Symptoms of Ischemic Stroke: What You Need to Know

When a stroke strikes, every second counts. An ischemic stroke,  the most common type, happens when a blood clot blocks blood flow to part of the brain. The faster you recognize the symptoms, the better the chances of limiting long-term damage and saving a life.

But stroke isn’t just a medical event. It’s also an emotional shockwave — for the survivor and for their family. Understanding the early symptoms of ischemic stroke doesn’t just prepare you to act quickly; it also helps you make sense of what comes after.

What Is an Ischemic Stroke?

An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot or plaque build-up blocks an artery leading to the brain. This blockage cuts off oxygen and nutrients, causing brain cells to die within minutes.

Ischemic strokes account for around 87% of all strokes worldwide. They can happen suddenly, often without warning, and the results can be life-altering.

Common Symptoms of Ischemic Stroke

The key symptoms to watch for can be remembered with the acronym FAST:

• Face – One side of the face droops when smiling.
• Arms – Sudden weakness or numbness in one arm (or leg, especially on one side).
• Speech – Slurred speech, difficulty finding words, or trouble understanding.
• Time – Call emergency services immediately. Every minute matters.Other possible symptoms include:

• Sudden vision loss or blurred vision in one or both eyes
• Severe headache with no known cause
• Dizziness, loss of balance, or difficulty walking
• Confusion or difficulty understanding simple instructions

👉 If you notice these symptoms in yourself or someone else, don’t wait. Call an ambulance right away.

Why Quick Action Is Critical

During an ischemic stroke, around 1.9 million brain cells die every minute the brain is deprived of oxygen. Early treatment, such as clot-busting medication (tPA) or a clot retrieval procedure, can dramatically improve recovery outcomes — but only if given within a narrow time window.

Acting fast can mean the difference between walking again… or not. Between speaking again… or not. Between life and death.

“Every stroke survivor I’ve spoken with remembers the moment when everything changed. Recognizing the symptoms early could change the outcome entirely.” – Bill Gasiamis

Life Beyond the Symptoms

Knowing the symptoms of ischemic stroke is only the beginning. For many survivors, the real journey starts afterward — in rehabilitation, mindset shifts, and rediscovering identity.

Some may face:

• Physical challenges like weakness, numbness, or spasticity
• Communication difficulties (aphasia)
• Emotional changes such as anxiety, depression, or pseudobulbar affect
• Fatigue that lingers for months or years

While these are not “symptoms” in the medical sense, they are the lived reality of stroke recovery. Recognizing them helps survivors feel less alone — and helps caregivers understand what support looks like.

How to Support Recovery

If you’re a caregiver or family member, here are a few ways to help beyond the emergency:

1. Celebrate the small wins. Survivors often don’t notice their progress — pointing it out helps motivation.
2. Encourage consistency. Recovery takes time, repetition, and patience.
3. Learn together. Understanding stroke symptoms and after-effects can reduce frustration on both sides.
4. Seek community. Support groups and survivor stories remind us that growth is possible after trauma.

Taking the Next Step

If you’ve recently experienced a stroke, or you’re supporting someone who has, know this: you are not alone.

• 📘 Discover stories of growth in my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened
• 💙 Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke

Recovery is not about going back to who you were. It’s about discovering who you can become — even after the hardest challenges.

Final Thoughts

The symptoms of ischemic stroke are urgent signals. They tell us to act fast, to call for help, and to give the brain its best chance at healing. But beyond those first moments lies a longer journey — one of resilience, family, and finding hope again.

Life After Stroke: From Crisis to Recovery Beyond the Symptoms of Ischemic Stroke

A stroke, a transplant, and a family’s resilience — Brian & Brittany share how recovery goes far beyond the symptoms.

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Highlights:

00:00 Introduction and Background
07:24 Bryan’s Medical Conditions and Recovery
14:27 Life Before the Stroke
21:06 Impact of the Stroke and Initial Challenges
28:35 Support Systems and Recovery Efforts
35:38 The Role of Neurotherapy and Emotional Support
43:00 Adjusting to New Normal and Personal Growth
49:44 The Impact of the Transplant and Ongoing Challenges
56:06 Reflections on the Journey and Future Goals
1:03:37 Recovery and Motivation After Stroke
1:11:08 Perspective on Life Post-Stroke
1:18:31 Closing Remarks and Acknowledgements

Transcript:

Bryan & Brittany: Introduction and Background

Bill Gasiamis 0:00
Before we dive in a half dollar. Thank you to everyone who supports this podcast, including those on Patreon. Your contribution helps make these stories free and accessible to stroke survivors and caregivers around the world, and a big thank you as well to Banksiatech distributors of the Hanson rehab glove by Syrebo. It’s a smart rehab tool that helps stroke survivors practice hand movement at home, whether you’re at the very start of your recovery or many years into it, this glove is designed to help retrain both brain and hand.

Bill Gasiamis 0:37
You’ll hear more about it later in this episode. Now imagine facing an ischemic stroke while already living with type one diabetes and end stage kidney failure. For Bryan Caldwell, that was the reality, and for his wife, Brittany, it meant carrying her family through one of the toughest chapters of their lives. This is a conversation about survival, resilience and the unexpected ways that life can be rebuilt. Brittany Logan and Bryan Caldwell, welcome back to the podcast.

Bryan Caldwell 1:09
Hello. How are you again?

Bill Gasiamis 1:12
Man, I’m fantastic. It’s so great to have you guys here. Last time we chatted, it was episode 189 we are fast approaching episode 370 it was time ago, but it feels like yesterday, because I remember your story, Bryan vividly, and then I remember what Brittany went through.

Bryan Caldwell 1:37
In that, it was a lot for sure. So, yeah, it was a tough time. We’re all still recovering from our different deficits. But, you know, things are a lot better these days.

Bill Gasiamis 1:49
Yeah, different ordeal. How long ago was that?

Bryan Caldwell 1:51
Now, looking at about a little over four years.

Bill Gasiamis 1:57
Okay, so quite some time. So Logan was seven. He was six at the time. Yeah, he was six, Logan, do you remember any of the dramas that happened at your house at that time when Bryan was unwell?

Brittany 2:16
No, not really. We just had to. We had to go to his parents house and live there while he was in the hospital.

Bill Gasiamis 2:25
What’s it like learning about the fact that someone that you love, your family member is unwell?

Brittany 2:37
It kind of scared me at first, and then, like, she, like, kind of explained it in, like, a kid way, so I, like, kind of knew what was happening.

Bill Gasiamis 2:51
Still a little hard to understand, right?

Brittany 2:55
Yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 2:57
What was the hardest part for you? What was the scariest part changing houses, or the fact that Bryan wasn’t with you guys. What was the hardest part?

Brittany 3:06
Probably that and he was in the hospital, and then I couldn’t go in and see him in that one when she could go in.

Bill Gasiamis 3:14
Why couldn’t you go?

Brittany 3:16
I don’t know. They never told me it was covid, and so they wouldn’t allow kids in the hospital. And so he wouldn’t he, he we tried to kind of sneak him in one time, but we were like, No, we’re having to do that. And so he didn’t see him for about three months.

Bill Gasiamis 3:33
Yeah, okay, that’s pretty hard, and it would have been hard for Bryan and everybody anyway. I mean, it’s hard already, and then you can’t see your loved ones, and covid hospitalizations and stroke survivors not did it harder than anybody, even though there’s no such thing as you know my strokes harder than yours or whatever, like, even though everyone’s stroke is, in their own way, difficult and challenging.

Bill Gasiamis 4:01
Dealing with it during covid was even harder, made it even more complicated and emotional and traumatic. But I remember the story because I think when Bryan had the stroke, you discovered that you’ve got a whole bunch of other medical conditions as well. Can you remind me about the medical conditions that you discovered at the time of the stroke?

Bryan Caldwell 4:27
Well, I had already lost vision from diabetes in my right eye, so that was a pre existing condition. Then I had also learned that I was in stage five kidney failure with 3% function left. And so it was a little bit of a fate for the most part. And then after some time had passed, they decided, you know, you’re a pretty great candidate to get a kidney, pancreas transplant. So a year and a half, two years went by, and I finally received the transplant. And that was, you know, obviously, after dialysis for a year and a half, and I finally got the transplant.

Bryan Caldwell 5:06
And since then, you know, it’s been full steam ahead. I’ve been being very as I mean, as much as active as I can be, you know, with my deficits and whatnot, but working out, getting my fitness back up, getting, you know, my endurance back up and, you know, right? You know, stroke takes a lot out of you when you’re trying to move around and be active or whatnot, but this was a whole another motivation for me, just to push harder and push forward.

