16. Surviving a Stroke: Challenges, Growth, and Resilience, The Upsides of a Stroke!

It. What's up, everybody? This is will. Just a couple of quick notes before we hop into this episode of the podcast. Want to remind everybody that you can certainly leave a review of the podcast if you're enjoying it on your favorite podcast player app, or you can leave one directly on our website. Podcast lovewolsurvivor.com all the ratings and reviews really do help the show grow, and we'd really appreciate it all. Also, if you're interested in learning more about the community that we're building, you can go sign up for updates and details at VIP survivorscience.com. And without further ado, let's hop into this week's episode. Good morning, everybody. My name is Willis Muir, and welcome back to another episode of the local Survivor podcast. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the unexpected benefits of experiencing a stroke. Now, that sounds silly, and of course, ideally, nobody will ever have to experience a stroke, but there is no rewind button and we have to deal with the cards we're handed in life and making the most of that opportunity. So for me, I think it's important to capture some of the things we've been talking about in other episodes, but really what it means to have a stroke. And some of the upsides, if you do unfortunately experience a stroke, it can be daunting, as we've spoken many times, early days, it's a lot. It's a lot to handle. They're big changes, but with a little bit of time, some help, some support, it's a great opportunity to reset and reevaluate and kind of reset expectations, both for yourself, for others, it's just an opportunity to really dig deep and discover a different path in life. And it may be one that you wanted to go on, it may be one that you weren't expecting. For me, having a stroke at age 37, it really forced me to slow down and reconsider my priorities in life. I think we're all guilty of going through life, especially if you sort of follow the traditional path of maybe you get married, you have a partner, you have some people choose to have children. A lot of things change and people warn you. People sort of try to help you through the journey because they've been through it. They know it's difficult. And yeah, there are lots of challenges in life and I think a stroke is no different, but it really is. And at least it was for me, looking back, a real opportunity to take the time to kind of reset. I mean, obviously, again, it's not the way I would recommend anybody reset in terms of middle age or I think you can use this as a reset whether you're in your twenty s, thirty s, forty s, fifty s, sixty s, even seventy s. I mean, at lots of points in life we need to kind of slow down and reset. And I think that's easier said than done, especially if you're somebody that goes full steam all the time. Like myself, you're trying to do better, and I have phases where I am able to do that. And I think having a stroke, for me, if there is a silver lining at all of having a stroke, it is again, there are some upsides. Rediscovering your life and your priorities and really resetting your own expectations, reevaluating what you want to do and really kind of taking that time to rediscover what you want to do. For me, again, I'm just going to go over some of the personal benefits that I've experienced, and maybe you've experienced them, maybe you have a slightly different take. Really, it's just to kind of share my experience and help you get thinking in a different way than you may be thinking. Or maybe you've already done this work and maybe there are things you could share with others. I think that, again, speaks to it's not just about me, obviously, this is a one man show podcast, but I really want to help people realize the opportunity they've been given, I think a big one for me in terms of the personal benefits. And again, I won't harp on this too much, but this goes without saying. A stroke is an extreme. Hopefully you're listening to this and you're not a stroke survivor. Maybe you know somebody who's had a stroke, maybe somebody recommended this show to you. Yeah, hopefully this gets to people before they get on the path that leads to stroke. Maybe you're on the path, unfortunately, but you could do a lot of things to Sue Sabbat. You could see doctors, you could get on proper medication. There are no guarantees. But I'll tell you, for me, some of the benefits of having the stroke, and again, this is very extreme, but not only was I forced to slow down and reassess, but I was able to. As a result of my stroke, I immediately quit drinking and smoking, which is something I kind of flip flopped on and off for the better part of probably. Honestly, since I started drinking and smoking at 15, I drank and smoked pretty regularly. I wouldn't say daily, at least until after college, probably. Yeah, I think everybody's different. I just loved drinking in college. It was fun. I mean, I think people get wrapped up in it, smoking kids cigarettes. My buddies