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.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Concert pianist John Bayless, mentored by Bernstein, now performs one-handed after stroke

A complete failure of the Desert Regional Medical Center to get him 100% recovered. Call that president and ask why the result was so bad. We have to start holding feet to the fire. 
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2017/11/10/concert-pianist-john-bayless-mentored-leonard-bernstein-now-performs-one-handed-after-stroke/766831001/


Bayless, a renowned pianist and composer, suffered a stroke and now plays piano one-handed. (Nov. 2017)
LINKEDINCOMMENTMORE
Renowned pianist, composer and prolific recording artist John Bayless experienced a rude awakening on the first night he and his partner, Bruce Franchini, spent at their new home in the desert.
The couple had just moved from the Bay Area to a two-story residence in Indio in 2007 and were still waiting for the furniture – and John’s Steinway Concert Grand Piano – to arrive.
“I was sleeping and I had a terrible, horrific nightmare and I woke up – and something was wrong with my right arm," he said. “I jumped out of bed because it was a little hot in the bedroom, and I turned down the thermostat, got back in bed. Twenty minutes later is when I was breathing funny … that’s when Bruce woke me up. I couldn’t sit up – he had to prop me up.”
John, 53 at the time, had suffered a stroke that affected the right side of his body. He lost the ability to speak for about 24 hours. An ambulance rushed him to Eisenhower Medical Center where he spent three days before starting the grueling rehabilitation process.
An in-patient stroke rehabilitation program at Desert Regional Medical Center afforded him the opportunity to undergo occupational, speech and physical therapy daily for two weeks. Not long after he completed the program, he met local philanthropist Peggy Cravens, who, among her other charitable work in the desert, is Chairman of the Board of the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition.
“The night before I left Desert Regional, a lady came to my room – a physical therapist that had been recommended,” John said.
John was going to need in-home physical therapy, and the couple had been referred to physical therapist Kay Folmar.
“Bruce called her and said, ‘Could you please come meet John,’ and she said, ‘Yes, I’d love to,’ and she walked into my room and she said, ‘I know you.’ I said, ‘We’ve never met.’ She said, 'I have your records,’ and I started crying because I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t play.’”

During this time, Folmar had been working with Donald Cravens – Peggy’s husband – who had also suffered a stroke.
“She came one day and said, ‘Mrs. Cravens, I’m working with someone … aren’t you the president of an international piano competition?’” Cravens recounted. “I said, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Oh, you have to meet John Bayless!’”
“I said, ‘I know that name,’ and (Kay) said, ‘Yes, he’s had a fabulous career as a concert pianist and sadly, he just had a stroke and he’s paralyzed on his right side.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’d love to meet him. Hopefully we can get him involved at the Waring.’”
“It was thrilling for me,” John said. “Talk about meant to be.”
Kay suggested he give Peggy one of his albums. He gave her an autographed copy of a Puccini album. Peggy invited John and Bruce to the competition and they attended the finals at the Indian Wells Theater on the California State University San Bernardino Palm Desert campus.
“It was pretty soon thereafter that Bruce and I were on the board,” John said.
Bruce, a producer and director who won two Daytime Emmys for directing Julia Child in "Baking With Julia" (1997) and "Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home" (2000), died in 2013 at the age of 69 of cancer. Since then, John has moved to Desert Island in Rancho Mirage, where he and Peggy are neighbors.

Composer, pianist, recording artist

John, who’s been playing the piano since the age of four, attended the Julliard School of Music and studied with Leonard Bernstein, Jules Styne, Arthur Laurents and other notables in the field of musical composition. As a performer, both solo piano and with orchestra, he’s appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and has appeared with the Boston Pops and New York Pops among others.
He made his recording debut in 1985 with an album entitled, “Happy Birthday Bach,” which was created in honor of Bach's 300-year birthday celebration. Two subsequent releases, “Bach meets the Beatles” and “Bach on Abby Road,” contained his improvisations on Beatles melodies.  The former was selected as one of the Top Ten Classical Crossover Recordings of the 1980's by Billboard Magazine. The Puccini Album  Arias for Piano soared to No. 1 on Billboard Magazine's Classical Crossover Chart where it remained for 18 weeks, selling over 175,000 albums. 
John grew up in the Texas panhandle town of Borger, where his dad was an automobile dealer, selling Fords and Lincoln Mercuries. His mother was a singer and, early on, both of his parents realized his musical talent and encouraged his development as a pianist.
“I went to Aspen Music School in the summer when I was 16 and 17 and met the teacher I subsequently studied with at Julliard, Adele Marcus,” John said.
John needed a high school diploma to get into Julliard, but he was also practicing the piano full time during these school years and flying from Amarillo to Houston twice a month for piano lessons. His mother explained the situation to school administrators and they put him in “easy” classes – the bare minimum required to graduate.
John practiced the piano daily before school at 6:30 a.m. and then after school from about 2:30 or 3 p.m. until 7 or 8 p.m.
He graduated in 1971 with diploma in hand. It was his ticket to Julliard, which he attended for five years. He took six months off near the end of his stay to have an operation. While he was at home, he began composing more.
“I didn’t want to play Beethoven, I didn’t want to play all that stuff anymore. I wanted to compose. Fortunately, my parents understood and they supported me a couple of years," John said.
One of the influential families that Bayless met was Nat Lefkowitz, the president of the William Morris agency, and his wife Sally. They took him under their wing.
"I was their protégé," John said. "One Saturday, Sally calls me and says, ‘You have a clean shirt?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why?’ We’re going to a dinner tonight and I want you to come and I hope they have a piano.’ They picked me up. I go to the dinner and I’m sitting there and this man across the table says, ‘How would you like to play in Carnegie Hall?’
"I flipped my wig and I said, ‘Of course, it’s a dream.’ He said, “I support a concert every year by the musician’s union for orchestras in New York and we’re having a concert in May. He said if you’ve got the Leftkowitz’s support, you’ve got to be tops.’
“So, I did. June 9, 1980 and I played Rhapsody in Blue and my own piano concerto that I wrote. That was pretty special.”

No comments:

Post a Comment