“It’s going to happen to anybody with a disability,” Patrick said, but I was really sorry that I had made that mistake. Luckily, I had become good friends with Patrick by then.
I realized, through golf, that getting my coordination back would also provide a new way of retraining my brain. The physical trainers had always told me, “It’s all about muscle memory. If you do it so many times, it’ll become automatic.” I worked out every day. One day, while I was working out at Crunch Fitness, a light came on in my head: I can do this every day if I exercise my physical body. That’s what’s going to help my brain. You watch.
During this time, Kelly was checking my progress. She noted that when I went to the gym, where I’d run—I started at fifteen minutes on the treadmill and worked up to thirty minutes—I’d come home tired, but my speech got better. The change was quite noticeable. She called my neurologist and my doctor and told them.
One day, arriving at the gym a little earlier than usual, I noticed that a different sort of class was taking place in the aerobics studio. I stayed to watch for a few minutes.
What is this? I thought as I watched the participants stretch and exercise only their legs with precise control. I have to try this. It involved such concentration that I knew, immediately, it would be good for me. I liked the idea of Pilates more than yoga because yoga, which was offered to me, was more spiritual and meditative than physical. I liked the physical aspect. I believed that it could help me build those new neurons, new synaptic pathways in my brain. When I went to the Pilates class for the first time, I was quiet. I had to listen to what the instructors said in order to comprehend it and execute what I heard.
What would have been considered simple to someone else was much more difficult for me. I became quite visual. The Pilates training made me work on finding new ways to execute simple tasks, which made it a tough but beneficial year.
Kelly
He did Pilates for a while.
Then he said, “I don’t know if that’s making a difference anymore. Now I’m going to try boxing.”
And that helped his speech, just as Pilates had at first.
“Now I’m going to try acupuncture,” he said.
When things didn’t work out for Ted, he would say, “Okay, I shouldn’t have done it that way. Fix it. Let’s move on.”
He has an unbelievable resiliency for moving forward.
Pilates was good, but it wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. I was looking for something else. So, when I saw the story about a boxer who experienced a stroke and came back from it and was able to get back into the ring again, I was inspired. He played actual matches! He didn’t care if he won or lost—it was simply about getting into the ring again. At the time, I was working with a trainer at Crunch Fitness in Chicago, so I asked him, “Do you do boxing here? Can you teach me the basics?”
“Yes.That’s a good cardio for you, and it takes a lot of coordination.”
I began learning to box almost immediately. I would jab with my left hand and then land a cross with my right. I switched to jab with the right and cross with the left, the same as a southpaw boxer. It made me use both sides of my brain in a new way. I had to use my four limbs, like in golf, but it took a different kind of coordination—and that effort helped my brain heal, which also meant improved speech. It was like when, earlier in the recovery, I alternated which hand I used to shave. It was all about mastering control over both sides of my body.
Pushing My Brain
Throughout all of it—recovery, boxing, and exercising in general—I was slowly regaining full use of my right side instead of only being able to use my left side. There was a very visual aspect to my recovery. If I could see somebody do something, then I could follow it and mimic what they did. It’s hard to explain how my brain worked after the stroke. If I was told to make the bed, I would just see a messy bed but not know how to make the right movements to make it. If, though, I could visualize someone making the bed in my mind, then my brain could make the connection between the words and the actions. I had to adapt to this new way of doing things.
All those years before my stroke, I was logical, practical, task, and function oriented. I had to do this, this, and this. I had to call this person, that person, and so on. I kept a mental list for everything.
That’s the way I always thought. I had a task list, a project plan. Always.
But now, I couldn’t remember a plan. I couldn’t keep a list in my head. But I wanted my mind, my brain, to get to the results. I didn’t want to have any stops with my speech when I got into a conversation. I had to grasp ideas in a different way, and I had to use simple words to convey ideas. This process of changing my thought patterns was not easy.
I had to keep prioritized task lists and calendars as I had done before my stroke, but I also had to work hard to strengthen my shortterm memory. I had to focus on visualization—picturing the task, the actions needed to perform that task, and the intended result. I had to group the tasks that I wanted or needed to complete throughout the day. I thought of this as breaking the list down into chunks, and it worked.
I was speaking more spontaneously, more off-the-cuff. I was learning to use both the analytical and creative sides of my brain. Once I got past the frustration and anxiety, I found that I enjoyed a new way of seeing things. It opened me up to new experiences and widened my perspective. This ability to use different facets of my brain, which I had concentrated on developing during my rehab, gave me another set of tools to play with. It provided me tools I needed to communicate more effectively.
CHAPTER 19
Life Changes
Iwas doing well not only with my various therapies but also with getting out into the world and doing new activities.
I went through the Archeworks program—check.
I developed a model strategy for starting up a new aphasia center—check.
I kept in contact with the aphasia centers that I had attended or worked with and had met the top therapists at each of them—check.
