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.

THE WRITTEN WORD

Early last September Ron was invited to give a lecture in the Esther Birney Literature Series held every Thursday morning, from 10:30am to 11:45am in the Halpern Room at Brock House on Point Grey Road, Vancouver. The date Ron selected was December 15^th. However, this December the Lower Mainland and the Island was subject to a cold snap causing water to freeze in puddles, lakes and ponds, and snow to fall. In order to be certain of making it to the lecture Ron and I arrived the day before, staying with family in White Rock.

The drive into Vancouver on Thursday morning was spectacular. The day dawned clear and cold. The sky was ice blue and the mountains and the delta sparkled white. Around Tsawwassen the thermometer on our silver Toyota (which registers outside temperatures) dipped to minus six degrees Celsius. By the time Ron and I reached Brock House it registered a balmy minus one. Perhaps it was fear of icy sidewalks, perhaps it was the season, the Christmas shopping, baking, or holidays, but the lecture in the Halpern Room, which normally attracts an audience of thirty to forty, only saw a dozen that morning. However, the low numbers were made up by high enthusiasm, and Ron’s talk and readings were enlivened by lots of questions and audience participation, (and brisk book sales after, with one hard cover copy purchased for the Brock House Library.)

Brock House is a designated Heritage Site. It was originally completed in 1913 but not named “Brockholm” until 1922 by Mildred Brock and her husband Dean Reginald Brock, who purchased the property then. In 1952 the property was sold to the federal government and turned into offices for the RCMP. When the RCMP moved to new quarters the property was eventually turned over to the City of Vancouver as part of the transfer of the Jericho Waterfront Lands in 1975. The City then entrusted the property to the care of the Brock House Society. The Society’s Mission is “to provide for its members a social, intellectual, recreational and cultural centre, and, through a stimulating program of activities, enable members to achieve a more satisfying life.” Anyone over 55 can become a member of the society for the nominal fee of $45 (GST included).

Thanks to many, many volunteers, like Glenys Acland, who organizes Programs like the Esther Birney Lecture Series Brock House remains a thriving centre for 2,000 members–chock a block full of activities to challenge the mind, the body and the soul. If I lived in Vancouver I would definitely become a member and polish up my yoga, chess, table tennis or conversational Spanish. Perhaps I would even join a choir or take a course on Women Mystics. Or I might simply sit on a bench in the garden and enjoy the stunning views of Vancouver, the north shore mountains and English Bay, especially on a hot summer’s day, when the temperature is a comfortable 22.

STOKE AND DISTANCE

"Stroke and Distance" is the headlining caption for Mark Forsythe's review of The Defiant Mind which is the cover story in the new issue of BC BOOKLOOK (the on-line edition of BC BookWorld).

To read the review just click on the permanent link: http://bcbooklook.com/2016/11/27/stroke-and-distance/#more-29565

This headline is a particularly apt description of Ron and his book as he was, for most of his adult life, an avid golfer. Indeed, in my youth, I once penned a little story about a mythical golfer named "Don" and the life lessons I learned in The Golf Widow's Revenge.

For those of you who do not golf and are not familiar with the game, the term stroke and distance refers to Rule 27 - 1 a, which permits a golfer, when faced with an unplayable lie, to pick up his (or her, as the case may be) ball and return it to its previous resting place. If the golfer decides to invoke this rule s/he will suffer a one stroke penalty and the loss of the distance the ball travelled before landing in the unplayable lie.

NB This rule does not apply if the golfer's ball is lost or out of bounds. And it certainly cannot be invoked by the stroke survivor who initially is faced with a seemingly unplayable lie. Unfortunately, in real life, unlike golf, there is no  possibility of a "do-over." A single stroke is penalty enough. However, given enough time and distance and continuing recovery, Ron is planning his return to the links.

MARK FORSYTHE’S REVIEW

There are two new items of note: Mark Forsythe's review of The Defiant Mind has just appeared in the current issue of BC BOOKWORLD.

In addition to his review there is another interview with Ron available at:

http://worldstrokeorganization.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/stroke-survivor-stories-ron-smith.html