John Morgan lives in Florence, South Carolina, with his wife, Christy, who is also a musician. Before his stroke, in addition to teaching middle and high school orchestra, John Morgan performed as a violinist with Florence’s community symphony and at events and weddings. Christy teaches piano and is the collaborative pianist with the choir at another local high school.

Caused by an arteriovenous malformation (an irregular tangle of blood vessels), the stroke affected his left side, impacting his ability to walk and his strength and fine motor skills in his left arm and hand. He spent several days in the ICU in Florence and then transferred to a local inpatient rehabilitation center. There, he says, he made a lot of progress, especially with his lower body.

“I went from being completely immobilized to being able to walk with a cane,” he remembers.

While trying to decide where John Morgan should continue his rehabilitation, his wife and dad learned about Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s comprehensive outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program. When he got to Pathways, John Morgan was impressed by his therapists.

“I had a very good experience at Pathways. All the therapists I worked with were really good, very kind, very compassionate. They were very good at connecting with the patients.”

He and his therapists got right to work with physical, occupational, speech, music, mental health, and recreational therapy.

John Morgan worked on balance, so he could walk without a cane or ankle-foot orthosis (AFO). He used a driving simulator to prepare to drive with an adaptive steering wheel spinner knob. He played games focused on pattern recognition to sharpen his cognitive skills.

“Recreational therapy, that was unexpected and fun. I got to play games. But it was still therapy, so that was fun.”

He appreciated his care team’s approach.

“I liked that they kind of took a holistic approach and found ways to make [therapy] personally meaningful and rewarding. I think that was more of an emphasis at Shepherd Center, and they had more resources that made that possible.”

One such therapy session included a trip to a nearby hiking trail with Christy and his physical therapist.

“My physical therapist was there the whole time, guiding me through it, making sure I was safe. But it was really cool because one of the things that Christy and I really enjoyed before my stroke was hiking and going to parks and things. And it was really, really cool that they were able to incorporate that into my therapy.”

Music therapy with board-certified music therapist Thomas Miller, MS.Ed, LPMT, MT-BC, was, of course, also a highlight. Even his office made a lasting impression on John Morgan.

“I remember just the way he had his office set up; he had a lot of memorabilia and pictures from a whole bunch of different artists and a whole bunch of different genres and things. So no matter where you're coming from with your musical preferences, there's something in there that you could connect to,” John Morgan explains. “And that inspired me to decorate my classroom the same way. I'm not as comprehensive as Thomas is, but I’ve tried to have artists from a variety of genres or memorabilia from a variety of genres [in my classroom] that students can connect to.”

And since he had his eye on returning to work, John Morgan’s therapists challenged him to create a lesson plan and teach it to other patients. He developed a concept, prepared slides, and taught the lesson.

“That was a very rewarding experience because it went really well. It was a pretty successful lesson and at the end, I remember having a feeling that I can still teach, even though all this has happened to me, I can still go back and be good at something. So that was very rewarding.”

Planning for a Return to Work

Vocational rehabilitation counselor Zac Bradley, MS, CRC, NCC, CVE, helped John Morgan plan his return to the classroom.

“Zac was and is just amazing. He was really good at his job,” says John Morgan. “I knew I wanted to go back to work, but I had not even thought about what that process would look like. He did a really good job of explaining, ‘Here's what needs to happen,’ and breaking it down, giving me the tools that I needed to think through to make sure that I was ready.

“Just having him there to walk me through the process was really helpful. And Christy was in most of the sessions with me. And so she would be taking notes and asking questions. And sometimes she would have questions about things that I hadn't thought of.”

Bradley sustained a spinal cord injury 15 years ago, during his first year of college.

“It was also just really encouraging for me to see someone who had gone through an injury and returned to work. And now he was the person coaching me on how to go back to work after my stroke,” John Morgan recalls. “That was a very meaningful and powerful part of working with Zac was knowing that he had already gone through some version of this process and had come out the other side as a successful person in his field. So that had a big impact on me.”

John Morgan graduated from Shepherd Pathways in July and returned to the classroom full-time in August. He continued physical and occupational therapy close to home and still participates in occupational therapy to improve strength and dexterity in his left hand. Getting back to work helped him maintain his music-related skills — and returning to the classroom has been meaningful.

“It has been a very rewarding part of my life.”

