Todays guest post is by stroke survivor Debra Meyerson. She could have let the brain injury destroy her. But she chose to fight and help other stroke survivors. She has a blog, Identity Theft: Rediscovering ourselves after stroke where she features stories from other survivors as well as details her own journey. Her ambition is to publish a book based on both hers and their experiences.
On September 4, 2010, I was enjoying Labor Day Weekend in Lake Tahoe. On September 5th I was speechless and paralyzed on my right side following a severe left brain stroke.
Before my stroke I was a tenured professor in the graduate schools of Education and Business at Stanford University. I taught, researched, and wrote about identity, gender, diversity, and social change. I also skied, ran and biked. I knew who I was.
My stroke took almost all of that away from me. I felt like a different person. While I won my struggle to survive, much of my identity—as a Stanford professor, a speaker and writer, an athlete, a mother and a wife—was gone. My mind was working, but I was trapped inside a broken body unable to do what I used to do. And maybe even worse, I couldn’t tell anyone what I was experiencing.
Initially, given my disabilities, I completely lost my independence. I lost control of my life. I needed help with everything. That was SO frustrating. Fortunately, over the past 7 years, I’ve regained enough to be independent for all the basics. But I still lost my career as I knew it. I still can’t speak easily in groups. I can’t do the sports I used to love. I know I won’t regain all of the capabilities I lost. I get frustrated and angry a lot. But I still work hard to recover as much as I can.
After my stroke, I found books that helped me understand the physical recovery process, but much less to help me understand my equally difficult emotional journey. So I am writing Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke with the help of my co-author, Sally Collins. Because of aphasia, I am not able to write the book myself. It will certainly include my personal story of rediscovery, but will also draw on the experience of 30 other stroke survivors I’ve talked to, as well as stories from families and caregivers of stroke survivors.
Writing the book is helping me deal with my loss. Not to get over it. I’ll never get over what I lost. But to get past it. I’m trying to rebuild my life around what I can do today. Looking forward, not back. Trying to build a new and different life, but hopefully one just as meaningful as the one I had before my stroke.
I’m very much still on my journey. Recovery from a severe stroke takes years, decades or a lifetime. Often complete physical recovery never happens. I don’t think it will for me. Does that mean I can’t recover? I don’t think so. I’ve come to think that “stroke recovery” isn’t just about regaining capabilities. It’s about successfully building a full and meaningful life, whatever ongoing disabilities one may have.
Am I the same person I was before my stroke? No. But is there a lot about me – about my identity – that remains. I think so. I’m no longer a tenured professor, which I thought was central to my identity. But writing Identity Theft has helped me find new ways to create and share knowledge, which was always at the core of what I love doing. I hope to have my book out next year (spring, 2019) and I hope it will help other survivors on their journeys to rebuild lives of joy and meaning.
One reply on “Guest post: Debra Meyerson on life after a stroke induced brain injury”
Great Debra, I got a lot out of this thank you for sharing your story.
I am still figuring out my identity since the brain surgery, I realise now my career as an interpreter for the deaf was a big part of my identity, I too loved my job, I could express myself well, led a signing choir and would stand up in front of people signing, I was quick thinking turning spoken English into sign language and loved communication. The brain injury I now have as left me with expressive aphasia, my words can be mixed up, slurred or just disappear, I hate that communication no longer flows. I liked how you said you learned to get past that identity and work with what you’ve got. That’s a great way of focusing forward rather than on what you lack in skills now.
I can still sign with the deaf, that side of my brain in physical expression of language isn’t injuryed, so I can sign but at times can’t speak, crazy eh ?
I am still working it all out and having speech and language sessions to help.
The subject of identity is massive, it comes more into focus when our skills and abilities are taken from us, I am learning that I am not defined by my old job, that isn’t my identity, there’s much more to me than that, I am evolving and recovery is taking me to new experiences. I am hopeful one day I can use my experience of living with a brain tumour, surgery and a brain injury will help others.
Best wishes with your book, thank you for your honesty.
Joanne