Socials:
Karen Moorman: https://instagram.com/stroke_sur_vivor/
Ralph Anania https://instagram.com/ralphanania/
Amy Wells https://www.instagram.com/theaimzrecovery/
Ginger Burden https://www.instagram.com/ginburd/
Transcription:
Hey, it’s Bill from recoveryafterstroke.com. And today, I just wanted to give you guys a bit of an update, just let you know where things are at. And also, I wanted to do a few shout-outs because in my world, there’s a lot of people that have reached out to give me a hand when I’ve needed a hand.
And I just wanted to acknowledge those people and let them know what I think of them in a nice way. Now, the first person I wanted to talk about was Ginger Burden, I came across Ginger Burden on Instagram. Following that I have an Instagram now, by the way, is 4000 or more people are following the recovery after stroke Instagram page.
And I think that’s amazing, that allows me to interact with a lot of stroke survivors talk about some really important stroke issues and ask a lot of questions and get a lot of feedback. And it’s also where I post snippets of the podcast interviews where I interview stroke survivors from around the world and share their stories.
And I interact with a lot of people from all over the world, it’s really amazing that I have the opportunity to, after a stroke to connect with so many people now that are like me, and I don’t think this would have been possible in the past, before Instagram, and before the internet.
And it’s a really amazing part of the world that we live in right now. I’m also able to connect with people from all over the world, from the comfort of my own home without having to leave and go anywhere it’s just phenomenal.
So I’m extremely grateful for that. But most importantly, for this post, I’m very grateful for the fact that I contacted ginger to be on the podcast some time ago. And she was on episode 97 and Ginger had a cavernous angioma that burst in her head and caused bleeding in her brain.
And she, of course, wasn’t aware of that. And in the podcast episode, we spoke about her facing a new reality after the impact of the stroke and the challenges that the burst cavernoma created.
And we also spoke about when partners become stroke carers. And we spoke about how animals are really important in recovery, in recovery and how having lovely and beautiful animals around us and supporting us is a really useful and helpful thing, I think, both for us and the animals.
And we also spoke about a stroke recovery mindset. Now, I know that Ginger has been doing a tough recently, she posts about that on her Instagram. And she has been doing a tough I think because she lost her beloved pet. And I just wanted to say I know what that feels like and I, you know, I’m sorry that that happened.
But most importantly, a little while ago, I also reached out to ginger to help me out with some other stuff that I was doing offline. And she said yes, immediately. This is somebody that I’ve only met once through a podcast interview, and she went out of her way to really help me out.
And this makes a massive difference to me. So I really appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that Ginger is aware how much that means to me. And I had thanked her privately, but not to this extent. And I think she deserves a lot more credit for that she is a stroke survivor, she’s doing a tough, she’s got her own stuff on her plate.
And in my opinion, you know, it was just an amazing thing that she gave me another hour of her time. I really appreciate that when people give me their time, it’s one of the most important things that I can ask for It’s such an amazing gift.
So if you wanted to catch up with Ginger and see what she posts about and connect with her, you know she’s a young stroke survivor, you can get in touch with her instagram.com/ginburden I’ll have all the links to all the people that I’m going to mention on the notes at the bottom of this post.
So I also wanted to give a shout-out to Amy Wells from theaimzrecovery. So her Instagram profile is theaimzrecovery. And Amy is also a young stroke survivor and again she was on my podcast she was on episode 114 and Amy had a stroke because of a vertebral artery dissection and in her podcast episode, she spoke about the issues that caused her life before stroke what that was like her post-stroke realizations and What all that meant?
She spoke about uncertainty in the future. And she also spoke about turning around turning corners and in her recovery and making headway towards getting better or achieving something of normal life and getting back there. It’s a really cool episode. It’s Episode 114, and you can get all these episodes at recoveryafterstroke.com/episodes.
There’s a whole bunch of them, they’re about 140 by now. But Amy is somebody that posts similar things to me, but she has a kind of a different audience, right, because she’s a female, she’s a young stroke survivor. And she also posts things that are related to supporting other people.
She also does from time to time, a zoom support call, all you got to do is dm her and you can have a chat with her. And you can connect with somebody that’s like you and similar to you.
And her bio on the Instagram page reads, recovery told with personality & positivity, spreading hope within her community and the weekly zoom support call, chat dm for info.
So really cool person to get to know and really cool, supportive member of the community. I mean, there are so many supportive members in this community. When I post, you know, I can get 250 comments on one of my posts. And that’s all people sharing their stroke support, it’s all people sharing their stories, it’s all people connecting and feeling normal in a community where it’s possible to very easily feel isolated and feel like you’re the only one that’s going through that.
