On Thursday, April 27th Ron was invited to speak
to hospital therapists, nurses and administrators who work with stroke patients
in Victoria .
Two sessions were scheduled for the day–the first one in the morning at Royal Jubilee
Hospital , and the second one, in the
afternoon, at Victoria
General Hospital
His presentation to both
audiences was substantively the same. He opened his talks with a reading from
Chapter Seven of THE DEFIANT MIND entitled
“The Wheelchair and the Urinal.” This chapter recounts Ron’s arrival on the
Rehab Ward of NRGH (Nanaimo
Regional General Hospital Ca re Ward on the
fourth floor:
“Don’t fight me,” he said.
“I’m not,” I said.
Once again I heard that strangely
garbled voice.
“You are.”
He held me in a modified bear hug,
trying to transfer me from the stretcher to my new bed in the rehabilitation
unit. Somehow he managed to get me sitting upright on the edge of the
stretcher, then by gaining purchase under my arms he got me standing on two
very wobbly legs, at which point I grabbed him with my left arm and clung to
him like a bear cub to its mother.
I was terrified. As soon as I was
standing, my entire right side collapsed like an accordion. What was happening
to me?
“Relax,” he said. “You need to trust
me. I know what I’m doing.”
Trust. This was one of those words I
would soon learn was critical to every phase of my recovery. Trust, and the
need to be brave.
For people
like Ron, who a mere week before, had been a seemingly healthy, fully
functioning, independent person, able to dress himself and drive his car, a
stroke is a bolt out of the blue, traumatizing and brain bursting. The struggle
to re-orient one’s self in the world with a damaged brain and a lost sense of
belonging, becomes a major struggle. Wheelchairs and urinals, although helpful
aids, can seem alien and even threatening.
Because of
the brain damage that stroke survivors have suffered their perceptions of the
world may be radically altered. While some functions are lost, other senses may
be heightened and some experiences can even be terrifying and cause people to
feel they are going crazy.
One of the
people Ron contacted, after his formal rehabilitation had run its course, was a
Dr. Hobson, a neurologist at Harvard University in Boston .
Dr. Hobson suffered a stroke while on vacation in the south of France about
sixteen years ago. Upon his return to the US, Dr. Hobson tried to persuade his
Harvard colleagues that the experiences he had had during and post stroke had
convinced him that, if the personal stories of stroke patients were recorded
and written down, over time there would be enough anecdotal information
collected that could provide valuable insights into the workings of the brain.
Dr. Hobson’s post stroke experiences, when viewed from the perspective of
current, scientific knowledge, would have been discounted as the impossible
rantings of a lunatic. But, as Ron emphasized in his talk, stroke survivors
have extraordinary experiences. He cited the example of the man who, after his
first stroke, while watching the Beijing Olympics, had felt himself transported
over the television signals to Beijing
where he was able to observe the events “first-hand.” After his second stroke
this same man acquired the ability to “taste colours.”
Every
person’s story is important but stroke survivors’ stories, if taken seriously
and recorded, could have much to teach us about the marvel that is the three
pound mystery in the heads of each one of us–the marvel that is the human
brain.
