Understanding Thalamic Ischemic Stroke and the Link to PFO: What Stroke Survivors Need to Know
When we think about stroke, many of us imagine the classic signs — facial droop, arm weakness, slurred speech. But what happens when a stroke strikes deep in the brain, with no clear warning signs? And what if the cause isn’t in the brain at all, but in the heart?
In this post, we’ll explore the connection between thalamic ischemic stroke and PFO (Patent Foramen Ovale), a heart condition that can quietly go undetected until something major, like a stroke, occurs. If you’re a stroke survivor seeking clarity or a caregiver trying to understand the medical puzzle, this guide is for you.
🧠 What Is a Thalamic Ischemic Stroke?
A thalamic ischemic stroke happens when blood flow to the thalamus, a small but critical structure in the center of the brain, is blocked by a clot.
The thalamus acts like a relay station, processing and transmitting information between different areas of the brain and body. It plays a vital role in:
- Consciousness
- Sensory perception
- Sleep regulation
- Motor control
- Emotional processing
Damage to the thalamus can affect everything from sensation and balance to memory, alertness, and even emotional stability. Symptoms vary depending on the affected region, but may include:
- Confusion or sudden unconsciousness
- Numbness or tingling
- Fatigue
- Difficulty with coordination
- Changes in speech or language
- Visual disturbances
Because it doesn’t always show up with the classic FAST signs, a thalamic stroke is more prone to misdiagnosis or delayed detection, especially in younger individuals.
❤️ What Is a PFO and How Can It Cause Stroke?
A Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) is a small flap-like hole between the left and right upper chambers of the heart. It’s part of fetal circulation and is supposed to close after birth. However, in about 25% of adults, it remains open, usually without causing any symptoms.
So why does it matter?
In rare cases, a PFO allows a blood clot to bypass the lungs (where it would normally be filtered out) and travel directly to the brain. This can result in a cryptogenic stroke, a stroke with no obvious cause.
🧩 The Link Between PFO and Thalamic Ischemic Stroke
When a stroke occurs deep in the brain and the usual risk factors (like high blood pressure or atherosclerosis) don’t apply, especially in younger stroke survivors, doctors may start investigating heart-related causes. A PFO is one such possibility.
Here’s how it might connect:
- A small clot forms in the body, often in the veins.
- Instead of being filtered out by the lungs, it passes through the PFO into the arterial system.
- The clot travels to the brain and blocks blood flow, possibly to the thalamus, causing an ischemic stroke.
This pathway is called a paradoxical embolism, and it’s increasingly recognized as a contributor to stroke in people under 55, particularly those without traditional risk factors.
🩺 Diagnosing and Treating PFO-Related Stroke
If you’ve experienced an ischemic stroke, especially at a young age and without clear risk factors, your medical team may recommend a test like a bubble echocardiogram to check for a PFO.
If a PFO is found, treatment options include:
- Antiplatelet or anticoagulant medication (like aspirin or blood thinners)
- PFO closure, a minimally invasive heart procedure that uses a catheter to implant a small device that seals the hole
While not all PFOs require closure, in cases where it’s likely the cause of stroke, closing the PFO can significantly reduce the risk of recurrence.
🧭 Moving Forward After Stroke
Whether your stroke was linked to a PFO or not, the emotional journey after a stroke is just as significant as the physical recovery. Many survivors of thalamic ischemic stroke — even those with no visible impairments — report:
- Fatigue
- Cognitive fog
- Emotional overwhelm
- Survivor’s guilt
These are real and valid experiences. Healing from stroke isn’t linear — it’s a process that involves community, compassion, and ongoing learning.
💬 You’re Not Alone
If you’re navigating life after stroke, know this: your story matters, and your recovery is worth fighting for — no matter how “invisible” your symptoms may feel. Many survivors live with unseen challenges that are just as impactful as physical deficits.
Explore more stories of stroke recovery on the Recovery After Stroke podcast, or grab my book The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened at recoveryafterstroke.com/book for tools, hope, and community support.
And if you suspect your stroke may have been caused by a PFO or are still searching for answers, speak to your doctor and ask about further testing. The more we understand the root causes, the better we can recover and prevent another.
From Collapse to Clarity: Life After a Thalamic Ischemic Stroke
Her stroke was missed for 12 days. Fatty, guilt, advocacy, and a powerful return to purpose followed. A must-hear for stroke survivors.
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Highlights:
00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgements
03:07 Lisa’s Stroke Experience
05:43 Diagnosis and Initial Reactions
21:33 Discovering the PFO
29:14 Joining the Stroke Foundation Board
35:19 Survivor’s Guilt and Stroke Recovery: Lisa’s Honest Reflection
43:25 Accepting the New Normal
54:51 The Hardest Thing About The Stroke
55:47 The Lessons From The Stroke
1:04:00 Advice to Other Stroke Survivors
Transcript:
Introduction and Acknowledgements
Bill Gasiamis 0:00
Welcome everyone before we dive into today’s powerful conversation, I just wanted to thank you for being a part of this incredible community. Your support, whether it’s sharing the podcast, leaving a review or simply tuning in each week, makes a massive difference.
Bill Gasiamis 0:15
Together, we’re creating a space where stroke survivors, caregivers and allies can feel seen, heard and supported, as you may have heard in recent episodes, since 2015 I’ve been personally covering all the costs of producing the recovery aftershock podcast to make sure these conversations remain free for those who need them, late last year, I opened up the opportunity for those who found value in the podcast to support it on Patreon.
Bill Gasiamis 0:43
You can learn more by going to patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who’s already supported the podcast, and a special shout out to my most recent supporters, David and Luke, your generosity helps make this work possible, and if supporting financially isn’t something you can do right now, just listening to the podcast and not skipping the ads goes a long way.
Bill Gasiamis 1:11
Every little bit of engagement helps keep this going, and I’m incredibly grateful. Before we begin, a quick reminder about my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened. It has helped hundreds of survivors and their families around the world find meaning and hope after stroke, you can grab your copy at recoveryafterstroke.com/book, or on Amazon by searching my name Bill Gasiamis.
Bill Gasiamis 1:37
Now I’m really excited to introduce today’s guest, Lisa cook. Lisa experienced a thalamic ischemic stroke at just 30 while attending a work conference interstate. Despite collapsing and losing consciousness, her stroke went undiagnosed for 12 days, initially mistaken for a seizure. It wasn’t until a follow up MRI back home in Adelaide that the truth came to light. In this episode, Lisa shares what it was like to have a stroke with no classic symptoms, how it led to the discovery of a hole in her heart and the emotional impact of surviving when others don’t.