never pressured me in high school. Like, it was just something I got into. Hindsight, of course. Ridiculous, dumb, all those things. And yeah, it's not easy. Some people say addiction is a disease. I'm on the fence about that in my experience. I don't know that was true for me, but I definitely had a hard time stopping. However, the stroke immediately put both drinking and smoking to an immediate end. Again, that's extreme. Hopefully you don't have to go that route, but that was something I battled and struggled for a long time, off and on, and I went from being an alcoholic to no longer drinking. And I plan on not drinking the rest of my life. Yes, this stroke is extreme, but as a result, I am actually not in any kind of AA programs. I just stopped. No interest, no desire, none. Same thing with smoking. Two horrible habits for me at least, because I took them to the extreme. But that immediately improved my health. So I think in that regard, one of the upsides for me is immediately improved health, immediately stopped doing things that were detrimental to my overall health and well being. So that is a plus. And that again goes to for me, it's about making the most of this second chance. These are things that I struggled with I could not kind of rid myself of. I think in hindsight, there could have been conversations and some other ways to go about it that maybe would have been beneficial. Again, extreme, yes, but I feel like given the age I had, my stroke, 37, to stop drinking and smoking at the age gives me a real good opportunity to change my health and to really be able to enjoy the rest of my life differently. Now, again, this is going to be different for everybody, depending on your age, your health. But because it eliminated drinking and smoking immediately, it led to really being introspective and sort of understanding myself. And I think as a result of getting rid of some of the bad habits, it improved other things, like better overall decision making. And that goes for me personally, for my family, it allowed me to. I don't think I was a bad father before, but I definitely feel more present now. I still have my moments and I don't think that goes away. But I think in general, I feel like I'm doing a much better job as a father and a husband. I will say as a husband, I still sometimes I wouldn't say I'm the worst, not at all. My wife might say that, but with my wife, I do sometimes it's a fine line. We're three and a half years in. I'm trying to push myself with certain things, to do them myself, to take the extra 30 seconds and do it myself rather than asking for help. And my wife doesn't have a problem with me asking for help. But sometimes I get frustrated because I ask for help and it's like I really should try to do it myself because my wife is busy with her own stuff. And sometimes when I ask her for help, I'm asking because I want it to take less time, when in fact I ask and it takes more time than if I just honestly did it myself. So yeah, that's still something I'm working on. And really part of asking for help, you learn as you go if you were never good at asking for help and now you have to ask for help or you want to ask for help. Asking for help is a great skill. It is something worth doing, especially if you need the help. But realize that I think in my mind when I ask for help, I expect that it's going to take less time. And I think that's unfair because you're basically asking somebody else to take time out of their day, stop what they're doing to help you. So yeah, that is something that takes time to learn. But those are a couple of the benefits. And I feel like, again, as a result of this joke and introspective, especially in that first year, I did a lot of reading, a lot of Bernay Brown. I really focused on my personal values and sort of what mine were and what they meant to me and what they meant in terms of me being a father and a husband, in terms of me running my own business and getting really clear on my personal values and understanding. When it's time, I guess when it's time for me to put it up with less bullshit and unnecessary stress. And really that becomes more clear when you are clear on your values and others sometimes don't align and maybe that's you've outgrown each other in a personal relationship, business relationship, it's okay. It just means that you're moving forward. And sometimes people just get on different paths and that's okay. I think it happens. And understanding the why and having some clarity around values and understanding that you may no longer see eye to eye and again, that's okay. The faster you recognize that, the quicker you'll be able to make a decision that makes sense for you and your family. There are a number of personal benefits. And again, I promise the last time I'll say it, having a stroke is extreme, and I think this applies to anything, whether you get diagnosed with Ms or some other autoimmune disease. Maybe you unfortunately run into cancer. Really any life altering event, especially a medical event, brain injury