The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on December 7, 2023, on their website. Mukul Pandya is a stroke survivor and a former editor-in-chief of Knowledge@Wharton, the online management journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In this column he shares his personal experience of recovering from a stroke. He discusses how he realized that recovery didn’t have to mean getting back to where he was, and how he used artificial intelligence tools to help rebuild a meaningful and rewarding professional life. Today, Mukul is an associat ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on October 10, 2023, on their website. In the August column, our colleague Flannery O’Neil wrote about the importance of building community into recovery. It was critical to her after she suffered a stroke when she was only 34. The importance of being “in a community with peers” is reinforced daily in her work with Stroke Onward — including leading several stroke support groups and partnering with the American Stroke Association to develop stroke support group lesson modules. At Stroke Onward, our work centers o ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on August 4, 2023, on their website. In this column, stroke survivor and Stroke Onward Executive Director, Flannery O’Neil shares her personal experience of recovering from a stroke and its emotional impacts. As Debra Meyerson and Steve Zuckerman, the founders of Stroke Onward, shared in their last column, the emotional journey in recovery is the focus of Stroke Onward’s mission. They asked Flannery to share more about her personal story and a key resource that has greatly benefited her, the power of peer s ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on May 11, 2023, on their website. In 2010, our world was turned upside down by Debra’s severe stroke. She worked her tail off in all kinds of therapy for three years, confident she’d get back to her job as a professor at Stanford. Her ongoing aphasia, a condition that makes it hard for some stroke survivors to speak, made that impossible. And then her second crisis began – her identity crisis. We were lucky. Debra was an academic who had studied identity. Living with new disabilities and a lost career, she was think ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on March 9, 2023 on their website. A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling a bit blue. I’ve written that before. It happens from time to time. It’s not that I’m depressed, just that sometimes my spirit gets a bit low. Living with disabilities is hard. Not being able to do what I used to do – what I still want to do – is hard. And this time, Steve and I seemed to be more at odds with each other too. There was a bit more friction than normal – and a bit more silence. We’ve done some talk therapy together over the years, a ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on November 11, 2022 on their website.  All relationships are challenging. They all involve friction and stress. They all, at times, are under pressure. If one partner in a relationship has a stroke, that invariably puts added pressure on the relationship. “My husband had become a nurse to take care of me,” Julia Fox Garrison said when we interviewed her while writing Identity Theft. “I couldn’t even be a wife.” She talked about how much strain that put on their relationship for more than a year. But t ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on July 5, 2022 on their website.  In our last column, we wrote about the importance of re-engaging in life’s activities, even when it’s difficult to do. This engagement is a crucial part of emotional recovery as we rebuild our identities and rewarding lives. To be sure, many of these activities now require adaptation, which can make them adventures for sure. We wrote about adaptation in our October 2021 column. We also wrote about it in Chapter 13 of Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves A ..read more

The following article was originally published by American Stroke Association on May 12, 2022 on their website.  As we’ve rebuilt our lives since Debra’s stroke 11 years ago, we’ve engaged more and more in life’s many events and activities, and that’s been a big part of our moving forward and having fun. With Debra’s ongoing disabilities, however, that engagement often includes challenges. She needs help in ways she doesn’t like, everything takes longer, and some activities are out of reach. With her ongoing aphasia, conversation is difficult and often exhausting. Steve needs to be r ..read more

July 1, 2022 – Stroke Across America is taking off on May 19 for a 4,300-mile journey that will last over 100 days to spread awareness about stroke, aphasia, and the emotional recovery after suffering traumas like stroke. About 790,000 people in the United States suffer from a stroke each year, resulting in the number one cause of adult-onset disability. Survivors can spend years working to improve their post-stroke physical capabilities. Still, there remains a gap in the stroke system of care when it comes to improving and supporting survivors emotional health and the process of rebuilding ..read more

Road notes 52.2 miles; 1,477 feet of climbing. Pomeroy, WA to Myrtle, ID More route detail on [Strava] and ride animation and some pics on [Relive] Daily updates in pics and video from social media here.     Great day.  Weather was threatening and forecast called for rain.  So we spent a lot of time in the morning figuring out our rain gear – what to wear and what to carry.  So late to get rolling (just after 10am) under ominous skies. Good news – the clouds over us never opened.  So dramatic skies all day, but no rain.  Started with 10 miles of long slo ..read more