The National Aphasia Institute asked me to serve on their advisory board—check.
I walked my dog twice a day—mornings and evenings—and played with him before I went to bed. I worked out. I boxed. I hit golf balls. I went to all my various therapies. I joined and participated in the RIC disability golf club. I was gaining ground every day. I had built good relationships with the therapists and clinicians.
But there wasn’t a stable or ongoing initiative for me that I could sink my teeth into. I was always thinking, What am I going to do now? Should I leverage some of my abilities that I learned during the rehab process into one of the aphasia center’s initiatives? Volunteer? Leverage my contacts? Location? Keep doing more of the same? I needed more excitement.
By then, Kelly was going to Northeastern Illinois University to study social work and was working hard to establish a career path for herself. She wanted an identity separate from mine, and I couldn’t blame her. I had been single-minded about my career all those years, and then I was equally single-minded about my recovery. And by now, we already had a strong feeling that divorce was on the horizon.
I wanted a clean slate, a fresh perspective. Every time I saw the Chicago or New York City skyline, I thought about my former life in finance. I thought about going back to New York, where I grew up and started my career. I thought about who I used to be and who I was now.
That’s going to kill me, just to see Chicago or New York from the plane. It’s always going to remind me of going back, I often thought. Those skylines were a constant reminder of the financial world I wasn’t part of anymore. They were everything I’d lost.
Some people who retire from Chicago or New York move to Florida. I didn’t want retirement living. I wanted a new life—new friends, new activities, new ways of giving back to the community. Southern California kept coming to mind.
I was still seeing my psychologist, Leigh, to talk about the feelings and experiences after having a stroke: growin
g apart from friends, facing divorce, and especially figuring out, dealing with, and navigating through aphasia. I had a great connection with Leigh. It was sometimes difficult to get my ideas across because of my speech, but he understood. He provided me much-needed support as I made important decisions.
In 2009, I said to Leigh, “Kelly and I were discussing a separation before I had the stroke, and my bet is Kelly and I will probably get a divorce. How do you think we should approach this?” I explained to him that our marriage was deteriorating.
“Go to a marriage counselor. I can help you talk through your end of it, but you need to do this together,” he told me. “A counselor can help you work through things, help you decide if there is room for reconciliation.”
He gave me the names of three psychologists who specialized in marriage and divorce.
“When you see each of these,” he said, “make sure you and Kelly go together.”
I was expecting to have some good conversations with Kelly so we would choose the right one together. So I broached the subject one evening.
“I’ve already found a counselor. I’ve been seeing him for about a month,” she told me.
I sat down. I stood up. I sat down in the chair again and propped my head on my hands. I stared at her. As her words sank in, anger flooded me. Actually, that’s putting it mildly. There was steam coming from my ears.
“We go together. Marriage counseling!” I yelled.
“I had to talk to someone, Ted. This isn’t working.”
“Together!” I snapped again.
“You can come next time,” she answered with a shrug and a scowl. I went, but I just kept thinking that she’d already swayed the counselor, that she’d started the process without me.
But in all fairness, we had talked about ending our marriage before I had my stroke. She had stood by me for four and a half years while I fought to recover even though our marriage hadn’t been particularly strong beforehand. Now, we both knew I was strong enough to handle life on my own, so we saw the marriage counselor once a week over the next four or five months, mostly to identify our irreconcilable differences, recognize them, and eventually, to get a divorce.
“Thinking about moving to California,” I said in one session with Leigh.
“Oh yeah? The vacation house?” he asked, because I had already told him that Kelly and I were talking about getting a second house out there.
“By myself,” I answered, shaking my head. “No vacation. Divorce.”
“You have to understand that you won’t know anybody there.”
I wanted to have a house in Newport Beach, in Southern California. “Do you think I can start a new, happy life there?” I asked.
“Yeah . . . eventually,” he said.
We discussed the fact that I would be sad and depressed due to the divorce. It would feel like I was truly alone and nothing was left. He was sorry about my divorce. “But you’ll bounce back,” he said.
In October, Kelly helped me buy a new house in Newport Beach and took care of most of the furnishings for it. I didn’t know what types of rugs would go with the sofa, what sort of chairs would fit in the space, what colors would work on my walls, and so on. I could have done this mostly myself, but it would have been a slow process as a stroke survivor with aphasia challenges.
The lawyer stuff started in November 2009. We were amenable about it, although we both got emotional, as would be expected. At first, before my stroke, I didn’t want the divorce, but we had grown so far apart that it made the most sense for both of us. I came to terms with it after a lot of soul searching. Now that she was getting her degree, we both needed to live our own lives, separate from each other.
Kelly
The furniture was all ordered by the time we filed for divorce, but it wasn’t in, so he was still living at our place in Chicago. At the beginning of 2010, once the furniture started to arrive, he moved to California.
I flew out there to help him settle in that January, and we went to a Lakers game. He asked me to stay on, to help him with some of the stuff, so I did.