Bryan Caldwell 5:33
Yeah, you know, it’s supposed to take a lot out of you and you’re supposed to be tired, but I put so much effort into working out and eating healthy and drinking lots of water, and that’s pretty much all I drink these days. But you know, other than that, like my fitness and my fatigue, my fatigue is almost non-existent.

Bill Gasiamis 5:53
So we’ll talk about that. Yeah, let’s see if we can get to the bottom of why that might be the case. But before we do that, so what was like for the life, like for the family, before all of the drama? Brittany, it was a different time, right? So you guys were just going through usual run of the mill, day to day stuff, maybe a couple of little conditions that Bryan had, medical conditions that Bryan was dealing with, the diabetes and all that kind of stuff. But generally speaking, what was life like before all of this?

Brittany 6:29
I mean, life was definitely different. Logan being six, we lived in Utah, and so there was trails everywhere. So we went biking all the time. There was a pond he would go fishing at. Bryan had just finished his off road truck, and so he was going to take that to the dunes and jump it, or whatever you want to call it, but never really had the chance to do that. Logan was playing ice hockey, so Bryan was his coach in ice hockey also, and so it was definitely a bit of a change.

Bill Gasiamis 7:07
Did you looking back now that some time has passed? Did you were there any warning signs that you might have missed just because you were unaware and you’d never been through these types of things before.

Bryan’s Medical Conditions and Recovery

Brittany 7:24
For the most part, he had no symptoms, like they have talked about. The doctors have talked about how kidney failure is like the silent killer, because you really don’t have any symptoms. I remember there was one night, and I don’t know if it was few weeks or few months before his stroke, but he was out in like our loft area, and he had a really bad calf cramp. And I was like, maybe she go to the doctors? And he’s like, no, what are the doctors gonna do for a cramp? But one of the signs of kidney failure is you get cramps in your legs. I think that would probably be the only sign.

Bill Gasiamis 8:00
But who’s going to know that? I mean, everyone gets, yeah, cramps. Every so often. I know I get cramps. I’ve never considered once that it might be my kidney not working.

Bryan Caldwell 8:10
Yeah, so that’s definitely a focus of staying hydrated these days.

Bill Gasiamis 8:14
Yeah, you know your type two diabetes. Logan, did you have something to say there were you going to say something? Oh, oh, sorry, mate, I thought you were gonna say something. That’s okay. I’ll keep going, Bryan, did you look after yourself even though you were diagnosed with type two diabetes? Or were you a little bit slack on the taking care of yourself?

Bryan Caldwell 8:37
I was actually type one, and I was definitely a little bit on taking care of myself. I think my early years, I didn’t really care a whole lot, kind of, you know, my my probability of living a long life is a lot lower than most people’s are kind of looking at the way, like, Hey, I better have fun now. So I had a lot of fun, no regrets, but definitely ate what I wanted to eat. Didn’t stay as active as I probably should have had. I had a really good time. But, you know, over the years, I’ve caught up, and the damage had already been done. So, you know, these days it’s a lot put life into perspective.

Bill Gasiamis 9:17
Yeah, type one diabetes, how do you have to look after yourself differently from somebody with type two diabetes? Now, I believe that type one is something developed early on in life. It’s usually called in Australia, juvenile diabetes. Is that right?

Bryan Caldwell 9:34
Correct. I was diagnosed when I was six years old, and, you know, had, you know, I was supposed to watch my intake of sugar and my exercise and making sure I’m drinking lots of water and carbohydrates and nutritional facts and and I paid attention to it a little bit at first, and then over the years, kind of faded away and didn’t focus so much on the things I should have been focusing on. So, you know, long-term damage. That happened then.

Bill Gasiamis 10:01
So type two diabetes is the one where there’s too much sugar the body can’t deal with the it’s having struggle with the insulin production. Type one diabetes is what exactly we’ll be back with more of Bryan and Brittany’s story in just a moment. First, I want to say thanks again to Banksiatech for supporting this show. They bring stroke survivors the Hansen rehab glove by Syrebo with six therapy modes, including stretching, grasping, releasing, and even a patented mirror function that helps retrain your brain alongside your hand.

Bill Gasiamis 10:38
It’s safe to use at home and available internationally. You’ll find links in the YouTube description and at recoveryafterstroke.com and while we’re on the subject of recovery, I want to remind you about my book, The Unexpected Way That a Stroke Became the Best Thing That Happened. Inside you’ll find real stories from survivors who found a way forward, not just to recover, but to grow. You can check it out at recoveryafterstroke.com/book. All right, let’s get back to Bryan and Brittany as they share how resilience, persistence and family, love kept them moving forward.

Bryan Caldwell 11:14
Basically almost zero production at all. So you’re, I mean, there’s sometimes in type two, where you might need to give yourself injections of insulin, but more than likely, it can be controlled with medication or exercise. For type one, usually it has to be highly, you know, adjusted with insulin and whatnot. So you’re taking a set dose every single day.

Bill Gasiamis 11:39
And is that the set dose that you were missing out on?

Bryan Caldwell 11:43
No, I was pretty up on top of it. But as far as, like, eating, overeating, eating sweets, yeah, drinking soda pops, you know, stuff like that, going out for dessert, doing things I probably shouldn’t be doing. So, yeah, definitely not, straight and narrow.

Bill Gasiamis 12:02
yeah, and type one diabetes. What does it cause if it’s not looked after? Now, there was blindness in one of the eyes. What other cause?

Bryan Caldwell 12:15
So that caused neuropathy in my eyes. I experienced neuropathy in my feet currently, and it doesn’t, although I received the pancreas kidney transplant, didn’t reverse it, I still feel it, you know, I, I mean, not necessarily feel it, because I feel a lot less in my my feet and toes. So if I, if I happen to cut it, or, you know, it’s a higher chance of infection, or I can’t really, you know, I don’t have a whole lot of temperature gauge, so I need to be careful about burning my feet and just if anything gets infected. I gotta be super careful and make sure it’s taken care of, or it could possibly be amputated.

Bill Gasiamis 12:56
And it’s the pancreas that is not working effectively in type one diabetes. Is that right?

Bryan Caldwell 13:02
Correct. And over time, if the sugar isn’t regulated, that’s why you have to test yourself so often. That’s what can cause the kidney damage.

Bill Gasiamis 13:13
So, my gosh, as a kid, as a six year old, get diagnosed with that stuff. I mean, it’s going to be hard to track. And then I imagine, at some point you just want to be quote, unquote normal. And then you do the dumb stuff that everyone does when they’re coming through the years. And then teenager, I imagine, and then drinking age, you hit that hard, I imagine, yep, that makes complete sense. So it’s really hard to opt out of that, though, to be that age and to opt out of it and not to do that, because everyone you know is doing all of that.

Bryan Caldwell 13:52
Yeah, it’s kind of hard to kick yourself in the butt a little bit and do what you’re supposed to do rather than going with the flow and having a good time, you know, like, I try to look at things in a positive light and not dwell on the past and what I have done, which what I could have done, you know, I look forward to the future all the time, no matter what.

Bill Gasiamis 14:12
Yeah. Can you, Brittany, can you describe the time when everything changed, that moment, like with a stroke, and what happened? Are you still comfortable talking about it?

Bryan & Brittany: Life Before the Stroke

Brittany 14:27
Yeah, I mean, I think when he had a stroke, I would just, I was just in Go, go, go mode, and it didn’t feel real, like I would wake up and be like, it was just a dream, and then I would wake up and be at my mother-in-law’s house. I’m like, wait, this wasn’t a dream that I thought. And so it he had really bad pseudo-bulbar when he was in the hospital, and so his pseudo-bulbar in the hospital, at least, was he would cry all the time. Yeah, now it’s, he laughs all the time, which, it’s a good and a bad thing, but, you know, so he would be super upset all day.

Brittany 15:10
And then Logan would be super upset not being able to see him. So I would kind of have to, like, put my emotions aside. So it probably wasn’t for maybe six months to a year after, where that’s when I really started to struggle with, like, reality of the situation, because it was constant on the go, doctor’s appointments, therapy appointments, whatever he needed to do. And then when it kind of slowed down, when he was just doing dialysis every day, then it was like, Okay, well, like, this is actually real life.

Brittany 15:41
And that was more of the time that he was coming Bryan was coming around, and, like, more of his mental capacity, like his cognitive ability, was getting better at that time. So he was like, I’m just trying to be positive all the time, and you’re just crying every day. And I’m like, it’s hard.

Bryan Caldwell 15:57
It was definitely difficult for me to understand.

Bill Gasiamis 16:00
Yeah. And at the same time, you realize you had a stroke, but then you’re being also you were told that he had kidney failure.