Bill Gasiamis 2:16
Including survivor’s guilt, extreme fatigue and the invisible symptoms that still linger. She also talks about how this experience eventually led her to the board of the Stroke Foundation, bringing her governance expertise and lived experience to improve stroke advocacy and support. Lisa’s story is a profound example of post stroke purpose and resilience. Let’s jump in. Lisa Cook, welcome to the podcast.
Lisa Cook 2:44
Thank you so much, Phil. I’m really excited to be here.
Bill Gasiamis 2:48
Same here I was. It was really lovely to meet you at the Stroke Foundation event that we were both at a few weeks ago. One of the things that I have done recently is re engage with the Australian Stroke Foundation, with the Australian stroke survivors.
Lisa’s Thalamic Ischemic Stroke Experience
Bill Gasiamis 3:07
It’s not that I was disengaged, but it’s that with the podcast, things have taken off, and my biggest audience is in the United States, which is nothing I expected. So it’s really good to meet people locally, and when, when I met you, I thought, well, this is a story I need to learn about. So can you start by telling us a little bit about what happened to you?
Lisa Cook 3:35
So we’ll go back to 2015 so it’s coming up to a 10-year anniversary having my stroke, and it was really a day like mainly any other day. But that night I was I was actually in Sydney, so I live in Adelaide, but was up in Sydney attending a conference and attending a big, sort of gala dinner that was on for that conference that night. It was fine, things normal, you know, didn’t drink much, didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.
Lisa Cook 4:15
By the time we got back to the hotel room, I started to feel really dizzy, which for me, is actually not that out of the ordinary to have that happen. So normally I just lay down, and it kind of passes, and everything’s fine, but this time when I laid down, I proceeded to fall unconscious, and was then unconscious probably for about an hour or so so, passed out in the hotel room, woke up in St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, not knowing, obviously, what had happened.
Bill Gasiamis 4:56
How were you found?
Lisa Cook 4:58
Well, my husband was with me. Me. So he was the one that had to experience all of that really, you know, fear for the worst. He was trying to get me to wake up, and I wasn’t. So that’s never a good feeling. And he was the one who called triple zero for the ambulance to come, but couldn’t quite work it out, so ended up getting the hotel security and a whole bunch of people in the room, apparently, trying to help out and and sort of fix me up, get me well, or get me somewhere where I could get better.
Bill Gasiamis 5:38
What type of stroke did you have? And do they know what the underlying cause was?
Thalamic Ischemic Stroke Diagnosis and Initial Reactions
Lisa Cook 5:43
Yeah. So I had a clot in my Thalamus, so I believe is that an ischemic stroke, yeah, in my Thalamus, which is a part that’s right in the middle of your brain. And unsurprisingly, because of the symptoms I had, it’s the part that controls consciousness and things like that. So that was the part of the brain where it happened, the underlying cause. So as many of your listeners might be aware, if they themselves are young and have had a stroke, which is crazy in itself, because I always thought of strokes as like an old person thing, right?
Lisa Cook 6:32
Like a lot of us probably did, and then we get thrust into this world where it’s like no actually, anyone at any age can have a stroke, and a lot of people that I talked to had the same underlying issue as I did, and that was a PFO so patent foramen ovale, which is a hole in your heart that serves a really great purpose when you’re in utero.
Lisa Cook 6:59
But once you’re born, should really close over and not cause any issues. But mine had not. Many others I’ve spoken to have had the same scenario where really the first sign that you get that you have this heart problem, a congenital heart defect, is that you have something major, like a stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 7:20
Yeah. So then you’re in hospital, you discover that you had a stroke. Somehow, they worked it out, I imagine, relatively quickly.
Lisa Cook 7:32
No.
Bill Gasiamis 7:33
Oh, no. What happened?
Lisa Cook 7:34
They didn’t. Because my symptoms, what I presented with, were not our classic fast signs or FAS signs. They sort of, I guess, take the sort of, what is the most obvious answer that could be happening here? And of course, they do a CT scan to check if there’s anything major going on in your brain that early after having a stroke, doesn’t actually show up on a CT scan. So that was next to useless, really.
Lisa Cook 8:10
And it could be because it was the middle of the night. It’s kind of around 1130 12 at night. There probably wasn’t an MRI technician available, so they didn’t opt to do an MRI, and they’re a little bit more expensive than your CT scan. So there could be a bunch of trade offs that are happening there that you know could have really expedited the diagnosis here. But they also, when I was in the hospital, undertook some epilepsy tests.
Lisa Cook 8:39
So I was actually those epilepsy tests, you know, didn’t cause me to have an epileptic fit, because that wasn’t the problem, but they did discharge me with a potential first seizure as being the most likely reason why I passed out and was unconscious for an hour. It wasn’t until 12 days later, when I was back in Adelaide and had an MRI because my discharge was under the proviso that I go back home and I go and see my GP and I get an MRI. So I had the MRI, and it was that MRI that showed up that I had had a stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 9:19
Wow. How old were you?
Lisa Cook 9:22
I was 30 at the time.
Bill Gasiamis 9:27
And in the 12 days after you were discharged, did you have any other moments, any other scares, anything else that happened to you that made you feel like something’s still not right. How did it go?
Lisa Cook 9:45
The fatigue, the tiredness, was just off the charts.
Bill Gasiamis 9:51
Lisa’s story is such a striking reminder that stroke doesn’t always look like we expect, and that healing takes time, patience and. Often reinvention. Let’s pause for a moment, and if you’re finding value in stories like this, here’s how you can help keep them going. Stories like leases are exactly why I created the podcast to shed light on real experiences and help stroke survivors feel less alone on the road to recovery.
Bill Gasiamis 10:18
If this conversation resonates with you, please consider supporting the podcast through Patreon, at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke, Your support helps me continue bring lived experience to light and make a big difference. Now let’s get back to Lisa as she shares more about overcoming survivors guilt, navigating life after misdiagnosis and finding purpose through service. On the Stroke Foundation Board.
Lisa Cook 10:45
I would sleep really long nights, like 9,10, plus hour sleeps, then get up the next day and kind of only really be able to last until lunchtime, and then I kind of fell off a cliff. And the weird thing was, like, the fatigue is one thing. The other thing that was really out of character for me is that I just didn’t care.
Lisa Cook 11:14
I didn’t care that I was that tired, that unmotivated, that literally, all I wanted to do was stare at a wall. And that was just, that’s just not my character. I mean, Bill, you’ve kind of seen me in person. I’m a little bit more energized now. It’s been 10 years, but I still, I still get to that lunch time period each day, and after lunch really have this dip down. It’s, it’s sort of like my capacity for mental work really is only kind of half there. It feels.
