5K and $10K victories celebrated

The events of Saturday's Austin Heart Walk represented achievements of fairly significant magnitude for me and my recovery: in addition to the honor of being recognized as the honorary Stroke Survivor at The Austin Walk, I safely and successfully ran(jogged) the hilly 5K(3.1) mile course and was top fundraiser with a record breaking $10,375 raised (no one has ever raised $10K in a Texas Heart Walk before)

You can only imagine how thrilled I was to be running up Congress Avenue towards the Capitol and a finish line!

To fully appreciate the nature and extent of my 0f gratitude for the opportunity to have participated in this capacity: please consider my state of mind and body one year ago--on a gurneybetween an emergency room and an Intensive care unit intubated, unable to feel or move left arm, hand, or leg. A priest had administered last rites out of concern that swelling of my brain would soon put vital functions at risk

Compare the dire straights I was in then to the situation in which I found myself last saturday and you will understand just why I'm so grateful for the outpouring of generosity and support of my participation as an honorary survivor in Saturday's event and for
the opportunity to use the story of my remarkable recovery to help raise awareness
and financial support to sustain the "life-altering" work from which
I have so greatly benefited
As my family in Austin who see me experience daily life with the lingering physical and cognitive deficits of stroke will attest the real value of the experience of last Saturday transcends the surface euphoria of the moment .The reality of my life is not unfortunately what one might think based on my capacity to successfully run a 5K or to execute an enormously successful online fundraising campaign. The bittersweet truth of the matter: I have come a long, long way and I am both proud and grateful of the progress I have made to date, but unfortunately, due to the nature and extent of the injury to my brain (recall that a stroke is a " brain attack") I'm not out of the woods quite yet - as to how I'm feeling these days? I’m still struggling with sciatic-like pain caused by spasticity – abnormal signal from brain to muscles on left side of my body that have my leg and back in a “clenched” mode for prolonged and uncontrolled periods of time. That pain and or the side effects of the medication to treat this only exaggerate the residual cognitive deficits of the stroke of a year ago.

Bit from comic Stephen Wright (comic popular in the 80’s ) describes it exactly: " You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs then you lean too far and you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time."

The most frustrating challenge with stroke recovery for me has been dealing with the reality that while the stroke had significant impact on movement and coordination, stroke is a serious injury to the brain --it is essentially a brain attack. I've been fortunate to have received fantastic physical and cognitive therapy. Living through the stages of 90% to 95% recovery of cognitive functioning, however, feels like almost falling over while leaning back on two legs of a chair -- all the time. I've adopted many techniques to help remember: glasses, wallet, cell phone, keys...But the slightest break from routine or distraction can push me into a state of confusion or panic that I've overlooked something important. You can only imagine how anxious these revelations make me around issues such as cooking and managing my many medications- and the ensuing concerns about balancing safety and desires for independence and a "care-free" approach to the day. (As with the physical therapy), my cognitive therapy requires patience with the process and pace of recovering impaired function because it involves repeated failed attempts of a movement or thought process until the brain re-discovers and "memorizes" an electro-chemical pathway to successfully complete and “re-learn” a task. Knowing that all this is happening in the background might from time to time make me feel less anxious about an occasional lapse of memory or attention and helps to keep my focus on progress instead of the lack of perfection.

So, you can imagine how tired, frustrated, and scared I get some times --I can't emphasize enough how significant a source of inspiration it is to feel that my recovery means so much to so many and how critical that support is at this point in my recovery to sustain the strength and motivation to do all the hard work that lies ahead of me to get beyond what has by every measure a miraculous recovery to regain the life I left on October 9, 2005.

So as you join me in celebrating the achievements of Saturday, please appreciate the impact of the day within the context of the issues I'm still dealing with on a daily basis. Only then will you fully appreciate the meaning and value to me of the contributions I received on behalf of the Austin Heart Walk!
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