Brittany 16:10
The doctors, I remember, when they first, the first doctor of the initial hospital, he almost got mad at me because he said, How long has he been in kidney failure? And I was like, what he said, we can’t even push contrast through to do a scan on his brain. And I said, Okay, well, I was completely unaware of that, and I don’t know that this is the best way to approach the wife of someone who just had a stroke, like, that’s insane to me. So, yeah, we had no idea. But, you know, when he got transferred to the other hospital, they all they immediately intubated him.

Brittany 16:39
They said he couldn’t protect his airways anymore. They took him up to, you know, the neuro ICU, and at that point it was covid. People were getting intubated. They weren’t coming out of intubation. And so I was freaking out that he may not come out of intubation. They didn’t know what was going to happen. And plus, you were him out of stay overnight, they ex bat even an ICU patient.

Brittany 17:02
So visiting hours were nine to nine, so I would have no clue what would happen after hours, and till I would get there, and then I would find out, okay, this, you know, there was nights that I wasn’t there, and he would pull out a speeding tube, and then they would have to replace it the next day when I was there. But I these are things that I wouldn’t know about.

Bill Gasiamis 17:22
Did you go into any moments of denial or this can’t be happening? This isn’t real. If I just pretend it’s not happening, it’s gonna go away.

Brittany 17:33
Yeah, I think so. But I was still there every day, and, you know, still tried to do the best that I could to advocate for him, because I felt like, you know, they had different doctors every day, and shift changes happened, and they didn’t fully read the charts, or didn’t know the full extent of what his health was. And so I would have to tell them, nope, that’s not what’s going on, nope. So I’d always have to be there whenever they were changing shifts just to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

Bill Gasiamis 18:03
So you I recall my wife kind of describing a similar situation. See what happened to my wife? Was it she her mum passed away, literally, I mean two, three weeks before my brain surgery, so we had to bury her. Then I had to go into brain surgery, and then I was in rehab because I couldn’t walk, and I had to learn how to walk again. So my wife didn’t have opportunity to bury her mum, mourn, do any of that stuff. Her dad was in a wheelchair, so he needed immediately 24 kind of on shift work, kind of rotation care from the three sisters.

Bill Gasiamis 18:52
And when I touch base with my wife about that now, because more than you know, 12 years has passed, and we can reflect on it. She said that she had to put everything on hold and then attend to herself kind of later. Did that time come for you? Did you find this yourself in a moment where you go, Oh, and it’s going to be about me for a little bit?

Brittany 19:18
I think it’s been about me for a little while now, when Bryan, like, I don’t want to say fully recovered, but when he recovered to the best of his ability, as of now, like, you know, he takes care of everything. He’ll clean the house, he’ll do the laundry. My gas is always full. I drive to work and I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting.

Brittany 19:38
I was on E yesterday, and all of a sudden I’m full, so now, yes, it’s to the point where I can, you know, worry about myself, if there was any, if there was anything to actually worry about. But I think he does such a good job of making sure I don’t worry, although I’m a worry wor about everything.

Bill Gasiamis 19:59
Yeah, less about worry, more about just attending to your needs, you know, like alone time, you know, time to do your thing, time to go where you need to go. More more about that than anything else. Yeah, and then how much of your time is is spent doing caring type of things for Bryan does. What type of support does he need from you?

Brittany 20:25
I mean, physically Now, none. He can do everything himself. I think the support that he needs, that I’m not always the best at, is probably more of like the emotional support or just, you know, giving him the daily compliments that he looks for. And I just, I struggle with that, but I think, you know, everything else, he worked really hard to gain a lot of his ability back so he didn’t have to rely on me. And I still worked full time regardless of him having a stroke. Like, I worked every day in the hospital. I worked when I came home.

Impact of the Stroke and Initial Challenges for Bryan & Brittany

Brittany 21:06
Luckily, the company that I worked for was out of state, so it was remote, so I did work full time, also while taking care of a child. And so now, like, I can just work and not have to worry about, really anything, versus Okay, I have to work. I have to do this, I have to do that. And when, you know, when he first came home, he was very it’s it’s noon, he would text me, it’s 12 o’clock, I need to eat lunch. It’s five o’clock, I need to eat lunch. It’s six o’clock. I have to set up for dialysis. And that would just drive me nuts, but he didn’t.

Brittany 21:42
He physically couldn’t do some of the things, whether it was hooking up his dialysis or cooking food. And then I think he just got so tired of it’s 1205 and I still wasn’t downstairs. So he’s like, Okay, I’m gonna force myself to do this and learn. And you know, he he made some mistakes along the way. But I think he just, he didn’t want to have to rely on me, is what it was, and I think that helped in his recovery.

Bill Gasiamis 22:09
My gosh, my wife looked after the kids. They were teenagers. My wife went to work. My wife looked after her dad. My wife did all those things that you just described as well. It’s just when I listen back at it, I cannot imagine myself being that busy for an extended period of time. Bryan, do you agree you’re nodding there?

Bryan Caldwell 22:33
Yep, definitely. I mean, these days it’s a little different. I’m the one that’s busy all the time, but back then, she was taking on so much, and I can’t even imagine the overwhelming sin like feeling for her. So I mean, it’s hard to make me overwhelmed as a man, but as a woman, I mean, she’s taking on work, taking on her husband that’s emotional, taking on her son that’s emotional, going to school, you know, taking care of bills and everything, just, I can’t fathom.

Bill Gasiamis 23:05
Yeah, it is. It’s kind of like just instinctive. Is it an instinctive? It’s just like, you don’t think about it and well, unless it’s being annoying a particular moment, but things gotta get done. You just get them done, right?

Brittany 23:22
Yeah? Right? Yeah. I mean, I didn’t really think in that moment now, like, I’m like, Oh, I have to get up and I have to do this, and I have to do that, and I think more about it, and then I don’t want to do it. But back then, it was like, Okay, we have an appointment at eight. We have therapy at night. We have to be here at 10. I have to go pick up, you know, Logan by 2pm at school, and so I was more structured in that sense, where I just got up and did it.

Bill Gasiamis 23:48
Yeah. It’s really fascinating. So Bryan, did you find yourself being afraid to take the next step in your recovery early on, and as a result, you were relying on Brittany because she was there. What was that like to finally go? I’ve had enough of waiting for her. I’m going to do it on my own. What did you discover about yourself at that time?

Bryan Caldwell 24:15
Well, we had gone into some arguments, and you know, while I’m sitting there doing nothing all day long, basically just watching TV. She’s taking care of everything for me. And, you know, I’m very, was on time for everything. Like, I’m very, you know, root, yeah, exactly routine. Like, I need that routine and to the to the second, like, I need to be on point. But she’s like, kind of like floating through life, do her thing whenever she needs to, whatever she wants to. And I’m like, No, I need you now. And you know how stroke makes you very impulsive?

Bryan Caldwell 24:55
And I was being impulsive and being rude, and I was and as an. Sitting there all day long watching TV, thinking to myself, you know, I hate the person I’m becoming. I don’t want to be this person. I want, you know, my motivation in the hospital to get better and get out of the hospital was Logan and Brittany and to be there as a dad and push forward. And here I am not doing exactly what motivated me in the first place. So I look back on that and a lot of thoughts went through my head, and, you know, typically, I don’t think those thoughts would be able to process as easy.

Bryan Caldwell 25:32
I had done neurotherapy early on, and that helped a lot. So that helped me, you know, develop my cognition a lot better and able to use my brain a lot more.

Bill Gasiamis 25:49
So what kind of neurotherapy?

Bryan Caldwell 25:52
So it was a new process where they hook different sensors on your scalp, onto the parts of the brain where they they pre previously do a scan on your brain at which parts of your brain aren’t working as well, or what it should be. So they attach these sensors on that brain part that’s not working. And you sit there, you pick whatever TV show you want to watch that keeps your interest, or if you want to focus on it, and you know, I picked something that’s really maybe true crime or something like that, right? I want to focus. I want to pay attention.

Bryan Caldwell 26:29
If you don’t pay attention, the TV goes dim. So if you pay attention, the TV stays lit. So if you’re not, you know, nodding off and paying attention. You can watch your whole episode, but every little tiny bit that’s where it notices you, nodding off or looking away or whatever it is, it’ll go down no matter what. So I did this for four months, three times a week. I want to say it was like 45 minutes to an hour a day.

Bill Gasiamis 27:02
Wow. So it’s kind of like training you to move beyond the threshold of fatigue that I’m going to nod off Have a rest. It’s kind of motivating you to to to do the reps, you know, like the next rep, and then just to sort of try and get yourself to the next level.