Bill Gasiamis 11:56
So they’ve discovered that you’ve had a stroke, how does that news go down? That would have been an interesting thing to deliver to you and your husband after 12 days?
Lisa Cook 12:12
Yeah, I’ll tell you how it all unraveled, because it was, it’s a weird story, and it’s always funny in hindsight, right? I’m glad that we’re here, that we can look back and laugh on some of these things. So I by this stage, when I had gotten to the point where I was having the MRI on the day my husband had gone back to Sydney for work, so I was staying with a friend, because my darling friend did not want me to be alone, given what had happened, and given that we were still so uncertain of of what’s going on here.
Lisa Cook 12:47
And so she was out and about doing something I had Ubered or caught a taxi to the radiology place, had my scan. No big deal. Got back to my friend’s house as I was walking in the door, I get a phone call from the radiology clinic, and they said, We need you to come back. We forgot to scan some parts. And I was like, this is not just a place that like opened up yesterday.
Lisa Cook 13:20
You know, this is a reputable brand. I was like, That’s so weird. What a pain in the butt. Okay, fine. I’m coming back because we need answers. So I went back in the MRI again. Anyone who’s had an MRI, you know, they’re just not, you know, those headphones they give you, where they play you whatever radio station you want, then you can’t hear it anyway.
Bill Gasiamis 13:43
What’s the point of that one MRI is too many, let me tell you.
Lisa Cook 13:48
So as I’m getting out of that second MRI like, getting off the bed, stepping off the bed, holding my gown to, you know, save your dignity as much as you can. The the the person who like shuttles you between the waiting room and the change room and the machine, and then they take you back to the change room and stuff. She came up to me and said, We’ve booked you in to see your doctor at five o’clock this afternoon. They were the exact words out of her mouth. And what do you think I thought when she said that I’m dying.
Bill Gasiamis 14:26
I thought I would have thought the world’s coming to an end.
Lisa Cook 14:29
Yeah, I’m dying. I have a brain tumor. I’ve got three months to live. I’m dying. I’m dead, yeah. And so I said, Why? Why have you booked this appointment? We can’t tell you, and yes, they’re very reticent, but I think she would have acknowledged the fact that she just dropped that on me without any real kind of closing that loop, and rather than let someone live in agony for half a day, she was like, Well, I. The radiologist thinks that they found evidence that you had a stroke.
Lisa Cook 15:06
And I tell you what, I was not expecting that I was not expecting that at all, because to look at me, you can’t tell that something has happened like that. I’m one of the very lucky ones who managed to, somehow, by some sort of grace of some sort of higher power, whatever it was to, to not have any outward signs that I’ve had, you know, brain damage. So I was like, in my head, going through all these things. I’m not old. I’m not disabled. What does this all mean?
Lisa Cook 15:42
I what I do know of things like this is that once the damage is done, the damage is done, it’s not like, it’s going to get worse and because it’s been 12 days, but really let it go, kind of thing. And I was just like, really? And she just said, Do you want to go talk to the radiologist? And I was like, Yeah, so the radiologist, he’s showing me the images of my brain on the screen, on a computer screen, and he’s and he’s Man, these bedside manners of these people sometimes really does make me just get big question marks.
Lisa Cook 16:19
He goes, Yeah, I found this. What you can see this bright white spot on your brain. Some people would think that’s a tumor, but I’m pretty sure that what you’ve had is a stroke, and you probably had it about 12 to 14 days ago. And I’m like, Really, my choice is between a stroke or a tumor, like, what? What is it? Tell me for sure, so I know what’s going on anyway. And I when he said the 12 to 14 days, I was like, Well, today is like 12 days.
Lisa Cook 16:48
How do you know what sort of time period? And he explained that the brightness of the the sort of white patch that you see where there’s been that brain damage is quite bright, the sort of fresher that it is. So he said, so this and this and this, pointed it out. I was like, Okay, this is a lot. And then he goes, by the way, I found something on your cerebellum. I think you’ve had an earlier stroke, but it would have been so small that you probably didn’t even realize it happened.
Lisa Cook 17:27
So I’ve just found out I’ve had two strokes. I just lose my marbles, right? Just bawling my eyes out because I’m just so confused. I’m like this. What does this mean? This doesn’t make sense. I’m I look fine. Yes, I’m really tired, but, but what does this all mean? Like, it was just so overwhelming to get that news, I think, in that fashion and sort of all at once.
Bill Gasiamis 18:00
And did you connect the dots when you said to me that dizziness or not feeling right in your head was common for you, you go, you lie down, and it gets better. Did you connect the cerebellum one with the dizziness later?
Lisa Cook 18:16
No, I, I honestly cannot think of when that might have happened. He, he the radiologist said you might have, like, accidentally bumped into a wall, or, like, dropped something you were holding and, you know, we do that kind of stuff all the time, and just go, what is going on with me?
Lisa Cook 18:37
And, yeah, after you’ve had a stroke, you kind of start to get paranoid with all those little things, but no, I also used to get migraines, and I’ve heard that migraines are associated with PFOs, and if you have your PFO closed, that for some people, it helps alleviate their migraines. There really is nothing that I can connect it with my my dizziness is more associated with my low blood pressure than anything else.
Bill Gasiamis 19:06
Okay, or it could be both. Wow. Anyhow, so you know that the way that they dropped the news to you when I went in to hospital for the first bleed that I had in my head, I was there again at around about 11:30 pm before somebody come to see me and say, we found a shadow on your brain. Oh, my God. And I was like, Okay, wow. What? What does that mean? And then this, I kid you not, these are the words, it could be a tumor. It might be malignant or it might be benign.
Lisa Cook 19:44
Great.
Bill Gasiamis 19:47
The next question was, Do you have any questions?
Speaker 1 19:53
No, that was a very informative description of what’s going on here.
Bill Gasiamis 19:58
I’m like, I. Okay? And he said, but you’ll see somebody tomorrow about it. I’ll take you through and they’ll explain the details. So with that news, I had to update my wife. She was at home with the kids back then, Feb 2012 that was and then I had to ring her, and I’m like, so what do I tell her now and then? What I thought was okay, I’m gonna play the incompetence card. I’m here. They’ve done nothing. They’re taking the time. They can’t get a doctor. There’s no news.
Bill Gasiamis 20:29
Go to sleep, put the kids to sleep, and come and see me in the morning. That’s how I wow, tried to get through the night.And I was like, I can know what was really weird for privacy. He pulled the curtains. Next behind the millimeter-thick curtain is another patient over there. There’s another patient over there, and it’s like, Why do you even bother pulling the curtains? I don’t understand. They’re not going to stop anybody from hearing what’s going on.
