More WORDS from the WEBSITE:

> IF Tolstoy had written 'Stroke and No-stroke’, IF Kilmer had seen no
> trees, and IF you hadn't written this book, I would be the loser!
> Change each word 'Pat' to Joy (my wife's name) (she is my caregiver,
> too, and has been my wife for more than 50 years). I am 80 and have
> had a stroke and do go to the 'Y' for swimming and Physic, and do
> belong (& attend) the local "Stroke Survivors' group. I read a lot and
> just finished your book and I want to thank you.

Doug Watkins

O is for Oceanside

Despite being married to the author of The Defiant Mind – Living Inside a Stroke, a memoir which documents the feelings and experiences of a stroke survivor and the role that memory played in the recovery of his former self, it is still difficult for me to recall clearly the events which occurred to us during the first year after Ron’s stroke. By April, 2013 I believe I was still in a state of semi-shock, trying to cope with and process the dramatically altered circumstances which now confronted us.

By April, 2013 Ron had completed the Intensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Program for stroke survivors offered at the Nanaimo Regional District Hospital. He had graduated but we no longer had access to our team. We were left to drift on our own, in search of a place to land.

Fortunately Ron heard of a public event (advertised on television) which was to be held in Nanaimo to inform stroke survivors of the community resources available to them. Fortunately we attended and fortunately we met Kathleen.

Kathleen Falvai is the Co-ordinator of the Oceanside Stroke Recovery Society which provides therapy and support to stroke survivors and caregivers in the Oceanside area of Vancouver Island including Whiskey Creek, Coombs, Errington, Qualicum Beach, Parksville and Nanoose Bay. Kathleen encouraged us to attend one of their stroke group meetings which are held every Friday from 11am to 2 pm at St. Columba Presbyterian Church in French Creek. We went, we joined and we both benefited enormously from the experience. Although Ron and I decided to let our membership lapse at Christmas, by meeting other stroke survivors and caregivers and taking part in the therapy sessions, we were able to find our bearings and plot a new course.

When Kathleen invited Ron to return to Oceanside last Friday to read from his book and speak to the group, he was most happy to do so. The reception he received was warm and welcoming. Many people he already knew. Many were new members. At present the group’s membership is 50 stroke survivors and caregivers. At times it has been as high as 70. The numbers continually fluctuate. Some, like Ron and I, attend for a year or less. Others are long-term members. The group has been in continuous existence since 1986.

I am grateful for the time that Ron and I were members. I learned much about myself. And I am comforted knowing that, should another squall hit us, I know exactly where a nurturing harbour awaits.

DRY MOON in a DARK SKY

On February 1^st, Ron and I headed south on the Island Highway bound, once again, for the Saanich Peninsula. This time we avoided Spaghetti Junction, favouring instead the exit to Beacon Avenue and the heart of downtown Sidney. Ron was due to read at the public library at 6:30 pm. The afternoon was sunny but a cold wind blew across the Salish Sea and the San Juan Islands whipping up white caps. It was an outflow wind, coming from Bellingham.

We arrived at the library at dusk and met our host, Library Manager, Sharon Walker, who led us to the meeting room, a congenial space to the left of the main entrance. Sharon and I set up about twenty chairs. Then we spread out a green cloth over a table where Sharon put out coffee and cookies at one end and I put out some copies of The Defiant Mind for sale at the other.

By 6:35 pm an audience of sixteen people had assembled. Sharon introduced Ron and his reading, interspersed with questions, began. At 7:55 pm I interrupted Ron, (wives are wont to do this) suggesting that the Sidney/North Saanich Library normally closed its doors at 8 pm. We stayed in the meeting room for another half hour while Ron signed books. Many people had already purchased the book and had brought their own copies with them. Others had been instructed to come by friends. Old-fashioned word of mouth had begun to demonstrate its effect.

As Sharon let us out of the back door of the meeting room she said, “I’m the luckiest librarian here to have had this assignment. Ron’s book is going right to the top of my reading list.”

The return drive to Nanoose Bay took a little over two hours. Traffic was light. I kept to the speed limit and took the time to admire the golden crescent moon, hanging saucer-like near the horizon in the clear black sky, leading us home.

WORDS from the WEBSITE

Dear Ron,

One month into my brother’s survival of a catastrophic stroke that wiped out his right brain at age 44, I just finished reading your book today. In a labyrinth of misinformation, and at times despair, your words have been the reassuring thread I’ve followed. When nurses are mean and procedures are dehumanizing and terrifying, your words and your humanity are there providing untold comfort. Your insights about giving yourself over to the various procedures was particularly helpful – until I read that I cringed for every imagined “attack” I knew my brother had to bear. Likewise your unfortunate room-mate – the kind of character a fictional editor would demand as a hurdle for the hero, no? But how illuminating to think that the cranky juice fiend played his own role in you finding your way back.

I want to give every single health professional I meet this book. I’ve also read Stroke of Insight and have a stack on Neuroplasticity to follow up on next, but The Defiant Mind is head (both lobes) and shoulders above.

As a writer, I’m in awe of what you’ve accomplished with this book. How can something so useful be lyrical!? It’s also an incredible inspiration – any one suffering a mild case of writer’s block should pick up a chapter and think – didn’t have to surmount that to set words to page!