Bryan Caldwell 27:24
Exactly. And what turned us on to it in the first place was that it could in certain situations where they have provided proof has helped different stroke patients with any kind of function or movement. And that was kind of the excitement behind it. It didn’t really help me gain a whole lot of function back, but it just helped my brain a lot more to maybe learn a little bit easier, maybe a little bit better.

Bryan Caldwell 27:49
We heard that it helps with autism and different seizures and whatnot like that, so I just gave it a try. It wasn’t covered by insurance or insight, so it did come out of pocket, but it was definitely beneficial took away. I mean, I was very anxiety filled for the first few months. I mean, driving was like the worst. I was always in my head. I can feel like I’m not going to fall out of a car, but there’s always a feeling that you’re going to fall out of a car. I don’t know why. It just affected that part of your brain. So after the therapy, I mean, anxiety went away 90%

Bill Gasiamis 28:29
Wow, that’s so cool. So what extent are your deficits?

Support Systems and Recovery Efforts

Bryan Caldwell 28:35
So originally, it was the whole left side, but as a lot of work and a lot of rehab. This is like personal rehab, because I graduated medical rehab and did that, and they said, you know, you’re good to go. There’s not a whole lot more we can do. And I kind of took that and said, You know, I’m going to keep on doing my own thing. I’m going to get stronger. I’m going to be more functional. I want Brittany to feel supported. I want her to be able to go do things with me. I want to be able to go things, go do things with her. We can go out to to dinner, to lunch, whatever.

Bryan Caldwell 29:08
And I’m not such a big, you know, headache to her. It’s like, you know, if you’re taking someone that’s running into everything all over the place, you know, it’s, it gets kind of burnt out on taking your handicap husband everywhere. It’s kind of making a scene. So I wanted to be as normal as possible. I’m still not normal by any means, still impulsive, still have, you know, hardly any dexterity in my hand. I’m able to move my arm quite a bit more. I can walk. I just don’t walk normal. I don’t have any devices that help me walk or do anything i i manage everything on my own for the most part.

Bill Gasiamis 29:49
Brittany and Logan, obviously the big motivation. Will call them your team members, your supporters. Were there some other people that came up. That kind of mentored you, helped you. How did this?

Bryan Caldwell 30:06
I mean, I had some friends. I had a lot of a friend group, like, I would say, group, a lot of friends that were supporting, a few friends that were a lot closer than other friends. But for as as the main support, Brittany and Logan 100%

Bill Gasiamis 30:22
Yeah. And it was kind of like a a campaign that you guys all had at home.

Bryan Caldwell 30:29
Exactly. I mean, I would, you know, she explained to Logan that, like, hey, you know, Dad’s gonna be like this, and he you gotta be extra nice, because he’s, you know, you do these small things, he’s going to get really ticked off and probably yell at you, and he’s he doesn’t mean it the way it comes off, so he understands that aspect. So I mean, in all honesty, it’s kind of helped him mold who he is today, because he knows exactly what to do and what not to he has a really strong conscience, as far as you know, the right things to do.

Bill Gasiamis 31:02
Little kids just are so switched can be, so switched on if they want to be. And when they’re around adversity, they step up. You always see little kids step up and play a role that they’re not what they’re not meant to play. Sometimes even, you know, they just take on responsibility and they become stoic, and they become unbelievably good at sort of working out the emotional stuff that we might not be really good at working out. You know, they’re kind of able to tune in a little better than what we can.

Bryan Caldwell 31:39
I mean, Logan could have his own episode if he wanted to. He’s got such a deep, interesting story about the whole experience that I think people could listen to him for hours about his different experiences. Yeah, wow.

Bill Gasiamis 31:54
What motivated you guys to come on the first time? I can’t remember exactly how we connected and why you guys joined the podcast the first time. Brittany, do you recall?

Brittany 32:06
I don’t remember. I don’t know if maybe Bryan had reached out, I think, and I honestly don’t even remember what year we had spoken with you, if it was at the very beginning of the stroke, or maybe a year later, but I know it was pre transplant, so I think it’s really good to have his story, you know, from when it first happened and then to where he is today, because so much has changed.

Bryan Caldwell 32:34
Yeah, I actually do remember.

Brittany 32:38
I can’t remember.

Bill Gasiamis 32:40
So this word, I didn’t mean to ignore you. Sorry.

Bryan Caldwell 32:45
Hey, I’m still here. But anyway, you know, it’s perfectly fine. This was post rehab, so all the medical prescribed, you know, occupational and physical therapy had I had graduated from and while I was at the gym, on the treadmill or whatever, I’d listen to podcasts and anything that was motivational. And so I had researched, you know, recovery after stroke, and it had popped up, and I had gone through 100 different podcasts and listened to, you know, 100 episodes before I decided, you know, I should reach out to this guy, Bill.

Bryan Caldwell 33:19
And see, you know, if I could share my story, because I think in that time, I wanted to help others. I mean, I had gone through a period of time where I was lot more unfunctional than I am now, where I had gotten all my friends and rallied everyone up to donate money, and I had just joined all these different Facebook groups and would witness everyone’s story, whether they’re struggling with, you know, copays or just gasoline getting to different or maybe Ubers getting to their appointments.

Bryan Caldwell 33:54
And they were, you know, not so successful in doing that. And I said, Hey, like, I’d see a particular person and that’s struggling, and I’d reach out and say, Hey, like, what’s the issue? You know, I can’t pay my $50 in copay or my $20 in gas to get there. Well, hey, no strings attached. Here’s $500 and I had rallied all this money together to where I had a good amount of money. I’m just floating people. I didn’t care to keep any of the money, just was throwing it away, basically, just so I can help people, so that was just as something different that I could contribute was to reach out to you.

Bill Gasiamis 34:30
Yeah, look your contribution. People don’t realize what a difference it does make for stroke survivors. I receive messages every single day by people who are glad they found the podcast now people are finding it in hospital, which is something I just love to hear, because that means that we’re decreasing the time that it takes for them to go from stroke. Oh my God. Who am I? What am. What happened to me, all that kind of stuff, to overcoming that, recovering from it, seeing that other people have done it, you know, getting a tip or two from the person I’m interviewing.

Bill Gasiamis 35:12
And it’s just such an amazing thing. And it’s happening all the time. I receive messages all the time. And of course, as a result of the podcast, other stroke survivors reach out to each other through social media, or they contact me for an email address or whatever. And that’s brilliant. That is so so good, because I can bring people together who have had the same experience but are in completely different parts of the world.

The Role of Neurotherapy and Emotional Support

Bill Gasiamis 35:38
And because they are so far away, they never would have been able to connect previously and share their similar experiences of their particular stroke or their particular deficit or their particular problem, even so much so to the point this is the one that freaked me out the most. I interviewed an amazing lady whose name I can’t remember right now who had decided to have her foot amputated because of the pain after her stroke, the neurological pain in her foot was unbearable.

Bill Gasiamis 36:13
She put up with it for so many years, and she decided to have a foot amputated. And I thought that was mental, amazing, mental, whatever she thought it was the best thing that ever happened to her, and she was just so overwhelmed that somebody was willing to help her in that way and do that for her. And then, of course, you wouldn’t. I mean, I never expected it, but somebody reached out to me to connect with her, to ask her about her procedure and who was that did it for her, etc.

Bill Gasiamis 36:43
So even in that extreme situation, to be able to connect two people is just mind blowing. Lee, amazing. It’s just fantastic. So that’s just to sort of paint a picture of how much you reaching out to be on the podcast to say maybe it’ll help somebody actually does. And then this one other story, where I’ve interviewed heaps of people that have had carotid artery dissections or a vertebral artery dissections, and in those conversations, I’ve spoken about the deficits. I’ve spoken about what it felt like, what the headache was like, what the stiffness in the neck was like.

Bill Gasiamis 37:24
And this lady who was not a stroke survivor, types in her problems, her pain or whatever, her neck issue. And one of my episodes came up, and she listened to the episode and realized that she had exactly the same problem that the person I was interviewing had, and she asked her husband to take her to the hospital and got the doctors to scan her neck and discover the dissection before a clot occurred.

Brittany 37:58
Wow, that’s crazy.

Bill Gasiamis 38:01
I’ve got no idea what you’ve typed. I mean, how can you possibly type the right thing to get the episode up, to find that stuff and answer your burning question, and then go to the hospital get it exactly, you know, the right outcome? I mean, that’s exactly what we do this for. This is, this is why. So it does help heaps.

Bryan Caldwell 38:22
Right to touch on your lady that you interviewed with an amputated foot, I had pain in my left hand, in my affected hand, that was a 20 out of 10 in pain for what, three weeks. Yeah. I mean, I said, Please, let’s just chop this off. It hurts so bad, and we were doing a bunch of different things to hopefully manage the pain. And what helped for me the most was the littlest things that I could do, if I was just consistent with those little things, you know, I just get a little bit more, a tiny bit more.