While getting back to teaching has been fulfilling for John Morgan, his stroke also helped see his work in a different light. He says now, he views his health as his biggest priority. In hindsight, he says he wishes he had worked only part-time at first and devoted more time to his rehab during the first year following his stroke.

“I saw a lot of my identity in my work. And I thought the way to move forward and recover was not necessarily for me to get better physically, but for me to just prove that I could go back to work and do what I used to do before the stroke. And I've kind of shifted to I now think that my health is more important to me than work. And I'm trying to make time for my physical health, my rehab, because I think that's going to be more meaningful for me in the long run.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

In October 2024, Ryan, then 30, had a hemorrhagic stroke. As he was getting ready for work one morning, he got lightheaded and lost his balance. After falling a few times over the next several minutes, he realized it was time to call 911.

“That took a lot of courage for me to do because before, I was never one to ask for any kind of help in any way,” he says.

Ryan dragged himself 45 feet to the front door and unlocked it for the paramedics before losing consciousness. In hindsight, he says things could’ve been worse, since 15 minutes earlier, he would’ve been asleep, and 15 minutes later, he would’ve been driving to work. “God's timing was shown in that situation,” he says. “So, I've come to terms, and I'm glad it happened when it did.”

He spent the next 20 days in Huntsville Hospital, 10 of them in the ICU. While there, he had surgery to remove part of his skull to reduce the pressure from the bleeding in his brain.

Ryan’s mom, Terri Edwards, remembers how overwhelmed she felt immediately following Ryan’s stroke.

“I had no idea what to do,” she recalls. “One of our friends in the ICU waiting room that night or the next day said, ‘Well, what's going to happen? Are they going to send him to Shepherd Center?’ And I go, ‘Oh my God, what is Shepherd Center? Where is it? I wanted to crawl under a chair, and I'm not kidding because … I could not see through the next day.”

Once Ryan transferred to Shepherd Center, it didn’t take long for Terri to feel certain they had made the right decision.

“So, we get there, and we're sitting outside of his room because the doctors are still assessing him and getting him settled. And we look like deer caught in headlights,” she recalls. “And I would say nine out of every 10 staff persons, from a janitor to a doctor, a tech, a nurse, whoever, walked by and they would say, ‘Are you okay? Do you need anything? Are you waiting on somebody?’ They would talk to us. And by the end of the first two hours … I knew we were in the right place.”

Terri stayed at the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences while Ryan was inpatient so she could support him throughout his rehabilitation. Her husband and Ryan’s siblings and friends came to visit many weekends and for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but often, it was just team Ryan and Terri, working through the fear and frustration and celebrating small victories with each other and Shepherd staff.

Terri says that it brought her closer to Ryan than ever. “I will take that to my grave as a special time with my son. But,” she jokes, “I do not recommend that kind of bonding.”

Therapy and Beyond

Ryan and his therapists got right to work to rebuild his physical strength and address his cognitive issues. Ryan was using a wheelchair and had weakness in his left side, especially his left arm.  

His long-term memory was intact, but his short-term memory was a challenge, as was fatigue from mental strain and difficulty with problem-solving.

“I had planning issues early on in the therapy exercises. I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. I kind of breezed through high school, in a manner of speaking. And the type of worksheets I was working on in speech therapy, I knew they were easy for me to do, but at the time, it took a lot of mental strain, and that was one of the most frustrating parts,” he recalls.

Other tasks were also a challenge. “I had a very difficult time practicing filling my pillbox and working through my medications, especially during my time at Shepherd Center,” he says. “It took until 3 months after we got back home from Shepherd until I started doing it all by myself without any help.”

Ryan says that all his therapists were fantastic. But other parts of his time at Shepherd stood out as well. For one, he enjoyed getting to know other patients.

“We got to go out to a couple of the restaurants down the street with some other patients, and we got to meet up and make some friends with a couple of the other patients and share experiences with them,” he says. “I think that's really good — getting the patients together is really good.”

And he attended some of the Sunday services led by Shepherd Center’s chaplains, which he said offered “something that I needed to hear in that moment.” One example was a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes.

“’A time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance,’” he reads. “So, especially during that recovery process, there was times that it was perfectly fine to just let it out, cry it out, and then there was times to laugh and then grieve and then have fun and dance, you know.”

Celebrating Milestones

After six weeks as an inpatient in Shepherd’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program, Ryan continued therapy at Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program.