and any kind. It's a hard reset in terms of actual difficulty, but it's also a good time to really reset life for you as you know it. There are personal benefits, I think, becoming overall a better person. It's allowed me to be, if you can imagine, even more outspoken, but more outspoken in terms of impact and things that really matter to me now. Some of that's changed. I've always been outspoken. I'm notorious for trying to be funny. Sometimes it comes across as being an asshole for me, but I've calmed down in that regard. But I guess I am almost even quicker to call out BS. Have a real hard time with that. I've always had a hard time with that. I think I'm not alone in I think I am much quicker to call it out and stand up for others. Not just myself, but others in general. I'm not great at being nice and nice just to be nice. If somebody's talking a bunch of BS, I'm going to call them out on it, because if they're saying a bunch of BS and it's neither helpful or rather harmful to others, I'm just the kind of guy that I feel a duty and a sense of responsibility. Being a big ass dude at six foot 8325 pounds. I'm going to call people out on it because I feel like I don't do that. I've been wrong when I've called people out before, maybe because I've misunderstood their original intention. I think it's fair to give people time to correct mistakes. So it's not calling people out to just be an ass anymore. It's really just is this important? Is this helpful? Is this furthering the discussion? Or is this just straight up harmful? And I do think most people are not trying to be harmful. I think sometimes things get misconstrued. Context that is relevant is left out. So I think it's interesting. And I've had a hard time with this initially because I always been this way, but even more so after the stroke because I just see life and the world very differently, which I already saw very differently in my twenty s and thirty s. I've had the fortunate ability to travel quite a bit before I had kids. See different parts of the world, understand people just from a broader perspective, motivation, different types of relationships with people, respecting others time and effort and just yeah, I don't know, I just have a real hard time with BS in general. Which is probably why in 2021 I walked away from my career for 13 years in the web. It just no longer served me. My values changed, my life changed as a result of the stroke, and I really had the time to do that introspective work on both myself and what I wanted out of life, and things were no longer aligning. And that's okay. I don't think I did a great job in episode six of talking about that, but that really is what it came down to, is that obviously a stroke will change anybody. It changed me pretty dramatically. It wasn't the only thing, there were many factors in my case. But again, people change, things change, life changes. I think I'm better for it now. Again, an upside of the stroke, there aren't many. Sometimes we talk about a lot of the recovery things and the difficulties and overcoming things and being resilient and yeah, it's hard to really kind of put into words, but I think over time, you can realize you may realize. And I hope you do, because I hope everybody who suffers a stroke, whether it be minor or significant or there are lots of things that could go wrong, I was in a wheelchair, but I didn't suffer a ton of cognitive things. I've had a little bit of cognitive things, but minor in comparison. Very minimal aphasia. I did spend quite a bit of time in speech therapy in the first year, but overall that wasn't the hardest part for me and it wasn't the most in that regard. I do feel like I had quite a few deficits but feel very lucky. A lot were not the cognitive of speech. So again, some of the upsides of having a stroke for somebody like me, I think there is an advantage of being younger to some degree. And let me, let me clarify that for me, being that I am now just turned 46 months ago, less than six months ago, I still have quite hopefully quite a bit of time left before I retire, if I ever retire. Being younger just means I have more time to kind of figure things out and see what works. And as a result, the ability and drive and desire really to share that experience with others. Because I think sometimes what happens within this stroke community is because generally speaking, people are older. Not that there's any less desire to figure things out, but the desire is to figure things out and enjoy the rest of one's time. And I think it's just a little different when you're middle aged. And I'm only saying middle aged because there are people in their 20s that have a stroke. I remember having, I believe, one of my nurses, I think he was a nurse, and I hope I don't get this wrong, it's been a couple of years now, so I can't remember if he was a nurse or like a physician's assistant or a therapist. So many people in scrubs. I'm pretty sure he wasn't a doctor because he didn't have a doctor's coat on at Brooks. I think he might