Bryan Caldwell 39:03
And within two weeks of just being consistent every single day, the pain disappeared, and I had no clue. No one gave me any idea that that would happen. Same with, you know, my rehab now just working out every day that I started with being able to, I mean, it’s basically getting up sitting out, getting up sitting down, start doing that. That’s very difficult at first. Now, then I went to squatting one pound.

Bryan Caldwell 39:33
And that was a an achievement for me at the time. You know, just a couple weeks ago, I squatted 160 pounds. Wow, which was a big achievement for me personally, just to look back at where I started, where I am now, it just, you know, I just, that’s why it makes me want to keep going. I just want to do a little bit more.

Bill Gasiamis 39:56
It’s consistency definitely is, and that’s the thing. Be that’s really hard, a hard picture to paint to stroke survivors who are early on in their journey. You know where you were during covid, at the first few weeks out of hospital and at home and driving Brittany mental that time. It’s a real hard time to say to somebody, this is what’s possible. I know because I’ve seen I’ve seen it in 360 stroke survivors who I’ve interviewed. So like, you just have to do the work. You can’t just accept it, to expect it to turn up on your door and be ready for you to get back to normal.

Bill Gasiamis 40:39
You have to work hard, harder than you’ve ever had to work, maybe, but you have to be consistent. You have to have habits that are good, habits that serve you, not habits that are bad habits that don’t serve you. And then things improve, and you can have a What’s that like? More quality of life, a greater quality of life. And I know everyone has a different version of stroke, and some people start off with a really way worse version of it than others. I know that doesn’t mean anything.

Bill Gasiamis 41:09
Everyone can improve their situation by making some positive changes to their lifestyle, nutrition, mindset, physical, how physical they are, etc. You’re a classic case of it, because not only did you have a stroke, you have a new pancreas, you have new kidneys. I mean, you’re a proper miracle person.

Bryan Caldwell 41:35
Yeah, it’s not necessarily even working hard. It’s just coming, showing up every day and just putting in the little bit of work, the consistent work. I mean, you can work hard, and I after over time, I wanted to work harder. I wanted to make those big jumps in a little bit, you know, maybe a big chunk of function, who knows, but it’s a you don’t even realize it’s happening.

Bryan Caldwell 41:59
But the little bit you’re doing, maybe a month or two goes by and you realize I wasn’t able to do that a month ago. Wow, this is working. But, I mean, you look at a year in, in, you know, the past, and you’re like, wow, it’s gotten a lot better than it used to be, no matter what. And you know, there’s lots of regression from time to time, and that’s just natural. But who cares? Keep going.

Bill Gasiamis 42:26
Yeah, Brittany, is this the same guy you met was just a completely different version of him, like, I know there’s things that are familiar, you’ll recognize about him, that you fell in love with and all that kind of stuff. But are there two different versions of him, or is it kind of all molded into one, and is this is an enhanced version? Or even though he has deficits.

Bryan Caldwell 42:52
I’m better looking now.

Bill Gasiamis 42:55
No doubt, man, a good bottle of wine.

Bryan & Brittany Adjusting to New Normal and Personal Growth

Brittany 43:00
After the stroke, I yeah, I had a hard time, because I’m like, where did that person go? You know that I fell in love with and what he did, a lot of off the wall stuff in the hospital, and he would always joke around, and it was always a joke that I said, if you ever lost your sense of humor, I would leave you. And so he always tries to be funny, sometimes too funny and not the right situations. It probably took, I want to say, a year and a half to two years it took him to come back to the person that he was before.

Brittany 43:42
But different at the same time, where I would say more so now, like years later, now he he recognizes, you know, I shouldn’t have done that before my stroke. Like, I’m going to do better now, and I’m going to change this. It’s more of, I think, the Near Death Experiences that he probably had where he looks at it in just a completely different way of life. So he tries to live the most positive way.

Brittany 44:11
We have neighbors, and the one of the very first things that they always say is he’s one. He’s just always out doing stuff and on the go all the time, and he’s just such a positive person for everything that he’s went through.

Bryan Caldwell 44:27
He actually, he actually mentioned that I’m the most energetic person that he’s ever met. He’s like, I can’t do this. I need a nap during the day. I need two naps during the day. And I just, in my mind, I have so much to do. I have so much to take care of. I’m not working, so that means I need to switch roles and take care of the things that I can take care of.

Bill Gasiamis 44:51
Yeah, I love that you’re not working in a traditional way, but you’re doing stuff that needs to be done. It’s no different to. A mum, right? Who’s at home looking after the kids, going, Oh, I don’t work. And everyone going, Oh, she doesn’t work. She mustn’t do anything. But no, there’s a ton of stuff that gets done, but it’s just hard to for people to wrap their head around what work looks like. And that’s an identity issue that people have, if I’m not going to an office or to work, or to getting in a car, having to be somewhere by nine and then home by, you know, 5:36, o’clock.

Bill Gasiamis 45:28
If I’m not doing that, that means I’m not being productive, constructive, or something like that. But it you can, you can be productive and constructive in many other ways. You can volunteer, if you can for half an hour, or even an hour a day, you can or even an hour a week. It doesn’t even have to be a day, but you can participate in different tasks to feel like you’re working and being productive and constructive. That’s what and that kind of helps change your identity to see opportunities of what work could look like.

Bill Gasiamis 46:09
It doesn’t have to be the traditional form where somebody else makes the rules about how you turn up or what you do or how many hours you have to work for. You could change that. There’s an opportunity there, but it takes a while for the adjustment to occur and and for people’s identities to expand beyond you know that question that we always answer when we meet people at a party, you know, what do you do? So and if you don’t do something that’s interesting to them, they move on to the next person.

Bill Gasiamis 46:39
The conversation ends, and then they just go, that’s really interesting. So what’s it like for you, Brittany, to observe the whole miracle of medicine from an outsider? Firstly, diagnose, fix up, work out a stroke, then deal with pancreas, kidney failure and all that kind of stuff the donor as well. Can we talk about the donor in a little while? In a minute, what’s it like for you to observe all of the stuff that he’s been through as his wife?

Brittany 47:19
I definitely have said plenty of times, if I was in that situation, I could not have done it, just because there was so much going on it. And I’ve seen stories where someone has a stroke, and you know, they’re in the hospital for a few days, and then they go off to rehab, but he was in the hospital for two months straight because he had complication after complication after complication. And so it was that it was rehab, then it was the kidney pancreas transplant, and he was no longer a diabetic.

Brittany 47:54
And one of the things that I guess I never really considered or thought about was what he had to deal with as a type one diabetic, with all of his highs and lows of his sugars, and how that also affects him. And you know, he would go really high, and then he would give himself maybe too much insulin, and then he would wake up in the middle of the night, and then he would be low, and then he would drink juice or eat something to bring his sugar up. And then sometimes it was too much, so then he would be high again.

Brittany 48:23
And it was a never ending cycle of constantly worrying about sugar levels and how that affects him, whether or not he’s tired, he’s grumpy, you know, in whatever, in whatever way. And then, you know, after the transplant, that was just something that was a miracle that he got it done so quickly. And getting a kidney, new kidney, and a pancreas that, you know, creates insulin.

Bryan Caldwell 48:50
May have changed both of our lives.

Brittany 48:53
I never thought about being a donor like I was never a donor on my license. And after that experience, we watched a few movies about transplants, and then just the after of like, what kind of life that donor gave someone, and I’m like, You know what? Like, I want to be able to help someone, you know, if I’m no longer here, and just knowing that there was also children on the pancreas and kidney list, that was also like, man, if you know my son was on that list. I would want someone to help him.

Bill Gasiamis 49:24
Yeah. Are you waiting for that transplant, contemplating your days may be numbered?

Bryan Caldwell 49:36
No, I had heard, I mean, people can live on dialysis for years. It was, was it up to 10-15, years?

The Impact of the Transplant and Ongoing Challenges

Brittany 49:44
There was one guy that our nurse was telling us that he was still on dialysis after 20 years, and he didn’t want a transplant. I think it’s just more of how you take care of yourself during that process. And he was super. Strict, like, I was super strict on what I cooked, you know, and they had said, if you eat too much phosphorus, which was too much cheese and nuts, you can turn parts of your skin black, and parts of your skin can start falling off. And I don’t know if that’s just an over consumption, overeating and over, like, a 10 year period.

Brittany 50:18
But we were both like, yeah, no, we’re not doing that. So he cut out cheese, he cut out nuts, he did whatever he could to follow the diet as closely as possible. He was, he had lost, I don’t know, 50 pounds. And I mean, he looked very skinny because he didn’t have too much muscle, but he also, at the same time, looked very healthy.