When he discharged from inpatient, Ryan was walking with assistance. Terri recalls the day he was able to walk into Pathways independently and how it felt a little like she was sending him out into the world on his own for the first time.

“I dropped him off at Pathways, and they finally cleared him to take his [gait] belt off. Actually, they said, ‘Why do you still have your gait belt on? You don't need that.’ And I'm still holding it or getting ready to grab it. I'm not walking anywhere further than one inch away from him. And so he puts his little drawstring bag on his back, and he walks in. …. And he looked at me, and I said, ‘Bye, Ryan, have a good day. Stay on green,’” she laughs. On a more serious note, she says, “I still walk beside him. If I'm not walking beside him, I'm still looking out of the corner of my eye, watching him. I don't know if I'll ever let that go.”

One of Ryan’s biggest goals was to return to work at the family business, which he partners in with his uncles, so cognitive exercises to help him prepare for the work and build mental stamina were an integral part of his therapy at Pathways.

Ryan started gradually — working half days when he wasn’t doing therapy — and now he works close to 40 hours a week, sometimes taking a power nap in the middle of the day if he needs it.

“We're in manufacturing, and I do a lot of 3D modeling and project managing. And before my stroke, I was able to do a lot of the manual labor work, fill in, but I just do a lot more computer work now.”

Ryan lived with his parents for close to a year and a half after being discharged from Shepherd. Then he bought a house close to work and to his parents’ home. He and his mom both say that managing the process of selling his old house and buying a new one is a testament to how far he has come in his recovery.

“Really, what affected him most from the stroke, brain-wise, was his processing skills. But he's doing so much better,” Terri says.

Ryan moving into his own place was another moment when Terri felt like she had to let go a bit and let Ryan do things for himself.

“I knew once he got in his own house, I'm going to have to stay away. He's going to have to figure things out and ways to do things differently … But I think he's really enjoying his independence again, of course, and I am too. I feel independent again, too.”

It’s a milestone that Terri admits she had a hard time even imagining in the early days after Ryan’s stroke.

“His speech therapist at Shepherd Center said, the first time she met him, ‘What is your goal? … Is your goal to live independently again?’ And … I'm sitting there looking at him, going, ‘How is this going to happen,’ you know? And now it's happened. So, I'm very grateful.”

At this point in their journey, Terri reflects on the early days and what advice she'd give to others in a similar situation.

“Now that I look back, I feel like it's not that I didn't have hope. I just didn't know how to look past the next 24 hours. But always have hope. There's always hope.”

As for Ryan, he has his eye out for his next 5K — he walked the first one with his mom, but now, Terri’s proud to say, he’s doing it on his own, with friends.

Now that he’s gotten back to work and driving, he’d like to start dating. He says he’s put an emphasis on faith playing a central role in his life, and he’s hopeful for the future.

“I know that word [hope] had a lot of weight in the hospital. It is just the envisioning myself getting back to work, getting back to drive, and being back home, living by myself, and then working on finding a woman to be in a relationship with and build a family.”

Written by Ruth Underwood

April 13, 2026

I’ve never been much for big birthday celebrations. Usually, they feel like arbitrary markers on a timeline I’m too busy living to scrutinize. But as my 38th birthday appears on the horizon, the gravity of 40 has started to pull at me. It’s that age people approach with a specific cocktail of dread and apprehension—the supposed peak of the hill where the climb ends, and the steep, accelerated descent begins.

Most men my age are just now starting to worry about their knees clicking when they stand up or their son finally beating them in a foot race. They are bracing for a midlife transition they feel entirely unequipped for. They look at the coming decade as a loss of agency, a slow-motion surrender of the vitality they took for granted in their twenties. But as I sat with that collective anxiety, I realized something unexpected: I’ve already been there. In fact, I’ve been living in that “next stage” for years.

When I was 30, my stroke thrust the physical and mental reality of aging upon me with absolutely no warning. There was no gradual decline, no slow fading of abilities. It was a pattern interrupt of the highest order. Overnight, the invincible version of myself was retired. Bending down to pick something up was no longer a given; getting back up was a calculated victory. My vision blurred, and for a long time, the simple independence of driving a car was a distant dream. I was a young man trapped in a body that had suddenly skipped multiple decades of wear and tear.