Bill Gasiamis 21:01
And I just found that whole experience real bizarre. Anyhow, the next day, I broke it to my wife, and I was 37 so we’re in the same situation as you was like, What is going on? How do we deal with this? How do we move forward now? Okay, so now you know, and then you go for a drive. I imagine you somehow get to your GP, yes, you have a further conversation with him about or her what the situation is, what’s going on.
Discovering the PFO
Lisa Cook 21:33
Yeah. And my I have a really interesting, like, medical past, and weird stuff always happens to me, so my doctors kind of, I think she’s used to me by now, or wasn’t the time, and she was like, Ah, so that’s interesting again. I think I cried to have done a lot of crying. I cried to her. I’m like, I don’t know what this means. It’s just, like, just really full on.
Lisa Cook 22:01
And she explained, well, because you’re young, you’re a young person who’s had a stroke, we need to explore the two lines of possibilities. Well, the most obvious possibilities of why you’ve had this stroke. So the first one is the PFO, the heart thing. So you do that, you go down the cardiologist route with that one, and the other one is an autoimmune thing. So having a stroke is a sign of lupus, or one of the symptoms of lupus.
Lisa Cook 22:33
And so you go for a bunch of, like, 1000s of blood tests around your autoimmune stuff. And yeah, you just, you end up seeing neurologists, cardiologists, rheumatoid what are they called? Rheumatologists, all the ologists end up like talking to you and poking you and prodding you and trying to figure things out.
Lisa Cook 23:00
And yeah, so it turned out that I had the PFO the autoimmune stuff was kind of borderline, but there was nothing that was really definitively calling lupus or anything. So we kind of just closed that avenue of of exploration down. And yeah, went down the heart route. And it was quite, quite my cardiologist described the PFO as quite flappy. I love it. Yes, whatever that means.
Bill Gasiamis 23:33
That’s cool. So not only are you diagnosed with having had potentially two strokes, yeah, a little while later, you’re told that you have a hole in your heart, yeah. And then that most likely was what the cause of the blood clot was that traveled up into your brain, yeah? And now are they talking about closing the hole and having heart surgery? Yeah?
Lisa Cook 23:59
So that sounds more dramatic than what it turns out to be in reality, because, surprise, surprise, a lot of people have a PFO, and they’ve developed a technique and a do you call it a device, that they put in hearts for this reason. So they go in through your femoral artery and they feed up this little device that they then implant into the heart over that spot that should be shut, but there’s a flapping spot they shut the flap down.
Lisa Cook 24:43
So yeah, if they’re going in to give you heart surgery anyway, like crack open your chest kind of thing, they’ll go and fix it at the same time. But if there’s really no reason to open you up so dramatically, they’ll do it through that artery. Okay, and so that was, I said, I have weird medical stuff.
Lisa Cook 25:04
I ended up having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic they put me on before surgery, and that just then they gave me for nurgan to counteract the allergic reaction, which made me feel like I was having a stroke again, because I couldn’t talk when they gave it to me. I just couldn’t find words, and it just was such a weird experience. And, yeah, that was just weird. The whole thing was weird. Wow.
Bill Gasiamis 25:30
So they’ve gone in, and they’ve minimally invasively attended to the hole in the heart that’s been closed over, so to speak. And now, at least from a hole in the heart perspective, you’re out of the risk of having another stroke with regards to the clot, right? So everything’s kind of settled, and you’re cool.
Lisa Cook 25:54
Yeah, the procedure wasn’t 100% successful, so there is a bit of a residual leak, which is annoying. I take aspirin every day for that. I mean, it’s at the in the grand scheme of things, I’m pretty scope free. Yeah, so it’s, it’s more, it’s, it’s no big deal, really. But yeah, it doesn’t mean that I can then go and, like, eat whatever I want and not exercise and, you know, go crazy.
Bill Gasiamis 26:27
You gotta remain healthy.
Lisa Cook 26:28
Absolutely for so many other reasons, other than as well reducing your stroke risk.
Bill Gasiamis 26:35
Just for general good quality of life, but also because you’ve had a stroke and you are a higher risk. So why? Why go against the grain and do the things that are going to make it potentially worse for you? That was my biggest fear, was that I do something that puts me in a situation where I cause another one, yeah, and I don’t want to. I can’t deal with that kind of what, what’s the word like?
Bill Gasiamis 27:00
I probably could, if it happened, if I was that stupid and did it like I could probably accept my responsibility at that stage, but I wanted to avoid that completely and not be that guy. So I’ve gone out of my way to not smoke, not drink, you know, not eat this, not eat that, the whole box and dice so I hear you and so you had fatigue. Yeah, they’ll leave you with any other deficits that you’re dealing with still, or what was that situation like?
Lisa Cook 27:34
I can’t like I don’t want to say I do. But over the years, I have realized that I have two things that I don’t think were there before the stroke. And one is like in the categorization of aphasia, and it’s clear that I don’t have what most people would associate with aphasia. I have a very, very, very, very, very, very mild form of it, where sometimes the word that I want to say doesn’t come out in the way I want to say it.
Lisa Cook 28:12
And when I’m typing, when I’m doing work things, I jumble up letters. Oh, I do that so much, it’s such a pain in the bum, and it gets worse the more tired I am, and it gets worse when I’m overstimulated. So I find that there are some environments, not all the time, but many times that have become, like, too overwhelming to stay in.
Lisa Cook 28:47
Like, if you’re at a concert, or you’re at a busy football game, and like, you’re on the train and you’re like, shoulder to shoulder with everyone trying to go home, or you’re at the markets and it’s really busy and there’s like a band playing, and there’s people there, and someone yelling out names for the orders, and it’s like all that kind of stuff just becomes a little bit too much to kind of your brain to sort of filter through.
Joining the Stroke Foundation Board
Lisa Cook 29:14
And yeah, just so it decides to prioritize that rather than allowing me to speak properly?
Bill Gasiamis 29:22
Absolutely. I know that feeling. I know a lot of stroke survivors know that feeling as well. So it’s really interesting, like your path from 30 now approaching 40, if you haven’t hit the 40 mark yet, and then the role that you decided to take to I suppose you should describe that, right? So we met at a Stroke Foundation event. You are on the board of the Stroke Foundation. What’s behind the thinking of that? Why did you end up on the board?
Bill Gasiamis 29:59
I know you have got some work that you do helping people apply to be on boards, actually, first me first, tell me a little bit about the work that you do, just so we can understand the background, and then what, what was behind the idea to actually join that board, if not you’re, if you’re not involved in other boards, and even if you are, why that one like, what’s the, what’s the long term vision?
