre in Fredericton, where Mike spent months trying to put the pieces back together.
Now, ten years later, Mike is able to walk down a corridor at the Centre without a walker, keeping pace with his wife.
He credits several people with this accomplishment, especially the people working at the centre.
“They just took me and helped and it worked,” says Mike.
Mike says the person who contributed most to his recovery was his wife Sue.
“(Sue) was my biggest caregiver and my biggest advocate, I wouldn't be here today celebrating ten years if it wasn't for her.”
Sue says all the time spent worrying about Mike’s recovery has taught the couple to embrace life.
“Even just the sun shining or a warm temperature…we celebrate it together. It's hard to describe, but there's an appreciation,” says Sue.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Laura Brown