We’re still good friends. We don’t talk about our current relationships—nothing like that—but I’m probably one of the first people he tells about what he’s doing with therapy, who he’s speaking to about his rehab, and about this book. We still talk on a somewhat regular basis. He will always be a dear friend.
CHAPTER 20
Fresh House, Fresh Start, and Socialization
I officially moved to California on January 1, 2010.
I knew there were things about setting up the new house that I couldn’t and didn’t want to deal with, so Kelly came to California with an interior designer from Chicago. For instance, the color of my living room walls was a detail I didn’t need to worry about. That’s what the interior designer was for. Kelly was in town for five days, and the decorator was there for three days. Kelly wanted me to have a say in the colors and patterns for the space, and she’d call me over to get my views on colors, but I didn’t even know what a window treatment was because of the aphasia challenges—memory and vocabulary were still an issue. My bigger concern was getting the furniture in the house.
I wanted a TV. I wanted the same kind of home entertainment center I had in Chicago. I knew there had to be a way to buy a TV, put it in my house, and fix the controls so I could program what to watch, but I wasn’t at the point in my recovery where I could do it myself yet. I didn’t know what to do.
So, I kept my eyes open for someone who could help with the entertainment system situation while I searched out a psychologist. I knew that having that level of support would be essential, certainly more important than the entertainment center setup.
There was still a lot to contend with mentally and emotionally, because of the stroke, the divorce, the move, and all of the changes in my life that resulted. Ironically, it was around the same time that I found a psychologist that I felt comfortable with when I noticed an audio visual (AV) store across from Starbucks, which I walked to often to get a latte. I went in to see the AV specialist who owned the store, Tim Miner. When I told him what I wanted, he was curious about what had happened to me.
As I approached Tim that first time, I was worried and already rehearsing what I wanted to say in my head. I wanted to be sure that I could get my point across, that he would understand what I wanted. “I want a TV . . . an entertainment . . . the whole thing, set up.”
“Do you mind if I ask you what’s going on with your speech?” he asked.
“Stroke. Aphasia,” I answered.
I was never ashamed, but that was a big moment for me. I knew I couldn’t speak with the fluency I had before my stroke. I wasn’t there yet; I wasn’t ready. But I had to do something to help make my surroundings at home more comfortable.
I braced myself and managed to get into a conversation that lasted fifty, maybe sixty minutes. Ultimately, I knew that it was best to get more than one bid, so I visited two other AV stores as well and had AV specialists from all three come to my house to propose a bid.
I decided I wanted to work with Tim. He was a real person. He was likeable and was always understanding of—and fascinated by—my stroke. When choosing service providers, I considered if they were likeable or not and whether I could get along with them. I needed someone who would be patient with me and who knew what aphasia was. That had to come first, as simple as it sounds, before I considered his tech abilities, other customers’ comments about his performance, price, and so on.
I knew he couldn’t just pop in, put up a TV, and that would be that. He had to wire the whole place. But even before that, the mantle above the fireplace where I wanted the television to go had to be lowered. He had to get people to come to my home to fix that first. All in all, this became a large project, and I was dealing with three different people with three different skills. In the end, all the equipment was hidden in a coat closet, and I could control the whole thing from my iPad, including the sound on the patio. It worked g
reat.
I built a friendly relationship with Tim as he and his team worked. One day, he said, “By the way, do you know what you’re going to do with the walls?”
“What do you mean? I’m not going to break down the walls,” I said.
“What pictures are you going to put up?” he asked, looking around, inspecting the space.
I had no idea. “I don’t know anything about art.”
Tim then told me about Peter Blake who lived in Laguna Beach, which was a short ride from my new home in Newport Beach. Peter owned and ran a fantastic contemporary art gallery. I met him, and we became great friends. He is from Hempstead, Long Island, New York. I really liked the art that he had in his gallery—the colors, the shapes, and the aesthetics. He gave me some pointers on contemporary art, and he introduced me to a few artists from Los Angeles and Orange County. It was through Peter that I began to delve in to the world of art; I had never given it much thought before my stroke.
There is a connection between people who have experienced a stroke and art. And without having ever heard of art therapy, I figured I would try it and enjoy it. This was a totally new and different way of enjoying life. I was hungry for new activities and enjoyed immersing myself into a new world. I found out later, after speaking to some of the doctors from UCI, that art therapy enriches people’s lives through active art-making, like painting or sculpting, or collecting and experiencing art pieces, or going to see art in galleries or museums. Art therapy can help reduce stress, improve self-esteem and emotional health, and lower depression. Art became a source of joy and fulfillment in my life.
Eventually, I bought some pieces from Peter and learned a real appreciation for contemporary art. In early 2011, Peter called a member of the board of trustees for the Laguna Art Museum and recommended that I be considered to join the board. He told them I was smart and liked art and was exactly what they needed—I had a fresh perspective.
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