At the time, it felt like my life had been reset, similar to a massive construction project being suddenly demolished just before completion. I watched from the sidelines as my peers were still sprinting uphill, hitting career milestones and physical peaks. Meanwhile, I was forced to restart the foundation from scratch. I had to double down on occupational and physical therapy, treating my recovery like a grueling full-time job. I learned the humbling language of incremental progress—the kind of patience most people don’t have to face until their seventies.

But here is the “uncomfortable truth” I’ve discovered: that trauma gave me an unfair advantage. While others are just now packing their bags for the challenges of getting older, I am already well-equipped and incredibly prepared for that “second first step”. When that first colonoscopy rolls around, that procedure will be child’s play to me, who has had two open heart surgeries and was once a frequent flier around the Atlanta hospital system. I skipped the “uncomfortable part of life” where you slowly realize you aren’t invincible because that realization was forced on me in an instant. I have already mourned the loss of my “peak” self, and in that mourning, I found a much more resilient version of who I am.

By reframing this through a positive lens, I’ve gained a wealth of experience in handling the “tricky situations” that leave other dads reeling. I know what it’s like to lose control and, more importantly, I know how to claw it back. I’ve learned that recovery, like life, isn’t a straight line and there are no autosaves. You have to show up every day with a vulnerable posture, willing to fail in order to thrive eventually. This isn’t just about physical recovery; it’s about the psychological armor you build when you’ve already seen the “worst-case scenario” and realized you’re still standing.

So, when the anxiety of forty hits my friends, I won’t join in their panic. Instead, I’ll be the one waiting for them at the top of the hill, ready to show them the way down. I’ve navigated the fog, I’ve felt the knees click, and I’ve mastered the art of the “second first step.” I’ve been there, done that—just a little earlier than I hoped, and with a lot more wisdom than I would have had otherwise. The descent doesn’t scare me; I’ve been practicing my footing for over seven years.

The "Happiest Place on Earth" Is Actually a Rehab Hospital

March 9, 2026

In the chaotic, terrifying blur right after my stroke, I was a passenger in my own life. Mentally unfit, lucid only in fits and starts, I had no say in the torrent of decisions—hospitals, doctors, insurance, therapists. My recovery plan was being charted by others.

But looking back with the crystal clarity of 20/20 hindsight, I realize how profoundly fortunate I was that the worst day of my life happened just a few miles from a sanctuary:  Shepherd Center.
It’s no wonder people travel from every corner of the Earth, begging for one of the few available spots at this neuro and spinal rehabilitation facility. If you’ve done even surface-level research, you know Shepherd consistently ranks among the global elite.

But what truly inspires this post isn’t just their world-class ranking—it’s the deep debt of gratitude I owe to the people there, and the palpable, unforgettable feeling you get the moment you step inside.

The Most Optimistic Place on Earth

I’m grateful that my daily in-clinic therapy days are mostly behind me; doing rehab at home beats the Atlanta traffic. Yet, at least once a quarter, I still go to the main campus—or “Big Shepherd,” as we call it—for the Botox injections I receive to manage my spasticity and tone.

Every visit is a reminder of the atmosphere that makes this place unique.

You are instantly surrounded by huge, genuine smiles—from the person opening the parking garage gate to the sanitation staff, to the check-in person at the front desk. It honestly feels like the most optimistic place in the world.

Think about that for a moment. Nearly every patient walking those halls with their family is living through and actively overcoming one of life’s biggest, most unimaginable curveballs. They are in the belly of the beast—a hospital—yet the weight of that negativity is utterly absent. Instead, everyone there, patient and staff alike, is actively choosing to uplift and help.

It’s a bizarre comparison, but my interactions with the people there lead me to believe they might truly give Disneyland a run for its money for the title of “Happiest Place on Earth.”

Beyond the Brain Injury

The relationships I built at Shepherd—with doctors, nurses, and therapists—have extended far beyond the realm of my medical care.

From day one, these professionals saw me as a person, not just a guy with a brain injury. That fundamental respect and human connection are not just part of the care plan; they are the center’s soul. It’s the difference between merely recovering and truly beginning a new, post-stroke life. And for that, my debt to Shepherd Center is immeasurable.
 
Written by David Tillem, originally for his Substack, “The Second First Step.”
 