Again, thanks. And best wishes that tiny improvements ever continue. Bravo.

Emily Weedon

January 25, 2017 @ 11:45 pm

LITERATURE LIVE

On Sunday, January 22, Ron and I traversed the 49^th parallel at the Peace Arch crossing just south of White Rock. We were headed down the I - 5, bound for Village Books and Bellingham Bay on the Salish Sea. After taking Exit 250 for Chuckanut Drive and the Old Fairhaven Historic District we soon found ourselves in the midst of wide streets with angled parking in front of multi storey red brick buildings. We located 11^th Street and parked in the handicapped spot directly in front of Village Books.

It was three o’clock. One hour before Ron’s reading. After making the appropriate introductions and sussing out the reading space in the basement, we rode the in-store elevator to the top floor where the cafeteria was located. I noticed that the Fiction Section of the store was also located there. Was this by accident or design? I wondered.

While Ron went to get us a window seat I stood in line for two hot chocolates and two Swedish cinnamon buns. As the hot chocolates were being topped with whipped cream by the waitress I noticed that I might have ordered a beer from a cooler containing a wide sampling of local craft beers. Beer in a bookstore! What a novel idea! I thought.

In a corner of the cafeteria, overlooking Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands, two young male guitarists were quietly performing a selection of folk tunes. The room was primarily full of young people, probably students from the University of Western Washington. When Ron and I finished our buns and chocolate we returned to the bottom floor and made ourselves at home. Members of the audience drifted in. Conversations began.

At four, a young man named David, who looked remarkably like Harry Potter, introduced Ron. He then read from his book and answered questions from the audience which had grown to about thirty people. At half past five, people began slipping away but the conversations continued. Three people had had strokes recently. Some had family members who were still suffering. Others were caregivers or therapists. One lady and her fourteen year-old son had recently sailed down from Alaska and were living on their sailboat in the Bellingham Marina. Everyone we met was welcoming, helpful and friendly. Characteristics Americans used to be famous for.

Outside, across the street, atop another heritage building, a huge American flag wavered in the onshore breeze. However, as Ron and I now knew only too well, strokes pay no mind to walls, borders, and lines drawn on maps. 

APPLES & BEETS

On Monday, January 16^th  at 11:30 am Ron and I were navigating the intricacies of “Spaghetti Junction” en route to Ron’s first engagement of  2017 with the Saanich Peninsula Stroke Recovery Association. Their meetings are held every Monday from 10:30am until 1:30pm in the Seventh Day Adventist Church which is located on the left side of Willingdon Road just before the roundabout leading to the Victoria Airport. The unique thing about roundabouts is that, if you miss your turn, you can keep going round about until you eventually return to the correct exit. This was particularly helpful to me as the driver on Monday morning.

Once inside the lovely church we were met by the Association’s Coordinator, Lyall Copeland, and some of the Association's many volunteers. This event was particularly special since it was the first time that Ron was speaking to an audience comprised solely of stroke survivors and their caregivers. One of the principal impetuses behind The Defiant Mind was “to write a book that provides a voice for victims,” to show that recovery is possible, and to advocate for engaging the hearts, minds and brains of stroke survivors and then utilizing their insights in their rehabilitation programs. After Ron’s reading and talk, one gentleman announced to the whole group, as he was on his way out the door to catch his ride home with a Handy Dart, “I endorse everything you’ve said here today. You’ve nailed it.”

Ron’s next rendezvous was at 2 pm at the Tim Horton’s in the Eagle Creek Centre across from the Victoria General Hospital. Dana Haydon, a speech therapist at VGH, had asked if Ron might be able to meet with one of her patients, Christina Willing. Christina had read Ron’s book and was very anxious to speak with him. Christina is a sprightly ninety year old, who had her stroke last February, (a stroke which left her unable to speak) and who, thanks to her therapists and her six children, (daughter Belle Belsky was the designated driver of the day) has been able to return to her farm house home and resume her independent life there.

Ron and I returned to our home in Nanoose Bay enriched by our encounters with new people, by a pint of home-canned beets we received from one of the volunteers in Saanich and by a bag of apples from one of Christina’s heritage apple trees, the latter gift inspired by the section on apples in The Defiant Mind on page 123:

“I imagined eating an apple, not whole, but as a warm sauce over ice cream or peeled and cut up and baked in a fine, fluffy pastry crust, served with a slice of cheddar. A yellow transparent apple picked just as it turned colour, from a deep lime green to the pale shade of the moon. Not what they used to call an eating apple but a cooking apple. Slightly tart, with a sting in its tail. Not an apple you would feed to a horse but an apple whose juices lingered like the summer sun on your tongue during a fall rain or winter snow storm. An apple that held the reach of a climb when you had scuffed a bare knee against rough bark. An apple with a short ripening season, testing your will to live another year.”

A quote from Dan Neil in response to Ron's book to share

Dan Neil 5:47pm Jan 13 Ron, I have finished your book and was sad to leave it. I would say it is a beautiful book because anything is beautiful if it comes from our honest creation. An inward-looking book, personal, but so relevant to everyone. Many times I had to stop and consider consciousness, awareness, soul, spirit and stillness. I wholeheartedly agree that somehow technology has become our master, that we have forgotten the awesome beauty and potential of the human mind. You're a wonderful writer, Ron, and what a great book. Dan.