Bill Gasiamis 50:43
And then you get the phone call, do you? How does that work? How does that go? What is it like? We have a liver and we’re sorry, we have a kidney set and pancreas for you. But how does it work?

Bryan Caldwell 50:55
Yeah, they kind of, they give you a whole hoop to jump through, as far as, like, what you need to do, what you need to be prepared for you gotta, you gotta do a pre op of everything, like a pre visit for this pre visit, for that, make sure you’re cleared, ready to go, because they give you, what, a couple hours. I mean, depending where you’re located, sometimes a lot of people have to, like, either drive really far or fly really far, and you have to be there within a small amount of time before that those organs go bad.

Bryan Caldwell 51:26
So luckily, the hospital I was being treated at was only 30 minutes away, or even 20 minutes away, so they gave us a call. We’re ready. I mean, they say, pack a bag. Pack this pack that we didn’t really have to do all that stuff. We were never burdened with, like, being make sure we’re ready, make sure we’re there on the minute. And, like, we only had minutes to spare. You know, we have 30 minutes, and I think we have like, three whole hours to, like, play with because we’re so close to the hospital, thank goodness.

Brittany 51:59
Yeah, I learned a lot about that process. Like, I called probably every week. Hey, what number is he on the list? Because the kidney pancreas list, compared to just the kidney list, is so much shorter. There might be two to 300 people on just the kidney list, but when you get dual organs, you’re on a much shorter list. And I guess you get, like, preferred, like, if you have multiple organs. And so I called, and I’m like, what number is he on? And he finally was, like, at number two when I had called one week. And so I’m like, Okay, it’s, it’s getting close, like, but they did one year.

Brittany 52:33
I think, the first year that he was on the list, they only did one kidney, pancreas transplant that entire year, and then the next year they had done, you know, six or seven, which was the year that he got called. And they called at eight o’clock at night, and they said, we have, or we have organs ready for you. You need to be here by 11. And I was like, Okay, we’ll be there. We get there. They put him through pre op. He was in the or by 4am and they told me it was going to be a four or five hour surgery. And so I went home, because they were like, go home, go sleep.

Brittany 53:09
So I’m like, okay, by the time I got home, I laid down for probably 20 minutes, and they said that he was out of surgery already. So it was a very quick surgery. But I drove back down there, and then they started freaking me out, because, apparently, because he had type one diabetes for 30 years, he had a lot of this. So they attached his kidney into his left leg artery.

Brittany 53:33
But having type one diabetes for so long, I guess it, it creates a lot of calcification in your arteries. So every time they tried to attach the kidney, it was like the vein was disintegrating. So they were having a hard time doing I’m like, what does that mean? They said, I don’t know. We, we, at first couldn’t find a pulse on his left leg. I’m like, so he gets a new kidney and loses a leg. Like, what is going on?

Bryan Caldwell 53:56
That was a big iffy of if they could, you know, it’s going to heal a little bit overnight to where it’s going to develop some blood. Develop some blood flow, and they can feel a pulse, and they’re like, Well, I can hear, while I was, you know, coming out of anesthesia, that, you know, we got to make sure we talk to his wife and let her know the complications. He could be losing a leg right now, and, you know, we’re barely feeling this pulse, and it needs to get better within 12 hours, or it’s not looking good. And I mean fate, it all worked out. And it just, you know, no complaints.

Bill Gasiamis 54:30
The things that have to line up, the amount of things that have to line up. But it starts with somebody needed to pass away.

Bryan Caldwell 54:37
Yeah. Look, I am very thankful for the cadaver, not the cadaver, the person that passed away, he was a very healthy person, so I got some great organs.

Bill Gasiamis 54:51
Did you get to find out who that person is?

Bryan Caldwell 54:55
I’m not supposed to, but my nurse has a. Big blabber mouth, and she gave me some information, but we still don’t know exactly. We just know the situation. So he was in a car accident. He was 29 years old.

Brittany 55:10
Maybe it was early 30. She says 31 male. That was about it.

Bryan Caldwell 55:17
And typically you get 30 to 40% kidney function with whoever is donating. And as mine was in, I mean, the first few weeks after the post op was like 75 or so. And then after that, a lot of recovery, I had jumped up to like 9090, 500% almost. So I still am floating around 90, 95% still, wow.

Bill Gasiamis 55:50
You mustn’t recognize yourself as well how you feel in your body, even though you have neuropathy and deficits, there’s other parts of you that have never worked so well. What? What is that contrast?

Bryan & Brittany Reflecting on the Journey and Future Goals

Bryan Caldwell 56:06
I mean, the only thing that I really noticed was, you know, with high blood sugar, your vision is off. It’s a little blurry sometimes. But after the the transplant, my vision cleared up for the most part. Like I felt like I was pretty close to 2020 vision. Wow. Although I had previously had, you know, it was like 10-20 in one eye. So I’m basically legally blind. But after the transplant, everything looked and, I mean, I just had so much more energy.

Bryan Caldwell 56:36
Not everything started working better, per se. But as far as, like, you know, I could eat different things now, and it took a long time for rehabilitation to, like, get everything to be working the way it’s supposed to be working. And then after that, like, I kind of just focus on doing the right things, and then as I did the right things, I just gained more and more energy.

Bill Gasiamis 57:00
And do you take anti rejection medication?

Bryan Caldwell 57:05
Yes, I there’s a few of them I take. And then as a whole, I probably take 20 different pills a day, maybe 25.

Bill Gasiamis 57:16
Yeah, spread throughout the day.

Bryan Caldwell 57:19
Along with my few stroke medications, and then all of the anti-rejection and sustaining medications.

Bill Gasiamis 57:28
Okay, so it’s still quite a regime of medications and things that you need to do to make sure things stay on point exactly.

Bryan Caldwell 57:39
It’s only day and night. There’s a few things here and there with typical transponders. Love UTI and you know, just little, little hiccups that you’re like. You better get that check out before it gets too serious. But other than that, you know, it’s life. Like said, the quality of life is much better. I’d rather take medicine and have to worry about my my organs all the time. So it’s life is so much more easier with this whole transplant.

Bill Gasiamis 58:10
Is the medication expensive to access?

Bryan Caldwell 58:14
I mean, if there’s no insurance involved, very much, I want to say it’s $10,000 a month, yeah, or more, luckily, we’re, we have great insurance, and I’m now under Medicare, being fully handicapped that, you know, I get that taken care of, and then I’m covered by her, her job also. So dual covered, you know, there’s small things we have to pay for here and there, but overall, it’s, it’s well covered, but in most situations, this isn’t what people experience.

Bill Gasiamis 58:45
Yeah, I remember guys an Instagram post where Bryan was talking about some modifications he was going to do to his car, and I think I encouraged it. Did they get done?

Brittany 58:59
Quite possibly. I mean, he’s tried. He’s told me, Hey, I think I want this. I’m like, No, we’re not doing that. He so when he first started driving in after his stroke, he was a little too worried about doing donuts in a field and ran into a pole. And he swears it wasn’t fast, but the second so that’s when his like brain switched from pseudobulbar crying to laughing all the time. So he pulls it up into the driveway, gets out, and just starts busting up laughing.

Brittany 59:34
And I’m like, What is going on? And what did you do? And I walk around the truck, and he had been in his bar, his fender was totally smashed. That was like a good $2,000 repair.

Brittany 59:45
So I’m like “No, it’s fine.”

Bill Gasiamis 59:51
Okay, so I see what you mean about like, it’s the suitable but maybe is taking away a little bit of. That caution as well. Perhaps it sounds like it’s taking away the the thinking part of the maybe I shouldn’t do this.

Bryan Caldwell 1:00:08
No, I think. It’s still there. It’s still impulsive. If I shouldn’t do it, I’m still going to do it.

Brittany 1:00:15
I think the pseudobulbar now is more of like, if he’s mad at me, or he thinks he’s mad at me. He can’t keep a straight face. And so I’ll be like, What are you laughing at? Or why are you doing that? And he’s like, stop. You know, I can’t help it. Just start laughing. And so then it kind of like eases the mood of like his frustration. And then he’s like, I’m laughing right now, but I’m really not inside. And I’m like, What are you?

Bill Gasiamis 1:00:39
Well, so the external, again, the external what’s what’s visible isn’t matching what’s internal. How?