have been part time therapist, he just wasn't one of my full time therapists. So maybe he's a full time therapist and I just saw him a couple of times, but he had a stroke in his twenty s. Again, unusual, but I think when you're that age and you're able to recover almost fully, which is fantastic, that's great. Honestly. I think sometimes, if that may be the case, you might be able to recover so well that you kind of almost get out of that limitation phase. So not that you forget that you've had a stroke, but you're able to get so far that you can almost I wouldn't say ignore the fact that you had a stroke, but I think you're able to get to a place, potentially, at least in this case, he was able to get to a place where he was able to get so well that he basically got 100% back on track. And I'm not saying he doesn't have moments, I'm just saying he actually was able to get to a place in recovery that basically looked like he never had a stroke. Now, I don't know him personally, I don't know if he struggles with anything still, but by all accounts he seemed to have full coordination, full ability to make decisions physically and mentally, very few limitations, if any. So for me, yes, I still have some limitations. Most of the underlying conditions are either under control or out of the way now. But I'm not so old that I am unaware of technology. So that's an interesting place to be in, where I have experience with working in the web. I have experience with architecture, building, community. I have a lot of varied experience at the age of 40 that honestly not a lot of people I know have. But on top of that, I am a stroke survivor with Ms. So I do feel, again, just like being a big guy, I feel a sense of not even responsibility. I just want to be able to share these benefits with people. Because again, I've shared this book many times, hope after stroke by Segoya Tanzan. And I think it's great. I think it's an absolute gem of a book. I think it's a great playbook. If you are just getting started on your journey of stroke recovery, I might recommend it to anybody who is a stroke survivor because there are little nuggets. I think that's the important thing, too, is that as a stroke survivor, you're constantly learning. I don't think it's very different from honestly anybody in any career. It's just you're learning how to be a survivor, how to be a stronger sort of more resilient survivor, how to manage life, because I hate that I say these things all the time now, but it's and it sounds so corny, but it's so absolutely freaking true. Like there is no playbook. I think somebody could put all the information about how to recover at my fingertips now and it still would be a ton to go through and it's trial and error. Does this work? Does this pertain to me? Would this help thing? X, Y and Z. And I think the answer is yes. But again, no two strokes are the same. Two people could have the same exact stroke in the same exact part of their brain and they'll affect the two people who will, by all accounts, look and think of the similar age, weight, height, et cetera, and have the same stroke in the same area of the brain and it completely affect them differently. Which again, is an advantage to being a young stroke survivor is that I have more time to figure these things out and to eventually, hopefully in the next couple of years, I hope to be at a place where it absolutely never looked like I had a stroke. Might be ambitious, but again, circling back to those personal benefits that I experienced, like, it forced me to slow down, forced me to reassess my life. Really got introspective about handling my own stuff, how I wanted to handle sort of family stuff going forward, relationships, quit the drinking and smoking, improved health, fixed health habits. I was never a runner now. I'm a runner 222 days in a row. Like, this is insane. I think in June 11, it'll be 365 days in a row of the peloton, which for all intents and purposes is less than a month now. And I think the other important thing here to talk about, the last thing I'll kind of touch on with the upside of a stroke. Again, it sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling you, there are two different camps. Not everybody experiences this, but I think once you realize there's no rewind button, you can't change the cards that you've been dealt or given in this sense. I believe if you want to see it this way, it absolutely can make a positive difference in your life. It may not have been the positive difference that you wanted it to make, nobody would have chosen this. But again, resetting your priorities, making healthier choices, focusing on personal values, and just being able to do that deep introspection that fosters growth in the different aspects of your life and business, family, friends, relationships. There are no shortages of challenges as a result of stroke. But I think, again, the upside is also you're able to put yourself first, perhaps for the first time in your life, because you have to. There is no choice at this