Three weeks after serious cancer surgery in January 2013, Alan suffered a stroke which destroyed the receptive language area of this brain and weakened the right side of his body. His primary diagnosis of Wernicke’s aphasia was devastating. He felt frustrated, angry, sad, stupid, and INVISIBLE. His language was largely meaningless jargon. This second crisis threw us into a new reality. We could no longer live on our hillside California home of 50 years, so three days after his release from the urgent care hospital in California, his doctors gave us permission to relocate to our daughter’s home in North Carolina. It took months to find the appropriate medical doctors and get started on our marathon of therapies.
Somewhere along the line we were led to believe that we could expect little to no progress after one year post-stroke. I was terrified that we had only six months to regain some of his ability to communicate his thoughts.
Now comes the good part…..