Lisa Cook 30:24
Yeah, yeah, I’ll talk through that. So I’ve sat on boards now for about 1516, years, and boards, serving on boards, was always my sort of longer term. We’ll call it career ambition. Let’s say I when I started to get into boards and into governance, I realized that there was sort of a gap to help people who were at that very first starting point on their board journey, so they may be joining the board of the local sport club or a small not for profit, or something like that.
Lisa Cook 30:59
Really how I started my board career, to really get into the boardroom and then to understand what to do once they’re there. So I have a business that works in that space, so I teach boards and board members what they’re meant to be doing and how to do that better. So I do have quite an extensive governance background and experience very soon. So let’s just park that to the side, because I’m sure your listeners do not want to go down that rabbit hole.
Lisa Cook 31:34
And fast forward to when I had my stroke. Like many of us, I wanted to just go back to normal, whatever that I just wanted to not be like I am now, and I just wanted to go back to normal. So probably no, I think I might give a bit more context. So when you have a stroke and you virtually have quote, unquote, nothing wrong with you. You get a really nice dose of survivor’s guilt.
Lisa Cook 32:05
And then once you start getting into the stroke landscape, you realize that there is no age group, there is no demographic that is untouched by stroke, right? It’s not just an old people thing. Babies can have it, and anyone in between those age groups.
Lisa Cook 32:32
So probably about so that realization, understanding it more, giving my given my governance background and experience, probably three years after my stroke, when I finally came to terms with it, and was like, Okay, this is a stroke I needed to have, because it identified that heart problem, and so now what are you going to do about it? Lisa? So I thought, well, I have a voice where others don’t.
Lisa Cook 32:58
I have a skill set and an expertise where some others don’t. And you know, you talk about my nail is, you know, business, the hammer is governance. And I thought, well, boards is how I do things. That’s my wheelhouse. That’s my interest. That’s my zone of genius, if I want to say that. So I thought, why not serve on the Stroke Foundation Board, or any sort of like stroke organization?
Lisa Cook 33:29
Obviously, the Stroke Foundation was there for me very soon after I had my stroke, just to hear from the community. Because you do feel when you’re thrust into this landscape. You think I’m young, I’m the only person who’s had this thing happen to me. You kind of feel a bit alone, and the Stroke Foundation really helped me to understand that I wasn’t alone.
Lisa Cook 33:52
And there’s a lot of people out there who have gone through what I’ve gone through, or have certainly had someone close to them go through something similar, and to help you sort of come to terms with everything, because it it is a lot to to come to terms with and accept. And so exploring how I can get myself involved with the Stroke Foundation.
Lisa Cook 34:15
And I was doing things like fundraising on my birthday, fundraising on my stroke anniversary, doing certain things like that, tangentially, reaching out to people. What else can I do? Sort of thing. Eventually it came about that there was a board position that was open that really did align with that governance experience that I have, that I’d had sort of through my board career. So it seemed like a natural moment, a natural opportunity, and so I put myself forward.
Lisa Cook 34:53
I definitely went through all of the process that any other person who was going for the opportunity. Be went through. And I do believe that having that lived experience on top of what I could bring to that board, being that governance experience really was seen to be a value to the Stroke Foundation.
Survivor’s Guilt and Thalamic Ischemic Stroke Recovery
Bill Gasiamis 35:19
The movement towards a lived experience of late, which is of late, probably the last two or three years from the Stroke Foundation has been amazing, because the amount of lived experience people who are being what’s the word being accessed by researchers, the Stroke Foundation, etc, to help make better programs, better research projects, etc, is phenomenal. It’s fantastic.
Bill Gasiamis 35:54
And now that there’s somebody who had a stroke on the board, like, Yeah, hello. Like, such an obvious thing, isn’t it like that a stroke survivor would be on the board of the Stroke Foundation, but I understand why that might not have been the case up until now, for example, or until you joined. But I want to go back a little bit for a sec where you spoke about your survivor’s guilt. So What’s all that about? Like, why did you feel guilty for surviving a stroke?
Lisa Cook 36:26
Yeah. Well, you hear about, you know, we hear a lot about the high profile people the the most recent one that comes to mind is Jessica Watson, who was that young lady who sailed around the world when she was 16 or so that her partner in the last handful of years had a stroke and passed away from it. So you look at two extremes. You could be someone like me, where you kind of people look at you and they say, Well, you don’t look like you’ve had astroke, which is true, and I don’t find that offensive, because I don’t look like someone who’s had a stroke.
Lisa Cook 37:05
But then you have the other extreme, where people are dying, if this does kill people, and there’s a broad, vast range of spectrum in there, from being sort of, quote unquote totally fine, and quote unquote normal to dead, and a lot of people have a lot of disabilities and chronic issues that come from experiencing a stroke. Why did I not get that? And why did that next person get that and why did that person die?
Lisa Cook 37:44
And why did that baby lose half their head like you just can’t get into it, because you’ll fall into an existential crisis. But it’s, it’s real, and I, I would feel, and probably guess, that there’s a lot of stroke survivors out there probably even ones who have disabilities and impairments from their stroke that have a degree of survivor’s guilt.
Bill Gasiamis 38:11
I agree, because I’ve interviewed a ton of them, and I’m one of them, and it was an existential crisis, and it was like, Well, how do I go about life now? And am I just gonna treat this like a stubbed toe and move on? Yeah, or what? Because I nearly died two times.
Bill Gasiamis 38:37
Well, maybe the second time really came close to if I wasn’t at hospital, probably death properly, because I blanked out when I got to emergency, and I don’t recall what happened after I announced myself and said My name’s Bill, and that’s pretty much all I remember. And then I wake up in a bed all connected and all that stuff, right?
Bill Gasiamis 39:05
And then the third time, I had brain surgery, which could cause all sorts of dramas for people. And it’s like, okay, well, I can’t possibly treat this like a stub toe. It’s far more serious than that, and it was the first thing that taught you about your mortality.
Lisa Cook 39:27
It makes you realize how thin that veil between life and death really is, and that’s so confronting. And how, how lucky, how luck plays in it as well. My mom likes to bless her, I’m sure it’s a survival mechanism. Likes to think that because I was healthy and exercising before my stroke, that that’s what meant that I didn’t get any impairments. And I have to keep telling her, no, it’s actually just luck, where. That clock decided to travel to where it landed, what it did.
Bill Gasiamis 40:04
Luck, random, explainable luck.