After her stroke, Denell, who lives in Atlanta, had brain surgery at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center in Marietta, Georgia. Then she transferred to Shepherd Center’s inpatient Stroke Rehabilitation Program. In addition to cognitive challenges, she had difficulty swallowing, weakness in her left arm, and had to re-learn how to stand, walk, and dress herself.   

“My left arm was totally contracted and could not move at all. And I remember being in the bed, just staring at my arm like, ‘Come on, come on,’” she says. “I was nervous because there was a big question mark. I didn't really quite understand what happened or what was going on.”

Shepherd staff helped put her at ease, though.

“The environment here at Shepherd was very warm. The first nurse that I met, I'm still in contact with her to this day. Everyone was very compassionate. It's like their heart goes out to you because they know you've been through this devastating, life-altering thing. It's not that they pity you, but they love you.

They didn't just treat me like a person with a brain injury. They treated me like an intelligent person with something to say,” she explains. “I appreciated that because a lot of times with a brain injury, people treat you like you're dumb, and I'm not dumb, and I don't want to be treated that way.”

And that support was important as she came to terms with her injury.

“Recognizing how much things had changed [was challenging]. I thought that if I could work really hard, I could just push past the barrier and, you know, once your brain is damaged, your brain is damaged — there's no pushing past certain things — you could work around things, but … some things are the way they are, and so that was a bit tricky.”

She recalls her first outing — a trip to a Chick-fil-A just down the street from the hospital.

“I remember being extremely emotional because I was deeply insecure about how the stroke had changed me,” she says. “[My recreation therapist] taught me how to cross the street and how to feel confident in my own body as I was out in the community as my new self. And so it was a small outing, but it meant a lot to me.”

In therapy, Denell worked on moving from sitting to standing position, walking, and learning to compensate for her visual-spatial challenges.

After graduating from inpatient rehabilitation, Denell went to Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd’s outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program, to continue therapy.

She says Shepherd prepared her well for life after discharge, giving her the tools she needed for success.

While at Shepherd Pathways, Denell learned about Side by Side Brain Injury Clubhouse, a day program for people who have sustained a brain injury. Her therapists urged her to give it a try.

“I'm so glad they recommended that to me because I find a lot of personal fulfillment at Side by Side,” she says.

Denell visits Side by Side twice a week, where she spends much of her time working in their business unit, which allows her to flex her marketing skills. She has also helped organize group gatherings — getting people together is another passion. And she returns to Shepherd in a peer support role for Side by Side’s game days at the hospital, playing board games with current patients with brain injuries.

“It's really important for me to share my experience with others because I feel like I was able to keep my voice for a reason,” she explains.

She has moved back into the home she lived in before her stroke. Now, her brother’s family lives with her, which means she gets lots of time with her baby nephew.

“He is just a joy. He's a ball of sunshine,” she says.

Denell is hoping to take a trip to Mexico City for her 40^th birthday, a trip she had planned to take when she turned 35.

“My plan was to be in Mexico City with a group of girlfriends and family to celebrate my 35th birthday. And I ended up celebrating that birthday at Shepherd Center, as I'd had my stroke a few weeks prior to my birthday,” she explains. “I was a bit disappointed not to be in Mexico City, but I was happy to be having a birthday. And so, when I turn 40, that will be my redemption trip in Mexico City. And I'll be eating all the delicious elote that my heart could desire.”

Written by Ruth Underwood 

“It’s human nature to tend to ignore what we don’t want to believe, and that is particularly true in younger adults when it comes to health issues,” says Andrew Dennison, M.D., a board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physician and medical director of the Acquired Brain Injury Program at Shepherd Center. “They are often so busy with career and family that they can’t imagine something like a stroke happening to them.”

Knowing the signs and symptoms of stroke, such as those described in the FAST acronym below, and seeking emergency care can minimize brain damage and potentially save the life of the patient. Call 9-1-1 right away if you have these symptoms:

• Face: The smile is not symmetrical, or one side of the face droops.
• Arms: The person cannot raise both arms equally.
• Speech and/or swallow: There may be sudden slurring of speech and inability to talk, and/or there may be difficulty swallowing, like choking or coughing.
• Time: Time lost is brain lost. Think “brain attack” like heart attack.

Common symptoms of stroke include numbness, weakness or tingling in your face, arms or leg, especially on one side of the body; difficulty walking or feeling off balance, unsteady or dizzy; trouble seeing in one or both eyes; confusion and severe headache.