So check out Amy’s Instagram, she also jumped on board as soon as I asked for support offline. And I get constantly amazed by the willingness of people to help and it’s just really amazing, and heartwarming. And I really truly appreciate it. So I wanted to just do this shout-out and let you guys know how fantastic this community is, and how amazing Amy has been to me so far.
Now, there’s also another person that I want to have some time to acknowledge. And recently I put out on my personal Facebook page, I put out a request for somebody to put me in touch with an editor of books, because I’ve got this idea for a book. And through a couple of connections on Facebook where I don’t really post about my stroke stuff or anything like that.
I had somebody make a suggestion to this particular feed that a gentleman by the name of Ralph Anania contacted me to have a discussion about my ideas and my thoughts about this book that I’m thinking about.
And Ralph contacted me. And again, a stranger never met him before spent an hour with me discussing his method, the way he went about writing a book and putting it out into the world. And he really gave me a lot of time, he really gave me his undivided attention and his support.
And I really appreciated that. So I just wanted to have a shout-out to Ralph Anania. And you can get Ralph at Instagram as well. And his Instagram page is basically @RalphAnania, again, I’ll have the link at the bottom of this post.
So that’s not the most amazing part that that is a really cool, amazing part. The other thing that was amazing is that a couple of days later I received in the mail, Ralph’s book Life Done Right and Ralph’s, not a stroke survivor, but he’s somebody who’s had his own set of challenges like most of us in life, and he has written a book to inspire and help other people overcome their own personal challenges, personal life issues.
And I’m halfway through the book. And it’s a really amazing book, there are some stories that I can relate to that he’s telling you in his life. And there are some solutions that he went about, that he was able to implement that are transferable to my life. So I’m getting a lot out of this book.
Now, it’s only a couple of 100 pages long, but it’s jam-packed full of really cool information. And the wording is nice and big. So it’s really easy for my brain and for my head to get around. Because I really struggle with a lot of information on a page.
And it’s actually nice and colorful, and it has quotes and a whole bunch of other stuff. So this is a shout-out to Ralph for helping me out answering my questions, and really making me feel good about my idea and encouraging me to follow my dream of writing this book, amongst other things.
So that’s a shout-out to Ralph going out and check out his page. He is an Australian as well. He’s an award-winning entrepreneur. He’s a keynote speaker. He’s a business coach. I mean, he’s all sorts of amazing things so that’s that.
And then just to end this on a bright note, because it was always going to be a really cool post, I want to talk about another person who I had on my podcast recently. And that’s Karen Moorman and Karen was on episode 139.
And Karen experienced a cryptogenic stroke, which means that they don’t know what the underlying cause of the stroke was. And, you know, let’s basically put it this way, like it messed with her, and it’s caused some problems. And we spoke about how she thought what she was experiencing was a migraine, it turned out to be a stroke.
She also has post-stroke deficits that she’s dealing with and trying to recover from. And she also spoke about the recovery mindset. And the years of the debilitating migraines that you hit have gone away because of the stroke.
So go figure something that good has come out of a stroke. So in the conversation on our podcast episode, we also spoke about how I ride an electric bike now it’s got a motor in it, and it helps me pedal, which means that I can actually ride a bike, my left side doesn’t cramp up and get fatigued as quickly as it used to on my regular bike, which I stopped riding, and I couldn’t ride for many years.
So this was a really good solution. And I mentioned this to Karen. And then her husband listened to the podcast, and he went out and bought her an electric bike. And Karen posted a video of herself riding the electric bike. And now she’s able to tag along with her husband and go for bike rides, which she hasn’t been able to do for a while.
And that’s really, really cool, right? So I felt really good about that episode. Anyhow, a little while later in the mail arrives this T-shirt all the way from the United States of America to Australia to the land down under.
This is the T-shirt. And it’s my logo. It’s the recovery after stroke logo, and it’s on a T-shirt, and it’s my size. And it came from America from Karen, they sent this to me as a thank you. And I really truly appreciate it. So these are just some of the amazing things that are happening in my community.
This is some of the amazing things that are happening because we are interacting with each other because we are supporting each other and because we are helping each other. I get so much out of the podcasts personally, they do a lot for me. And I’m hoping they do a lot for you.
The feedback that I get from the people listening is that they are really life-changing. And they’re really helpful. So I’m just glad, I’m glad because that’s why I’m doing it, I’m doing it because I want it to be life-changing and helpful. And I want people not to feel like I felt, you know when I had the first bleed back in February 2012, the second bleed in March 2012, and then brain surgery in November 2014.
So if you are somebody who is interested in being a guest on my podcast reaching out, just send me a DM we’ll see if we can make it happen. Thank you so much for following me. Thank you so much for interacting with my content. Thank you to the people that have reached out and helped me when I’ve asked I really appreciate it. And yeah, that’s it. I’m just very grateful and thankful. So thanks again Bill from recoveryafterstroke.com Bye for now.