Bryan Caldwell 1:00:51
So, yeah, but at the same time, it gets me thinking more, what am I a lot of times, what am I really mad at? Or, you know, it just helps me be more forgiving, well before, I was just so positive all the time and laughing and having fun to where now it’s like even more of my life to where I’m laughing having fun all the time, even the most unhealthy situations where I should be upset or mad or empathetic, but it’s always like making jokes, making jokes, making jokes. And I don’t know that maybe that has helped with my recovery. It’s just looking at the higher side of everything.

Bill Gasiamis 1:01:33
Look it’s definitely better than being angry for no for a reason or no reason, because the chemical structure in your body changes when you’re angry, it doesn’t become supportive of good health, cortisol, adrenaline, all that sort of stuff doesn’t help, especially if it’s on all the time. You know, these episodes help me be nicer too. I think because I remember, just last night, we had family over, about 20 of us. My my sons have their birthdays five days apart. One of them turned 25 yesterday, and the other one turned 29 five days ago.

Bill Gasiamis 1:02:16
And they both don’t live at home, but they kind of said, Should we get together for birthday? For our birthdays? I said, Yeah, we should get together and invited just the direct family, my wife’s sisters, my brother, my parents, and the kids from those families, like, it’s and the and girlfriends like, that’s 18 people, and it’s a Thursday night, so things get and it’s a bit hard. Everyone’s been at work all day. Everyone’s probably dead. I am. My wife’s at work, so I’m preparing everything, picking up, running around, doing all that stuff.

Bill Gasiamis 1:02:58
And then they all hang around and no one leaves. They’re still here at midnight, and I kind of want to send them off, but I didn’t say anything, because it’s a birthday party, right? What are you going to do? Just kick people out anyway. So I went to bed cranky, and my wife went to bed wiped out, like completely exhausted, and then I had three hours sleep, and then I woke up to go to the toilet, and I didn’t go back to sleep. So I am completely depleted. So then my wife, my wife wakes up at 5:30 or 5:40 in the morning to go for her morning walk.

Recovery and Motivation After Stroke

Bill Gasiamis 1:03:37
And then the cat won’t stop meowing. She just starts meowing and won’t shut up, which means that my alarm was supposed to go off at 630 so I do have some like in and out of consciousness for a couple of hours just before my alarm, and then the last 45 minutes, my cat ruins it by by meowing and being an idiot. So then I wake up and come and I’m completely grumpy, and I did not greet my wife appropriately in the morning when I woke up and when I left to go to set up my guys. I’ve got some guys doing some work nearby.

Bill Gasiamis 1:04:15
When I went to set him up for the day, meet, meet the client, etc, I left the house being a bit grumpier, or just, you know, sleep deprived, or all those things that happened. And I’m reflecting on it as you’re telling me your story about how you are, probably I don’t know what you said nicer, or something like that. And I reflect on how I behave based on how people tell me about their behavior and what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate, and it allows me to be a better person. So this is like my therapy session as well.

Brittany 1:04:55
So speaking of animals, your cat, um. Ironically, after Bryan got his transplant, about six months later, we found out our 11 year old dog was diabetic, so Bryan got rid of his diabetes, and then we have a dog that has diabetes, so we had to manage her food. We have to give her insulin, but she knows her schedule. So if you’re not up at 6am she’s barking at you every single day for the last two years.

Bryan Caldwell 1:05:27
But that was part of what was part of my routine, was mentally to get up, feed the dog, and that’s usually when I would start my workout, get that dogs all taken care of, and go up there, lift, my two pound weights, my three pound weights, whatever, and just the routine. Do, do the work like you don’t want to work hard, just show up.

Bill Gasiamis 1:05:50
You and the dog on a similar routine.

Bryan Caldwell 1:05:56
No doubt. But I mean that in itself is just something that was something that I clicked with, and I’m I’m holding on to that. So every day still, until she passes, that’s my routine, to get up every single day, take care of the dogs, go do my workout, and then these days, it’s take care of the dogs, and then by that time, my son’s waking up for school, so I either have to go take him to school, go get her coffee, whatever I’m gonna do, because she’s not gonna wake up for another couple hours, but I’m taking my jobs to take care of everyone in the morning.

Bill Gasiamis 1:06:35
What a slacker. Couple of extra hours. Oh my gosh. Uh, you know, when I wasn’t working, when I wasn’t able to work after I got home, after brain surgery, it was really important for me to look after the family, make sure that the kids were ready to go to school. They had, you know, their little bits and pieces, whatever they needed. And then when my wife got up, had breakfast and all that kind of stuff, and then left, I tidied, vacuumed again, you know, I couldn’t walk properly as still, and I wasn’t that active, but I could do the chores as slowly as I needed to.

Bill Gasiamis 1:07:15
But I could get them done by the end of the day. And then it was really important for me to have the meal prepared when everyone came home from work now they didn’t appreciate it like I did. Now, don’t get me wrong, they appreciated the meal, saying, of course, but I made it such a massive value for me that they just took it as well. He’s at home, of course, he’s going to have a meal for us, you know, like, that’s what happens when you come home from school and when you come home from work, because you’ve worked all day, your partner makes a meal.

Bill Gasiamis 1:07:47
So I remember having some episodes of perhaps they didn’t like the kids, didn’t like exactly what I was feeding them, or with their friends, they went and got some takeout just before they got home, or whatever, and then they weren’t completely hungry, and then I would be I’ve just been slaving over the oven all day. I’ve been doing all the chores, and now you’re not even eating my food. And I went, I became that guy. I became the whinging parent partner who in my attempt to make it, you know, what I valued, you know, something, make them value.

Bryan Caldwell 1:08:32
The same thing that you value, yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 1:08:34
I made it about me. You stopped being about them. I made it about me, and then I was whinging because I wasn’t being valued. Where, of course, they went back to normal. They just wanted to be normal. They wanted to go to work, they wanted to go to school, they wanted to come home. They didn’t want drama, stroke, drama, and all this stuff. But I couldn’t, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t stand I used to get really upset if it wasn’t, you know, to if they didn’t acknowledge, sir Bill, you know and Ha, make a fuss.

Bryan Caldwell 1:09:10
How you said it was kind of like your therapy in this conversation. Well, this is kind of like my therapy also, because I experienced the same exact thing where I expected them to appreciate it same way I valued it. And it wasn’t like that at all. So now it’s more like, hey, like, don’t care about what they think, what they should be thinking, or whatever I’m doing this because these are the cards I was dealt. These are the things I have to do. This is my job now.

Bill Gasiamis 1:09:42
Yeah, it’s it becomes more of a responsibility.

Bryan Caldwell 1:09:47
Which everyone’s able to do their thing, whatever it’s work, school, whatever I have to be the grease that greases the gears.

Bill Gasiamis 1:09:58
Yeah, I love it. It’s, it’s finding your place again and then doing it wholeheartedly and not expecting all the fanfare afterwards, you know, just because you did your bit.

Bryan Caldwell 1:10:15
I never really breathed at the after my stroke, like everyone says I would be but that’s the one thing I struggled with, was seeing perspective of what I see compared I want people to understand what I see, and that’s just not the case. They’re never going to understand I mean, yeah, you can have similar stories of different stroke patients, and they’ll understand a lot better, but no one’s going to understand you exactly how you’re feeling.

Bill Gasiamis 1:10:43
Yeah, Brittany, from a partner’s perspective, there’ll be partners listening to this now probably, you know, with the stroke survivor caregivers partners, they’ll be listening to this. What would your advice be to someone who’s a partner who’s going through this right now?

Bryan & Brittany – Perspective on Life Post-Stroke

Brittany 1:11:08
Man, that’s a tough one. I have really had to kind of try and understand from his perspective, because, like, we were just talking about, you know, being valued, and he would be so upset if I didn’t say, you know, thank you for doing the laundry today, or thank you for doing the dishes. And in my head, I’m like, You did an adult chore, like, Congratulations, you won a reward. Like, why are you wanting so much praise for that? But then at the same time, you know, for a long time I had to realize, like, okay, it takes me no effort, little to no effort, to do, do the dishes or cook dinner.

Brittany 1:11:47
But it takes him 10 times more effort than what it would have taken me. And so, I mean, I’ve struggled with that this entire time, where I don’t always see it from his perspective and what he’s trying to say. And, you know, understand from that, at least in my situation, it does get better, it as long as the recovery is still continuing and the person who had the stroke is still wanting to get better, you know, on a day to day basis, because that’s really what’s going to change the overall outcome of the situation.

Bill Gasiamis 1:12:23
It’s about both of you getting better, recovering, growing. Yeah, same time, isn’t it? Yeah, definitely. What about you, Bryan, all of the stuff that you’ve been through, you’ve probably got, I’m going to use a big word here for you. Maybe it’s not true, but we’re gonna apply it to each other. Wisdom. You got some wisdom about life now and about how to tackle these things. What wisdom would you like to impart on people that are going through it right now.

