Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Monday, November 21, 2011

My social media story for Webicina

There is a competition at http://www.webicina.com on uses of social media to empower patients and medical staff. This is my story.
As a 5 year stroke survivor, there is a lot to be thankful about; I’m alive and slowly rehabilitating. May 21, 2006 was the day it started. I had just returned from a 6 day strenuous whitewater canoeing trip on the Dog River in Ontario. This included a 1.5 mile portage so I was definitely in shape and excellent health. I drove home alone thru the UP of Michigan. I collapsed the next morning walking across my bedroom floor, called to my wife to help me get up but she was already calling 911. It was a massive stroke leaving me in critical condition. I received tPA within the hour but still ended up with huge dead spot in my brain and left side paralysis.
I was waiting for my medical staff to give me some concrete information on rehabilitation and then I could follow that and recover. That never occurred, I don't think my doctors in 30+ years of practice had ever figured out anything about stroke rehab. Since my cognitive abilities were spared, as soon as I got access to a computer I found a number of stroke forums and everyone on them was looking for information that no-one had gotten from their doctors. It became painfully obvious that all stroke survivors are on their own, they need to figure out their own therapy protocols.
By reading and participating in 16+ stroke forums around the world I found my voice, first as a lurker, then posting a few questions and finally becoming a prolific answerer. This blog is the final result because forums have rules that I tended to break.
Of the 5 stages of grief:
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance
I am still in denial that I won't recover, I refuse to accept that compensation is the best I can do. Anger still exists against the medical establishment that has not set forward a strategy for stroke rehabilitation for all survivors. Bargaining I never did. Depression was from the total lack of communication about what recovery looks like. My vision was that in 6 months I would be canoeing again. With no discussion from any medical staff that this was impossible or even any information at all, depression was inevitable. I haven't accepted my physical limitations because I know I will eventually get them back. I have enough drive ,persistence, pugnacity and smarts to move my brain functions around. In any event I set myself a goal to change stroke rehab worldwide, this is probably an insane belief. And the way to do that is to research and plan what needs to be done. This blog is my starting point and from some of the responses it's doing a good job. I now have 940 blog posts on stroke and I believe it is the most widely read stroke blog in the world.

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful entry, Dean. I appreciate how you keep current research in front of stroke survivors. Your story is my story ... except that I'm not working toward rehab reform ... I focus on the emotional toll on me as a survivor in the insane hope that people I know can have a glimmer of understanding and in the realistic hope that I can help provide hope to other survivors. Also, I did not receive tPA, which still pisses me off.

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