Lisa Cook 40:10
It’s crazy and it’s not. And then you go down the avenue of well, that that’s not fair, that’s not right. And I have to keep reminding people, this stuff isn’t about fairness. This stuff isn’t about what’s right. That’s just not how this stuff works. It’s not how it works, and that’s hard for us to take because we like to feel that we control our environment and the outcomes that we get, to a degree, especially me.
Bill Gasiamis 40:42
Bit of a control freak. Is that? Was that a type A personality?
Lisa Cook 40:46
Yeah, fair enough.
Bill Gasiamis 40:48
I had the existential crisis, and then it was about, well, you’ve learned a little bit on this journey. You gotta do something about it. You know, your there’s no point bitching and moaning about all the deficits that you live with, numbness, fatigue, a little bit of spasticity, muscle tightness, some dizziness, every once in a while, migraines. Now there’s no point whinging about it you’re you feel alone, so just go find people you need to learn more.
Bill Gasiamis 41:23
So why don’t you go and reach out to as many people as you can? Hence, the podcast, the book, the whole box and dice, everything that became the recovery after stroke community, the YouTube channel, etc. And that brought a lot of purpose and meaning. That’s kind of what came from it, purpose and meaning that I didn’t have, which I added to my already purposeful and meaningful life of being a dad and a husband.
Bill Gasiamis 41:53
That was a very shallow version of what purpose and meaning is not that it’s not a cool cause, it’s an amazing cause, but it’s a very narrow cause, like, it’s a small niche in what purpose and meaning could be about, right? And then it was also about, well, I can sit a really good example here to my loved ones, family, friends, whoever, about how you tackle a massive existential crisis.
Bill Gasiamis 42:17
You know what you do and how you make the most of the second chances that you’ve been given, or the opportunities you’ve been given that you didn’t know could be taken away from you, right? And I feel like that’s also what you’re doing by attending to to in your way, make somehow a difference in the community that you were selected to be a part of by randomness that you didn’t really choose to be a part of.
Lisa Cook 42:53
Yeah, that’s a lot of what it is there’s there comes a point. And I feel like this is a lot of people you talked about how the foundation really taps into the lived experience and those amazing people that step forward because it is hard, and it is hard if you’re constantly the one being drawn on for that lived experience to really represent, represent such a broad array of of people and experiences and outcomes, and everyone has because it’s the brain.
Accepting the New Normal After Thalamic Ischemic Stroke
Lisa Cook 43:25
Everyone’s got their own unique, different experience. It’s hard to to encapsulate that through like one person or a small group of people, but what drives those people to step forward, even though it is hard because you’re reliving that trauma every single time you talk about it, is that desire to make it mean something I can’t have gone through this harrowing experience just to like you said, treat it like a stub toe. Go, okay?
Lisa Cook 44:01
It’s the next day. Now, whatever’s on with life, which, if that’s you listening, and that’s how you’ve dealt with having a stroke, that is, you do what you have to do, right? Like, cool, there’s no, there’s no right or wrong way to to recover after stroke. But that whole sense of which, I think is a human condition, our desire to give meaning to something, to make meaning from what has gone on.
Bill Gasiamis 44:36
It’s to wrap the head around that somehow, and then to go, Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make it mean more than what it meant, which was, I think that’s what it is for me. It meant You nearly died. And it’s like, I’m gonna make it mean more than that. That’s not good enough. That’s, I don’t want to contemplate that so often that I nearly did. And make it I am probably a lot more comfortable with the idea of death these days, but still, I’m not really keen to just think about it as a oh, well, you nearly it all nearly almost died, you know?
Bill Gasiamis 45:12
So I remember, just a couple of weeks ago, I posted a vlog, my first vlog, where I spoke about my fatigue and all the challenges that I was going through. I posted it on YouTube, and it’s been really popular, and people commented, and there was a person who come and I did the vlog walking around my neighborhood, just talking because I was having a bad day. Yeah, and somebody commented, and I don’t know where in their recovery journey they are that they will never walk like I am walking around right after their stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 45:49
And it’s like, Thanks for the reminder. Yeah, pretty jarring to hear that again from another stroke survivor and and it’s like, I totally get my opportunity. And why I am, I don’t know. Maybe this is the dumb way to explain it. Luckier than you in that particular situation, okay, I’m able to walk in your not, even though I have deficits. However, I don’t from that. From that person’s perspective, maybe they’re early on in their recovery.
Bill Gasiamis 46:30
Maybe they haven’t dealt with certain things enough yet. What I want to say to people like that is, well, that might be the case, but there’s no reason why you can’t experience a full life either, and there’s no reason why you should just give up at that stage and not continue to look for ways to improve your life. Yeah, I don’t know, and don’t let me be or the doctor or anyone else be the judge of to what extent you’re going to live your life, you know.
Bill Gasiamis 46:58
And I always go back to Stephen Hawking, you know, the great physicist who was completely and totally disabled because of his motor neurons disease, I believe it was called, and still was, the leading physicist in his field, until the day he died, and the majority of his life he spent not even Being able to move anything other than his eyes. Yeah, and it’s like, I know you’re doing a tough and at the same time, I want to remind you that there are other people who are doing it as tough, if not worse than you.
Bill Gasiamis 47:33
And I don’t know if there’s anyone doing it tougher than somebody like Stephen Hawking and And nonetheless, has lived an extraordinary life according to the majority of the population and the people who met them, right? So I I hear what you’re saying and I accept your comment, and it is a great reminder about my responsibility to continue doing the work that I’m doing to make it easier for people like you, I’m going to advocate for me, for the person on the other side of the screen, and for you who I’ve never met before.
Bill Gasiamis 48:05
I suppose, if that makes it any better, I hope that that helps you know, I think that that’s my responsibility, like I don’t know. That’s how I try and grapple with comments like that and people’s journeys with the very debilitating parts of stroke, way more debilitating than my little whinge that particular day.
Lisa Cook 48:31
I think it’s all relative, and feel like it’s absolutely 100% normal to be angry, to be angry at what happened, especially because with something like stroke, it’s not like you’re given a warning. It’s not like it’s coming in in 12 months, like get prepared to live your life completely different. It’s literally blink of an eye. Old life gone, new life. Here we are, and you’ve got no time to adjust. So all this stuff compounds.
Lisa Cook 49:06
And like we said, how you experience stroke is different to how I experience stroke is different to this guy that made this comment, experience stroke none is is right or wrong, or better or worse, or anything like that, like I often feel at times that people, and I’ve never had anyone, do anything or say anything to me that would make me feel like this. This is my issue, that I’m like, I haven’t done stroke, right? Because I’m not impaired physically, like people will look at me and just go, what would she know? She’s fine, she’s normal. She doesn’t look like she’s had a stroke, and that plays on it as well.
