I Am on My Way to Healing
Two Strokes and a Recovery
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
“With a kiss goodbye to Jo, I left the condo at 10:00 a.m. on December 22, 2009 . . . I was going to buy two cups of coffee, and then I would return home. But, because the parking lot was full, I had to wait for a spot. I waited a minute or two, then the guy found a space up ahead so I put the car in first gear and started to pull in. I got about half way in, and the stroke hit me instantly. Somehow, I had my foot on the brake so I could bring it to a halt. Suddenly, I could not speak or move. My hearing was muffled. I could hear some of the sounds, but not all. I was frozen but alive, though barely. A woman ran to the car, and, when she saw my situation, she immediately called 911.
The ambulance took less than five minutes. I was upright. The paramedics began asking me some questions. When they finished, they moved me slowly out of the car. Because my foot was off the brake, even though then gear was engaged, the car rolled forward and hit the green bumper. Now I was lying down. I couldn’t talk at all. The voice of the paramedic came through to me as if he was from somewhere else . . . Everything was clear in my mind, but at the same time, it was muffled, strange, and confusing to my ears.
. . . The next thing I can remember was speaking to a paramedic . . The answers I gave to the paramedic came from half-rational and half-irrational place in my mind, in one slurred sentence. But I had speech of sorts then. After a five minute ride to Huntington Memorial Hospital, the paramedics , . . brought me into the critical care unit . . . I was placed flat in a bed. Then I went in and out of consciousness, mostly out . . .For the first time after the stroke, I finally opened my eyes . . . The first thing I can remember were the faces — Jo (my wife), Jen (my daughter), Sandy (my son-in-law), the nurses — all facing me, Jo’s hands holding mine (my left one), though I couldn’t recall the words.
. . . The memories of recent events were flowing through my mind, but these were all jumbled up together. What happened to me came and went in large bundles that I couldn’t quite make sense of individually. What happened immediately after the stroke was blurry and confusing . . . I knew sort of when it happened, but then I sort of did not know. I was awake when the first stroke occurred, and I also knew more or less the instant it had occurred. But what went by in the first three or four hours after at it had occurred, I have no memory of. I know only the “meaning” of the experience from retrospective accounts.”
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
I Am on My Way to Healing: Two Strokes and a Recovery shares an author’s journey along the path from two strokes toward healing and recovery and a renewed sense of hope. With resolve and determination, Robert P. Parker, a retired professor of English Education who had adapted to an array of vocations, tells how he faced a changed life in the wake of those strokes. After sketching his background, the author tells about his first stroke, what he felt and thought in the midst of the experience, and how his loved ones reacted to the news. Even amidst that life-changing event, he found, especially with the support of Jo, his wife, the courage to live in hope of healing. As he noted, “One day I knew I would be fine again, though it would be a long, long way from the beginning to the ‘end.’” I Am on My Way to Healing: Two Strokes and a Recovery will inspire and encourage anyone who has undergone the life-altering experience of a stroke—or any other extreme change in health. It shares the honest and personal reflections of a man who lived through two strokes and who now makes the title’s affirmation: “I am on my way to healing!” Whether you have had a stroke, or someone you love and care for did, I Am on My Way to Healing will embolden your hope and your determination to live, looking forward to the day for celebrating a recovery.
About the Author
Robert P. Parker, born in Somerville, New Jersey, taught at Rutgers University for two decades. His paternal grandfather died at forty-two from a stroke, his son at twenty from an aneurysm. I Am on My Way to Healing is his first non-academic book. He and Jo, his wife, live in Las Vegas.