A Real Stroke of Insight
By A. Robert Smith
(This is the full version of the article, published in the August issue of The Echo World: The Alternative Magazine in Central Virginia.)
I woke up early that morning in June 2011 and realized something was terribly wrong with me physically, but I didn't know what. I didn't think to press my Freedom Alert button and stumbled into the kitchen confused about what to do. My housemate Ruth O'Lill emerged from her room and greeted me joyfully, but I couldn't answer. In fact, I couldn't respond to any of her questions – I was tongue-tied. She called 911 and the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad rescued me in a flash.
En route to the hospital, questioned by a medic, I flunked all three
questions: my age, street address, birthday.
“I think you had a stroke,” he said.
I was distracted thinking that I should be going to my dentist for a
root canal.
“Who will tell her I’m having stroke instead?” I wondered.
Someone obviously told her, for Dr. Deborah Blanchard visited me that
evening with sweet-smelling flowers in hand.
At the hospital I tried to read the Virginian-Pilot, but
couldn’t make sense of the words. What does this mean? Is this the
way my life ends? I spent 50 years writing for newspapers and
magazines, but now I can’t even read a simple news story!
I was diagnosed with a hemorrhagic stroke. The left side on my brain
was flooded with blood from a ruptured blood vessel, wiping out
circuits needed for diction, speech and memory. That resulted in
aphasia, the inability to produce spoken language, and agraphia, the
inability to retrieve words. I could visualize answers to questions,
but the words wouldn’t form in my mouth. I sometimes uttered
different words than I was thinking. It felt like my brain and mouth
were on different wavelengths.
I told the Virginia Beach General hospital staff that as a writer, I
needed a cure for my aphasia. The docs didn’t promise anything but
said that the right side of my brain might pick up some of the lost
facilities from my left brain if I worked hard enough. I was
determined to succeed and asked my daughter to find a first-rate
speech therapist. She brought Janet Gilbert, MS, CCC-SLP, to my
hospital room, where we both vowed together to do everything we could
do to restore my speech and writing skills.
With 30 years of experience treating stroke victims, Ms. Gilbert gave
me daily assignments for four months, starting with saying aloud the
letters of the alphabet until I could write sentences and paragraphs.
The fun was when we got to limericks; clean limericks, you
understand. Or the short talks that I read aloud to my dog, a Yorkie
who is now the smartest hound in Bay Colony.
In addition to speech therapy I also received NeurOptimal brain
training from my daughter Dana, who moved here from Seattle to care
for me. I had never heard of brain training before, so I just watched
while she hooked me up to a special computer that reads what my brain
is doing and feeds that information to my central nervous system.
Then the brain recognizes its own patterns and adjusts itself toward
optimal functioning. I received this non-invasive thirty-three minute
procedure several times a week for several months.
Dana said many clients participating of this kind of brain training
report improved sleep, better focus and clarity in this kind of brain
training report, and relief from symptoms related to traumatic brain
injury, anxiety, depression and migraines. I’m still getting brain
training whenever I feel I need it. Thankfully, I feel sharper and
more intuitive.
My goal was to finish a memoir on my life as a newspaperman. I was
encouraged by a book Ms. Gilbert loaned me, My
Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte
Taylor, Ph.D., who recovered from a massive stroke and now gives
lectures on how she did it. After reading that book, I thought, “I
can do that, too!”
My therapist also recommended I find a proofreader to sort out my
misspellings and sentences that needed rethinking. Susan Lendvay,
editor of Venture Inward magazine, volunteered and kept my
prose safe and sound. My book, God Gave Me a Mulligan, was
completed (and got a favorable review from the Pilot’s book
columnist William Ruehlmann).
Four years after my stroke, I felt I was going downhill again in the
speech department and needed more therapy. My doctor, Louis Croteau,
and my speech therapist Janet Gilbert agree to send me to a new
therapist, Mary Daddio. She worked with me about two months, showing
me how to remember numbers. I couldn’t even remember my own phone
number, much less anyone’s. The solution is to reduce each digit to
a word, so the number 4 becomes a four. Mrs. Daddio had me translate
my main numbers, passwords and other health trivia, into words. She
also loaned me another marvelous book, One Hundred Names for Love,
by Diane Ackerman, whose author-husband, Paul West, had a major
stroke, and recovered to write a book about it. Ackerman writes her
account of caring for a loved one with brain
problems.
After my speech therapy was completed, I
noticed that Dr. Croteau seemed a wee bit nervous whenever I brought
up the subject of driving. All my rides since my stroke have been as
a passenger – and I soon discovered that my children wanted to
keep me out of the driver’s seat.. “I’m a very careful driver,”
I protested. I even drew a map showing where I intended to drive,
including Dr. Croteaus’ office, the post office, Farm Fresh and the
Quaker Meeting, all within a 10 to 15 mile radius of home. But my map
pleased no one. They said I should walk the dog as long as I had the
strength to keep up with Westy, but driving was not a good idea.
Then a strange thing happened, my daughter (who once drove a taxi),
was in a traffic accident that totaled my Prius. I was safe at home
when it happened, and thankfully, Dana had only minor injuries. But
that crash unnerved me about going anywhere, no matter who was the
driver. I gave up my campaign to drive again, and surrendered to
being chauffeured about.
Another question we had to settle was whether I needed to be a
teetotaler. I like a beer or glass of wine at the end of the day, but
my first speech therapist suggested that this might not be best for
me. I could certainly abstain, but an article in Neurology Now
(March 2016) settled the question, quoted studies from five different
medical sources and concluding: “A glass of wine or bottle of beer
(two glasses for men) may protect against stroke, Parkinson’s
disease, and cognitive decline.” Since reading that article, I’ve
sipped my evening glass of port, just as though my doc had prescribed
it.
These days, as I celebrate five years without a second stroke, I have
no complaints. How much the right side of my brain helped to make up
for the left side’s disaster, I can only guess. My memory is only
half-speed sometimes, and I remember faces more than names. I still
can’t spell many words, so I rely on my Oxford Dictionary or
substitute a word that I can spell. Also, my hearing is in decline,
so I gave up movies in which lovers whisper to each other. Hearing
all the opinions in my weekly book group is still a problem, although
friends don’t mind my asking them to repeat their opinions,
especially on politics.
My goal is to mimic Dr. Howard Jones, Jr., the co-founder of the
Eastern Virginia Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, who kept
writing books until he died at 104. I just had my 91st birthday, and
I have a new book, Robert’s 101 Rules of Order for a Good Life,
that has just been published.
These are some of the tricks I pull to navigate through life with a
brain that’s operating at less than full speed.
Bio:
A.
Robert Smith was the founding editor of Venture
Inward magazine,
author of ten books, including The
Lost Memoirs of Edward Cayce and
a former Washington correspondent and columnist whose work has been
published in the New
York Times Magazine, Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post,
Portland Oregonian, Virginian-Pilot and
other publications. He lives in Virginia Beach,
and can be reached at abob@cox.net. "A Real Stroke of Insight," was first published in The Virginian-Pilot.