point once you have the stroke, no matter the intensity or hopefully fewer deficits than most. But there's going to be challenges to overcome and you quickly realize that you have to put yourself first because you're not going to be able to take care of anybody around you if you can't take care of yourself. Again, that's getting real deep. I promise it's going to be fun. I'm going to wrap this episode up with a couple of fun things this week, but yeah, it increases your understanding of the world and maybe a renewed sense of awareness, even if you're already self aware prior to your stroke. I think it definitely opens up a whole new world in terms of awareness, and some of it is uncomfortable. Honestly, I'm almost so aware that it can be a lot. But I will say I do think that if you're able to come out and sort of begin to see the upsides of the stroke and make positive change and recover, there's a damn good chance that you're going to be one of the mentally, both the mentally and physically toughest people on the planet. Yeah, there are tougher physical challenges. I think the military is probably a very difficult you know, I never officially joined. I went all the way to MEPs and met Francisca. So I went to MEPs in 2009, was like five pounds overweight for my height. I still am annoyed because they measured me slightly short. Anyways, I met Francisca that next couple of weeks. I was supposed to go back to MEPs to re way in to be enlisted, and I never wound up going back. And that was kind of the end of that. I don't think I regret it, but it certainly would have been interesting how things would have played out differently. But when I was going to join the army, I hadn't met Francisca yet, honestly. I just thought, okay, well, if this winds up not working out, I'll go back to MEPs and I'll go join the army. But it wound up working out and then we got engaged and then we moved to Virginia and everything changed and for the better. But I think outside of the military, I'm not sure if there is a challenge I could think of. I think probably a couple similar medical events like brain injury, cancer, things like that, things of that nature. But the mental and physical toughness to recover from a stroke. And remember, most strokes are going to leave people a little bit cognitively different, mentally different physically. Sometimes it's just an arm or just a leg. Not everybody is totally affected on the whole side of their body. Sometimes it's just upper body, sometimes lower body. The physical deficits left behind can vary tremendously. It's a really tough thing, and I said this before and I'm not trying to compare it to a heart attack or cancer, but both of those do not typically leave people physically unable to walk or completely paralyzed. Even Ms, if you have an exacerbation, it'll temporarily. Again, that's going to look different for everybody. But learning from the limitations is one of the big things there. I do think we've talked about a ton of these in the past, and I think there are upsides to the stroke. And I think that's part of navigating that second chance is really what are the upsides? What are the things that you can do differently and what are the things you want to do differently in the second chance? And again, it's a constant evaluation. It's a constant checking in with yourself. It's constantly building and growing. But yeah, I think those are important. I think there is a slight silver lining. I think you could probably take it deeper. In fact, I think going forward I'm thinking of kind of changing things up a little bit. Now we can go a little deeper each episode, but I thought it was important here to one kind of focus on the less of the negative and try to recap what we've done over the last 16 episodes or so. And obviously again, last time, promise nobody would choose this. But I think in the end you can see that there are upsides and just not as easy as turning that frown upside down. But at a certain point and not immediately, I don't think definitely takes time. But you can start to see the upsides and appreciate them as you move forward. I think those benefits are going to be different for everybody. But I think asking yourself the questions and being able to use everything as a kind of a time to reset. I think COVID was a kind of a hard reset for a lot of people. There was some time, initially, at least for many, to really kind of reassess, and we don't always get that time. So using that time wisely is something I recommend. Yeah. Anyways, enough about the upside. I think there are tons, and I'm sure we'll talk about them many more times on this podcast. But a couple of fun, random things this week that I thought I'd bring to your attention before we wrap up this week's episode. Let's see netflix. A man called Otto. Really enjoyed it. I was surprised. Highly recommend the movie if you haven't seen it yet. Tom Hanks, love him. Big fan of Forest Gump. In fact, every day that I go running, I just think to myself, jesus Christ, I am Forest Gump. I just keep