Lisa Cook 49:46
It’s like, well, you know, let’s talk about the psychological impacts of having a stroke. And chances are, our psychological journey has been very similar, yeah, in a lot of things. But it is all relative. We can’t look at someone and go, Yeah, but you’re you’ve got it so much better than me. Yeah, okay, maybe I do in some aspects, but you don’t know the whole picture of someone. You don’t know the whole thing.
Lisa Cook 50:12
And just because Bill’s at this stage with this outcome from a stroke, and you’re at that stage with that outcome from a stroke. It doesn’t mean that bill’s luckier than you or different than you, or better or worse. Or, like, you’ve just gotta see it that it’s all relative. Everyone’s on their own journey. And like, you were emphasizing it really is your choice at the end of the day, of like, what do you do with this, okay, you’ve been served up this real crab cake.
Lisa Cook 50:44
But then what you choose and decide to do next really is up to you, and no one can take that away. Stroke can’t take that away. You still have your own vocation, right? You can choose to do and react however you like. If that helps.
Bill Gasiamis 51:06
It all helps. The whole conversation helps. And it’s not that, you know, it’s just that it’s good because it makes me contemplate things from somebody else’s perspective and the part of the journey that they’re on. You know, the hardest part when people see me doing a vlog 13 years post stroke, I mean, that’s it’s been a long a lot of water under the bridge to get to today, and you’re looking at the vlog and You’re going, Ah, I should be that recovered.
Bill Gasiamis 51:41
Or, why is he so well? Or how did he get to that so quickly? It’s like, man, it’s been 13 years of ups and downs and wondering whether I’m having another stroke and having an actual another one, and having brain surgery and not being able to walk and learning how to walk again, and not being able to work, and not being able to be a regular member of society, like the whole thing has been dramatic, and having emotional challenges like I’ve never had before, and psychological challenges and counseling and all that kind of stuff.
Bill Gasiamis 51:55
And that’s the biggest challenge I have, is like my you know you can’t wear all your badges all at once because people wouldn’t be able to read them anyway, but also, you have to just present yourself at the stage that you’re at, and that’s really important, so to try and every so often, explain to people or remind people about that I’m presenting myself at the stage I’m at when I was much sicker.
Bill Gasiamis 52:43
I couldn’t do a vlog, I couldn’t do a post, I couldn’t have a podcast, I couldn’t write a book, I couldn’t read or type or do any of that stuff. So we’re at that stage so many years down the track, and I’m just trying to go, I’m going to get you to engage with me in any way I possibly can so that I can teach you something, and maybe if what I’ve done to you now 13 years out is remind you of like where you might be in 13 years, or how your 13 year journey from your two year part of the journey is completely different, maybe even that’s a Cool thing, I just did that, and hopefully that’s going to help you.
Lisa Cook 53:25
Yeah, if not a reminder that time is going to pass, whether you want to be angry about it or not, the time is still going to pass.
Bill Gasiamis 53:37
Yeah, it sure will. And it passed so quick. Even though it feels like forever, it also feels like forever, and at the blink of an eye, I just can’t wrap my head around how there’s been this warped experience of my timeframe, like it’s so weird, and when I talk about it, I’m right there back then. I’m not reliving it, though, because I think after 350 episodes of just talking forever about it.
Bill Gasiamis 54:10
I’ve stopped reliving it, and I’m more remembering my remembering when I share it, rather than reliving it. But I have had a few crying moments when I’m having a bad day or whatever, and it’s related to the stroke. It’s still related to that. But it’s not about what happened to me. It’s about on my the difficulty of my yeah, that particular day.
Lisa Cook 54:39
Yeah, and just being upset that everything’s now a little bit harder, right? Yeah? Like, come on, man, you know, I think that’s totally normal. I think that’s totally normal.
The Hardest Thing About The Thalamic Ischemic Stroke
Bill Gasiamis 54:52
Yeah, yeah, what would you say was the hardest thing about stroke for you?
Lisa Cook 55:01
I think just accepting, accepting that I can’t go back to normal, normal is a figment of your imagination. Now, there’s a different normal, and how can we thrive, given where we are now, like what you were talking about 13 years out. I’m nearly 10 years out, what thriving looks for me now, obviously could never have been what thriving would look for me in the six months, 12 months. You know, I said it took three years to really come to terms with it and accept it and go, Okay, we’re going to put the line in the sand. Now. What do we do about it? Yeah, that was probably the hardest part.
The Lessons From The Thalamic Ischemic Stroke
Bill Gasiamis 55:47
And what would you say it has taught you, you know, like, really taught you.
Lisa Cook 56:00
I have a funny thing happened to me after I had my stroke. I used to so before stroke, I used to be really scared of flying, right airplane. Fear of flying, very normal. A lot of people have it. After I had my stroke, my brain was like, you cannot have survived a stroke only to die in a plane crash. So now I’m fine on an airplane. So I don’t know how that works. That’s just how the brain is thinking. And yeah, that’s what’s come about from it.
Bill Gasiamis 56:43
That sounds like the lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice.
Lisa Cook 56:52
Relying on that now. So touch wood.
Bill Gasiamis 56:56
Flying is the safest form of transportation.
Lisa Cook 56:59
Look, you could ask me to rationalize until the cows come home, but that emotional, like response that I would get just, it’s irrational, yeah.
Bill Gasiamis 57:04
It’s also irrational because there’s like, I don’t know how many tons is an airplane, and that shouldn’t be floating in the air.
Lisa Cook 57:23
So you, you know you can then research into how power planes actually flying, like how does the physics under it, the physics of flying and that that can help you to feel more comfort in it as well. So, but yeah, or you can have a stroke.
Bill Gasiamis 57:46
You get over it for it.
Lisa Cook 57:49
So what it taught me is maybe the things that you’re scared of, like actually aren’t that scary relative to so I guess you can get a new set point. And part of me feels like, I feel like everyone at one point in their life will have a near death experience.
Lisa Cook 58:12
And I feel like for some of us, we were kind of lucky enough to have that early enough in our life that we could then really change how we think and feel about things, and then about what we do and what we can and can do, like we might do, things that past us would think are a bit scary, and I’m not sure I want to do that, whereas now we’re Like, really, how bad can it freaking be?
Bill Gasiamis 58:43
I before stroke was a tradie, still have that business, and I’m painting people’s houses, you know. And I don’t talk on a podcast, I don’t interview people, I don’t write a book, I don’t do public speaking, I don’t do presentations, I don’t involve myself with communities other than the very close community that I hang out with, family, friends, etc. It’s a completely different version of me after stroke, and that’s one that most people wouldn’t recognize.