“I strongly encourage everyone to learn the FAST acronym and the signs of stroke, as well as to seek timely medical treatment so they can receive treatment as quickly as possible,” Dr. Dennison says. “This is critical because many of the potentially beneficial interventions must occur within a matter of a few hours to even be considered.”

To learn more about stroke rehabilitation at Shepherd Center, visit shepherd.org/stroke.

“I was afraid,” she recalls. “I prayed a lot.”

Strokes often occur in people who smoke, are overweight and physically inactive. But Bianca, 29, was neither overweight nor a smoker. She ran several times a week, worked out in a gym and was a bit of a daredevil, as well.

“If there was a cliff with water below, I'd jump off it,” she says.

Bianca’s stroke was caused by a tangle of blood vessels in her brain called an arteriovenous malformation, a congenital condition that occurs in less than 1 percent of the general population.

“I went from working earlier in the day it happened to having my left side paralyzed the next day,” she says. “I was drooling, I couldn’t eat or swallow and I couldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. It was incredibly frustrating.”

Two weeks after her stroke, Bianca was admitted to Shepherd Center's Stroke Rehabilitation Program.

“I had heard of Shepherd, and my boss and my mother both told me it was the best place for rehabilitation,” she says. “I was hoping they could teach me to be my regular self again because my injury wasn’t a typical stroke. It was more like a brain injury.”

On her second day as an inpatient at Shepherd Center, a young man came to visit her.

“He'd been treated for a spinal cord injury and he told us about his experience,” says Ava Cooper, Bianca’s mother. “He looked perfectly normal, and it gave me hope. I thought, ‘Wow, if they did that for him, that gives me hope for Bianca.’ It was a wonderful experience.”

Bianca’s therapists tested her to determine her limitations and then encouraged her to push against them.

“Shepherd was wonderful,” Ava says. “They approached Bianca’s care from so many angles and started to stimulate her and get her mobile. They challenged her, and that’s her personality. She thrived on it.”

Bianca agrees with her mother. “Shepherd Center was great,” she says. “I wouldn't have picked any other place to go. The therapists were knowledgeable, and I had hours upon hours of therapy. That played a huge role in my recovery.”

Because of her medical background, Bianca was also able to make suggestions of her own, and in one case, diagnosed her own urinary tract infection.

“She knew so much that she always wanted to get up and go,” says Jasmin Brumby, Bianca’s occupational therapist. “At times, we kind of had to pull her back a little. But she was very sweet and very energetic despite what she was going through. And she always said hello to everyone.”

“The therapists were really cool,” Bianca says. “We were all about the same age, and we had similar interests. They were really helpful and encouraging, telling me I was going to get better. When you have someone around your age, you can empathize, and they were like friends. When they were on vacation over the Christmas holidays, I really missed having them tell me how I was doing.”

Bianca spent three weeks at Shepherd Center as an inpatient and three months as an outpatient at Shepherd Pathways, Shepherd Center’s outpatient post-acute brain rehabilitation program in Decatur, Ga. She declined to have surgery to repair the malformation in her brain, opting instead for radiation treatments.

Her father died from complications after surgery two weeks before Bianca’s stroke, and she says: “I was a little anxious about an operation. I wanted to get back to my life. And because I improved so quickly, the therapists recommended that I do more therapy at Pathways. I agreed with them about the therapy, but I decided to do it on my own.”

She went back to work in April 2014, and by fall, she was running four or five miles a few times a week. She also resumed working out in the gym, although she eliminated high-effort exercises. Because traveling abroad is another of her passions, Bianca wants to be sure that her condition has stabilized before going on another trip.

“I still have blood on the brain that hasn’t dissolved, and my left hand is still a little swollen and I don’t have all the sensation back in my left leg,” she says. “I get tired more easily, and it takes me longer to get dressed, but my deficits are minor compared to what they were. I’m still trying to push my body to see where it will take me.”

Bianca’s friends tell her she has slowed down since her stroke, and she says that’s a good thing.

“I’m not who I once was,” she says. “Before, I was all over the place. I have a completely different perspective now. I'm much more empathetic in my job because I’ve seen how life can change in a matter of seconds. This slowed me down and taught me to enjoy life and not take so many chances.”

For more information on stroke rehabilitation at Shepherd Center, click here.

Written by John Christensen
Photos by Phil Skinner