running and running and running and running and running. But yeah, amanda, good story. Really enjoyed it. Very surprised because I rarely sit to watch a movie, but this is the first one in probably a while that I've sat down and enjoyed. And I also realized I think I'm becoming auto in my own neighborhood because now all of a sudden, I'm thinking of joining The HOA because I am tired of running in the neighborhood. And after being in a wheelchair for a year and being able to now run and picking up running as a hobby and finally enjoying it for the first time in 39 years and ten months, I'm tired of seeing dog shit all over the fucking neighborhood. I'm tired of my neighbors trying to run me over when I run in the street, but they also get pissed if you're on the sidewalk. Just a really good movie. Little bit of a tear jerker. If you are the sensitive type, which I am. I'm surprised. I didn't actually cry, but I just I think when you see the movie, some of it you kind of expect. So anyways, highly recommend. Great movie if you're not into movies, but like a little TV again, this one is on prime and I'm watching it on BritBox through Amazon Prime. The show is called Grand Design. If you are in the States, you may not have heard of it before. It is not on HGTV. I believe it was a BBC program at some point. There's 23 seasons. It is Bespoke architectural home design in the UK. I love it. It is fantastic. For those that don't know, I went to school for architecture. I went to University of Miami, Coral Gables, which is a little bit different than the rest of Miami. It has a very unique architectural style. Many of the professors there prefer it. I like the more modern style of Miami. A lot of the high rise style, a lot of brickle. Downtown is more my jam. I do not like Spanish roof tiles, mostly because I hated drawing them. In college, I found them to be annoying. I don't like doing buildings that are not rectangular because I was too lazy to. Yeah, the more you put curves and buildings, the harder it is to draw and design. There's a lot more to it. I'm oversimplifying but Grand Design is a great show. Highly recommend it. If you love architecture and design, it is way better than anything you'll catch on HGTV. So that is it for TV. And one thing I do want to mention because I feel like many, many listeners of this podcast are stroke survivors or survivors of brain injury, may have some difficulty with typing. So I'm going to recommend the tool. I am not going to well, I'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah, no, this is a new tool that has came out about a month ago. I've been using it a ton. You probably have heard at some point people talking about AI, which is something we'll talk about on this podcast because I believe it is a great tool for brain injury and stroke survivors. I think it's a great tool for anybody, but I think it certainly is helpful to those that may have had a stroke or brain injury and need some assistance whether it comes to typing or brainstorming ideas outlining things. But the tool I'm going to recommend, and I really like it, obviously, because I podcast, it's very easy to talk into the microphone but isn't that so easy to talk into a microphone and consolidate those notes into text and so audiopen AI is a new tool. I came across from some friends on Twitter. There's an option to buy a yearly pass or a lifetime deal and what it is, is a tool. Again. Audiopen AI It's a really cool tool. You can do about a 15 minutes audio just brain dumping notes audibly into the app and it'll kind of summarize and consolidate and even bullet point your brain dump into note form which for me I find tremendously helpful. I still enjoy typing but I enjoy it less because it is a little harder than it used to be. So this tool just allows me to kind of think brain dump and then take that brain dump and sort of put it in some sort of usable form. Whether I need to take that a step further depends on the note. But yeah, I use it all every day. I've had it for about a month. Yeah, it's a great tool for, again, brain dumping notes. The cool thing is it'll save your original audio and then it'll also take that original audio and put it into like a note form of some kind and there are a couple of different options. Really cool tool, very helpful if you also struggle with typing or even note taking in general. You type a bunch of notes out and a bunch of bullets, but sometimes it's hard to organize those thoughts sometimes. It certainly was easier before the stroke, but it's just a nice way to brain dump and consolidate. And, again, you can kind of refine it from there. Anyways, that's it for this week. I hope you check out those tools. I hope you check out the movie and the TV show grand design man called AutoAuto pen AI not sponsored, by the way, just cool tools that I really feel like is really good for against survivors and survivors of brain injury. And again, I hope you found this episode helpful. And, yeah, we'll catch you next week on the local Swear podcast. All right,