Bryan Caldwell 1:12:55
Not trying to drill into your partner or any kind of person’s head about seeing it from your perspective, that’s just one thing that’s separate. But the thing that really helped me the most was celebrating. I mean, you can’t celebrate physically or with your partner or whatever if something mentally you feel like you’re achieving or you’re you’ve had a win in any way, like you did the dishes for the first time, you vacuumed for the first time, you drove for the first time, whatever it may be, celebrate it mentally. If it pumped you up, like, let that keep you going.

Bill Gasiamis 1:13:36
Yeah, that’s really good advice, because you can celebrate little things. People will celebrate tying their shoelaces again for the first time, or putting a band, a hair, a hair band around, you know, the daughter’s hair, or whatever, or helping one of the kids do something that they haven’t been able to do for a while. They are such important things because it starts to sort of create a glimmer of hope, of well, if I’ve done that, what else can I do now?

Bill Gasiamis 1:14:10
And I think sometimes it’d be great if the caregiver had that awareness to sort of say, do you know that x time ago, you weren’t doing that, or you weren’t able to do that, or when you weren’t capable of that, I think that’s kind of how you can motivate somebody with very little effort, is just say, you know, three months ago, you weren’t doing any of that, now you’re doing all of that. Sometimes the stroke survivor doesn’t see it. I didn’t realize my speech was improving. Of course, my wife did, but she didn’t say, by the way, your speech is much, much better.

Bill Gasiamis 1:14:49
My psychologist did, though she said to be oh my gosh, since the last time I’ve seen you, you’re speaking much better, more clearly. You’re finishing. Of sentences you seem to get it be getting stuck less in your thoughts before the sentence comes out. And that was really helpful. That was really something that made a big difference, just bringing people, bringing into my awareness what I didn’t notice. I think that’s what you’re saying, and then celebrating it.

Brittany 1:15:22
I think, as a caregiver, sometimes when you’re in that situation day to day, you don’t necessarily recognize it, where someone who doesn’t see you as often might recognize it quicker. It’s kind of like Logan, if someone doesn’t see him for a year and they see him, they’re like, Wow, you’ve grown so tall, whereas there’s a lot of stuff happening that he was doing that probably should have been, you know, celebrated. But looking back now, it’s like, yeah, there was a lot of he got on a dirt bike when he probably shouldn’t have.

Brittany 1:15:56
He rode a bicycle fairly quickly. He laced up, you know, Logan’s shoes. There was just a bunch of little things over time that he probably mentally took a note of and celebrated, whereas I watched him do all of it. It just, I don’t know, it just almost sometimes didn’t seem like reality, like he didn’t know how to do it and was relearning all of it.

Bill Gasiamis 1:16:20
Yeah, everyone’s gonna observe it very, very differently, and that’s really the important thing. And I suppose what we’re saying is just bringing attention to how helpful it is when you notice something in yourself as the stroke survivor, and then the caregiver in the stroke survivor by being able to just motivate, I think it’s a I think it does a lot of motivational good to say, X months ago, you weren’t doing that, even though you’re doing it badly. You don’t know what I mean, like writing, even if your writing is terrible. X months ago, you weren’t even doing that.

Bill Gasiamis 1:17:00
So now it’s improved out of sight, you know. So I really appreciate the update on this. I just love good story, a good kind of not end, but a continuation, like a chapter two, or what episode two of, well, it’s exactly what it is, right? Episode Two, yeah. So I just love that you guys are here, that you’re I get to see you again. I get to experience how far you’ve both grown, how much recovery has happened, how much you guys have been able to be the recipients of good fortune.

Bill Gasiamis 1:17:40
Because I think, I think part of it is you, like it’s it’s good fortune, but it’s also you, you seem to be able to find the things that you need to find just at the right time to benefit from.

Bryan Caldwell 1:18:01
It’s energy is attracted to different positive energies. So maybe, I don’t know if it’s fate, maybe it could be science. Who knows? But overall, energy was connected at the right spots of good energy, and all in all, I mean, I’m not going to say great experience, but, like, it’s a great experience.

Bill Gasiamis 1:18:27
That’s weird to hear, though, isn’t it? It’s weird to say even.

Closing Remarks and Acknowledgements

Brittany 1:18:31
Yeah, definitely. I Yeah. I think when you when we talk about the stroke and how it happened, and he always talks about fate. He had the same kidney doctor in the hospital that he did outpatient during dialysis, and I didn’t, I guess, recognize how bad it was. And she saw him for one of the first times that he was out of the hospital, and she goes, Wow, you look so good. And she had basically said we were waiting for you to just die in the hospital because your kidney function was so bad, and so she goes to see you walking today is a miracle.

Brittany 1:19:05
And so fate, like again, they had said, if he didn’t have the stroke, he would have died in his sleep, fairly it would have been quick, like within the next few weeks or the few months, he would have died.

Bill Gasiamis 1:19:17
These are the dumb reasons why people say stroke is the best thing that happened to them. I mean, it’s just, do you know, like, that’s I say that stroke is the best thing that happened to me. When I first said, I thought, What a dumb thing to say. And when I’ve shared that with some people, some people have taken that really badly. And it’s not that I am encouraging people to have a stroke, and the only way to discover your kidney failure is through stroke.

Bill Gasiamis 1:19:45
And you know, like, clearly, look after yourself, go to the doctor, get your regular checkups, do all of that all the time. But I don’t know, like, I wouldn’t, oh, my God. I. Wouldn’t change it. I don’t know if I would. It’s weird. It’s weird to say.

Bryan Caldwell 1:20:05
A perspective on life is totally different. It was before my stroke, and I’m sure a lot of different survivor strokes, that I couldn’t look at life the same way as I did 1020, years ago, like I just went day to day, did my routine of work nine to five, basically, and not trying to be or do more, just kind of being complacent. And now I’m not complacent. I want to do the most. I want to make most of not my life, but my situation.

Bryan Caldwell 1:20:40
And I’m not just, you know, my goal isn’t just to motivate people. It’s to make a better situation for my family, for myself, like I don’t really focus on anyone else when I have extra time, I love to focus on other people and give them my attention. Do what makes me feel good? As you know that makes you feel fulfilled to do that type of stuff, but overall, it’s for me and my family. That’s all I really focus on.

Bill Gasiamis 1:21:08
I love it. And you know what it is, Bryan, it’s a great example. So when Logan goes through his own life and has adversity, and he can sort of go, Well, how am I supposed to tackle this? He’s got one, well, two amazing examples of how to tackle a terrible time in your life. You know it’s he’s lived it both with you and both with and with Brittany. And you can go, oh, yeah, I know. I know one way that they did it and it led to good outcomes, so maybe I could start there. And I think that is such an amazing gift to give to somebody.

Brittany 1:21:51
Yeah. And I think he even recognizes, like a lot of you know, what we all went through to just probably last year, the year before, I remember him coming home from school, and he goes, this girl, she she went in the corner because she was having anxiety because she didn’t get to see her mom all day or something like that. And he goes, Do they not realize I didn’t see my dad for three months? And I was like, that’s not an everyday thing that people go through, but you went through it and you got through it. Look at it from that kind of perspective.

Bill Gasiamis 1:22:27
It’s completely different perspective for a kid that age, isn’t it? For an 11 year old.

Bryan Caldwell 1:22:32
Yeah, it’s amazing right now. I think the only focus for him that he’s back to normal life, he’s he’s a much more critical thinker than he was back then. I mean, he’s only 11, so right now it’s, you know, I can’t afford this Pokemon card, so I gotta figure out a way to make enough money to buy this Pokemon card. So those he likes to find different ways to motivate himself, which I can only imagine he can receive from our experience.

Bill Gasiamis 1:23:00
Yeah, problem solving. I love it. Hey guys, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I really appreciate it getting to chat to you again and hearing the follow up and seeing how amazing you’re doing. And I wish you both, all three amazing health continued from here on.

Bryan Caldwell 1:23:23
Well, nice talking to you, Bill. Good to see you. It was nice to chat with you again.

Bill Gasiamis 1:23:29
Well, that brings us to the end of this episode. I want to thank you for being here, whether you’ve subscribed on YouTube, left a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts, brought a copy of my book or simply chosen not to skip the ads. Every bit of support helps this podcast reach survivors who need it most. And a special thanks to my Patreon supporters. You’re helping me keep this work going one conversation at a time.

Bill Gasiamis 1:23:53
If you’d like to join us there, you can find the link at patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke, remember, recovery isn’t about going back to who you were. It’s about discovering who you can become. Keep enduring, keep becoming and I’ll see you in the next episode.

Intro 1:24:09
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