Stroke: A Bird’s Eye View

Abstract

In early September 1991, I was a healthy man, working in my profession as a college instructor and enjoying the opera on vacation in Santa Fe. It was there that a spider bit me. I later learned it was the deadly brown recluse spider. Only immediate medical treatment saved me. I seemed to recover, but 2 weeks later, home in California, I lost my balance because of severe dizziness. I was treated for labyrinthitis and was about to be released when, in front of my family and my doctor right there in the emergency room, I had a stroke. To this day, I believe that the spider bite caused the stroke. The doctors don’t know and won’t say. The first stroke was mild, but 2 days later, a second one hit. This one was major. I almost didn’t make it. My doctor was considering taking me off life support, but I refused. Even though I was unable to speak, I conveyed my determination to live. I remember it as a conscious decision. And live I did. The experience inspired me. It served me well when it came to recovering. I learned it was MY choice. I was hospitalized for 4 months. I had good medical care all that time. What I didn’t have was good information on how to recover. Mostly, the medical personnel believed that after 6 months, nothing new in the way of improvement could happen. I learned then that I had to take charge of my own recovery. I had to do the research myself. The first 6 months I spent in Sacramento, California, where my partner was living and working. My medical carrier authorized occupational, physical, and speech therapy. I made some improvement. I learned how to eat and how to begin using my voice again. But the improvement was slow and painstaking. I wanted more. I started asking about what else there was. I heard about water therapy and found a swimming program. I enrolled. I joined a class for stroke survivors where we did range-of-motion exer-