Bill Gasiamis 59:16
They would that people that knew me wouldn’t recognize it, but they would encourage it. They would say, yeah, that was cool, what you’re doing, and it’s great to see. And they would support it, but they wouldn’t recognize it. I don’t recognize myself. I don’t even know how I got into this situation and why I took each step that I took, other than every time I took it. I learned something new. The curiosity got the better of me and and I think I approached after stroke from a curiosity mindset. And curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, you know.
Lisa Cook 59:56
I agree with that 100% And I feel like so many others on their stroke journey would probably have the same reflections as well. If you were to think of because a lot of people who haven’t had a stroke will look at those stroke survivors, particularly the ones that have impairments, disabilities, and it looks like they’re struggling, you would think crap. I could never cope with that.
Lisa Cook 1:00:26
If that was to happen to me, I think I would fall apart. But when you’re not given a choice but to survive, but to find a way to thrive, whatever that means for you, you actually realize the potential that you actually do have. And yeah, those people that may not have had something so traumatic happen in their life, maybe they are not reaching their full potential and are underplaying what they could be doing.
Bill Gasiamis 1:01:00
Yeah, and great good luck to them. I hope that they get to that stage without a stroke or a heart condition or something else, right? That’s, you know? Yeah, We’ll root for them to either get there or not get there however they want, but without a medical situation. But that’s how thick I am.
Lisa Cook 1:01:23
Yeah why do we need that trauma to to get us to that point?
Bill Gasiamis 1:01:29
That’s how thick I was. Like, I needed to have all of this stuff happened for me to find my voice. And I’m okay with it, but it was, it is interesting to contemplate. You know, from a philosophical perspective, it’s like, yeah, why did you have to go to that much trouble? Yes, the outcome that you have, and it’s like, you’ve always done things the hard way, but this is pretty hard I mean, really.
Lisa Cook 1:01:55
This is extreme. Yes, it’s so funny. I feel like I have to, like, you have to hit rock bottom before you can kind of get better. I feel like that’s like a pattern in so many areas of my life. But I feel like that then maybe puts the burden of responsibility on us that we gave ourselves a stroke, whereas that’s not, I mean, what caused yours? Do you know?
Bill Gasiamis 1:02:21
Well, a faulty blood vessel that I was born with an arteriovenous malformation, right? That stays benign, or every once in a while for people, many people, it pops. And you might not have it in your brain, you might have it somewhere else in your body.
Bill Gasiamis 1:02:36
So mine was just in my brain, and it did nothing for 37 years and then, I do say, though, that I still created the perfect storm around it, smoking, not drinking excessively, but drinking, stressing out at work too much, probably working 16 hours a day because I was a bit of a control freak.
Bill Gasiamis 1:03:02
I didn’t want to outsource things to other people. I didn’t seek the help that I should have, you know, so I created the perfect storm around this blood vessel so that it doesn’t have the support that it needed to not pop. And people we find ourselves in that situation in life. Sometime we put ourselves under undue pressure, and I was really good at doing that. I’m less.
Bill Gasiamis 1:03:29
I do that less these days, but it was I realized very quickly as well that I can’t continue going about my life in the same way that I had, because it wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be conducive to a good outcome, whether it was heart attack or high blood pressure or something else. So that’s kind of how I got to that stage. I wanted to as we wrap up, I wanted to ask you one last question.
Advice to Other Stroke Survivors
Bill Gasiamis 1:04:00
So people are listening here, and you and I, we’ve been on our journey for a little while, and they’re probably looking for some guidance, some wisdom, some nugget, on short notice, I know. And putting you the under pressure, a little bit under the microscope. What do you want to tell people who are listening who are perhaps a little bit earlier on in their journey compared to us.
Lisa Cook 1:04:28
The thing that came to mind, Bill was that it gets better. It gets better. It’s you’re not going to go back to what was beforehand. I think that’s having gone through that and wanted that, and realizing it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. So work on accepting that as much as you can. There’s no, like we said, there’s no right way or wrong way to really process come. To terms with it and recover, but it does get better.
Bill Gasiamis 1:05:05
I would agree with that. And the acute phase is the worst phase. And I think for me, one of the things that it was good for me to remember was that the acute phase lasted years. It didn’t, Yes, last only two weeks or three months or six months. The acute phase lasted years. And I’ve gotta say for me, I reckon the acute phase lasted about three and a half years, four years, something like that.
Bill Gasiamis 1:05:35
Yeah, and and then I started to turn the corner. But by then I had dialed in my nutrition. I had dialed in, you know, my my inner work. I had done a lot of meditation and psychological counseling, you know, so I had dialed in a lot of things. And that is kind of what made me move the needle to in my favor further than where it was before.
Lisa Cook 1:06:08
And ask for help.
Bill Gasiamis 1:06:10
Yeah, that is a beauty, actually. Yeah, and we’ll end on that one. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I really appreciate the chat.
Lisa Cook 1:06:18
Yeah, thanks, Bill. I’m really glad that you’ve given me the opportunity to share my story.
Bill Gasiamis 1:06:24
Well, that brings us to the end of this moving episode with Lisa from being misdiagnosed after a thalamic ischemic stroke to facing extreme fatigue, uncovering a PFO and confronting survivor’s guilt. Lisa’s journey reminds us that recovery isn’t just about what’s visible. It’s about navigating the internal landscape too. Her courage to share, serve and advocate, especially through her role on the Stroke Foundation Board, shows just how powerful lived experience can be.
Bill Gasiamis 1:06:57
If today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you, leave a comment, like and subscribe on the YouTube channel, and if you’re listening on Spotify or iTunes, consider leaving a five-star rating. It would mean the world to me. It also helps more stroke survivors discover the podcast and join this supportive community. Remember to check out my book, The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened. You can find it on Amazon or by visiting recoveryafterstroke.com/book, and if you’d like to support the podcast directly, head over to patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke. Thank you so much for being here and for making this podcast part of your journey. I’ll see you in the next episode.
Intro 1:07:42
Importantly, we present many podcasts designed to give you an insight and understanding into the experiences of other individuals. Opinions and treatment protocols discussed during any podcast are the individual’s own experience, and we do not necessarily share the same opinion, nor do we recommend any treatment protocol discussed all content on this website and any linked blog, podcast, or video material controlled this website or content is created and produced for information or purposes only and is largely based on the personal experience of Bill Gasiamis.
Intro 1:08:12
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Intro 1:08:37
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