Stroke Symptoms for Men: What You Need to Know
When you hear the word “stroke,” the first thing that comes to mind might be the FAST checklist: Facial droop, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, and Time to call emergency services.
While these are critical warning signs, they’re not the whole picture, especially for men. Stroke symptoms for men can sometimes be subtle, misleading, or even mistaken for other health issues. Knowing what to look for can mean the difference between life and death, or between a long recovery and a shorter one.
Why Stroke Symptoms Can Look Different in Men
The biological and lifestyle factors that influence stroke risk can also influence how symptoms show up.
Men may:
- Experience sudden weakness or numbness without noticeable facial droop
- Mistake early symptoms for fatigue, stress, or muscle strain
- Ignore warning signs because they don’t feel “serious enough.”
- Present with cardiac-like symptoms such as arm pain or chest discomfort
This makes awareness and action absolutely essential.
Common Stroke Symptoms in Men
While everyone should know the FAST signs, men should also be aware of these additional symptoms:
- Sudden loss of balance or coordination
- Vision changes in one or both eyes
- Sudden confusion or trouble understanding speech
- Severe, unexplained headache (often described as “the worst ever”)
- Sensation changes such as tingling or numbness in the limbs
- Sudden weakness in an arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
- Feeling unusually hot or sweaty without cause
- Rapid spike in blood pressure
If any of these appear suddenly, treat them as a medical emergency. Even if the symptoms fade quickly, it could be a transient ischemic attack (TIA) — a serious warning sign for a future stroke.
What Is an Ischemic Stroke?
An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks blood flow to part of the brain. This is the most common type of stroke, making up about 87% of all cases.
Two main types are:
- Thrombotic stroke: A clot forms in a blood vessel supplying the brain.
- Embolic stroke: A clot forms elsewhere in the body and travels to the brain.
In both cases, brain cells begin to die within minutes. Quick treatment can save brain tissue and improve recovery outcomes.
Why Men Sometimes Delay Treatment
Men are statistically more likely to delay seeking help when symptoms are mild, intermittent, or don’t match their idea of what a stroke looks like. Common reasons include:
- Believing it’s “just stress” or fatigue
- Not wanting to “bother” anyone
- Thinking symptoms will go away on their own
- Prioritising work or family commitments over immediate care
Unfortunately, every minute counts during a stroke. The sooner treatment begins, the better the chances of minimizing long-term damage.
What to Do If You Suspect a Stroke
- Call emergency services immediately — don’t drive yourself.
- Note the time symptoms began — this affects treatment options.
- Stay as still and calm as possible until help arrives.
- Do not eat or drink; you may need urgent surgery or medication.
Life After Stroke: A Lifelong Recovery Journey
For many men, stroke recovery is not a “three-month sprint” but a lifelong process. The early days often bring the biggest visible improvements, but smaller gains can still happen months or even years later.
Recovery may include:
- Physiotherapy to regain strength and mobility
- Occupational therapy to improve daily function
- Speech therapy if communication has been affected
- Ongoing management of blood pressure, cholesterol, and lifestyle factors
The key is consistent effort and a positive mindset, even when progress feels slow.
Preventing a First or Second Stroke
Men can lower their stroke risk — or prevent a recurrence by:
- Taking prescribed medication consistently
- Monitoring blood pressure regularly
- Eating a balanced diet low in processed foods
- Staying physically active within personal limits
- Avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol
- Keeping follow-up appointments with healthcare providers
Final Word
Stroke symptoms for men aren’t always obvious. You might feel “off” without knowing why, or experience symptoms that seem unrelated to the brain. That’s why awareness is so important and why taking action immediately is the best decision you can make for your future self.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the first stroke symptoms in men?
The most common early stroke symptoms for men include sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body, facial droop, difficulty speaking, loss of balance, vision changes, and severe headache. However, some men experience subtler signs such as arm pain, feeling unusually hot, or sudden confusion. - Can stroke symptoms in men be different from women?
Yes. While many symptoms overlap, men may be more likely to present with weakness, numbness, or trouble walking, while women sometimes experience additional symptoms like nausea, hiccups, or chest pain. - What is the difference between an ischemic stroke and other types of stroke?
An ischemic stroke happens when a blood clot blocks blood flow to the brain. This is different from a hemorrhagic stroke, which occurs when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures. Ischemic strokes are the most common type, accounting for around 87% of all strokes. - How quickly should you get medical help if you notice symptoms?
Immediately. Every minute counts during a stroke. Prompt medical treatment can limit brain damage and improve recovery chances. Even if symptoms fade quickly, it could be a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which is a major warning sign for a future stroke. - What is the best treatment for an ischemic stroke?
Treatment often includes clot-busting medication (tPA) if given within a certain time window, or mechanical thrombectomy to physically remove the clot. The choice depends on how quickly you get to hospital, the stroke’s location, and your overall health. - Can men fully recover after an ischemic stroke?
Many men make significant recoveries, but outcomes vary depending on the severity of the stroke, how quickly treatment began, and commitment to rehabilitation. Recovery may be a lifelong process, with gains possible months or years later.
Disclaimer
This blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making any changes to your health or recovery plan.
Stroke Symptoms for Men: Kevin Nakawatase’s Ischemic Stroke Story
Kevin’s ischemic stroke began with symptoms most men overlook — his recovery shows why awareness and action matter.
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Highlights:
00:00 Kevin Nakawatase’s Stroke Symptoms and Initial Reactions
05:18 Kevin’s Initial Stroke Symptoms
13:01 Accepting The Reality of Stroke
16:46 Dealing With Post-Stroke Paralysis
21:10 Having a Recovery Mindset
30:35 The Small Changes After The Stroke
38:14 Stroke Recovery During COVID
45:05 Advocacy and Community Involvement
50:16 Sharing Different Versions of Stroke
Transcript:
Introduction – Stroke Symptoms For Men: Kevin Nakawatase’s Initial Reactions
Bill Gasiamis 0:00
Before we dive in, a big thank you to Banksia Tech for supporting this episode, proud distributors of the Hanson rehab glove by Syrebo. It’s designed to help stroke survivors improve hand function at home, whether you’re early in recovery or years into it, you’ll hear more about it later in this episode.
Bill Gasiamis 0:20
Links are in the YouTube description and at recoveryafterstroke.com What if the signs of stroke didn’t match the fast checklist at all? No facial droop, no slurred speech, no obvious weakness, just a sore shoulder, a strange heat in your body and a gut feeling something wasn’t right.
Bill Gasiamis 0:40
That’s how it started for Kevin nakawatasi On Christmas Eve, within hours, the celebration turning into a medical emergency, and Kevin was facing complete paralysis on his left side. But this is not just a story about symptoms and hospital stays. It’s about the quiet discipline it takes to keep showing up for recovery even years later, it’s about finding purpose through advocacy and community, and learning that the plateau is just another phase to push through.
Bill Gasiamis 1:11
If you’ve ever been told you’ll never get that back, if you felt your progress was slow and wondered if it’s worth the effort, if you want proof that more recovery is possible long after the early months, then this episode is for you. Let’s dive in. Kevin Nakawatase, welcome to the podcast.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:31
Thanks for having me.
Bill Gasiamis 1:32
Thank you for being here. Tell me a little bit about if you can remember, because it was a while ago what life was generally like for you before the stroke.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:44
Oh, my life was fairly active. I played sports year round, ice, hockey, golf for the main things, and baseball, they’re the three. I played year round. Well, hockey year round, because we can play year round because of the weather. Baseball and golf for more seasonal so from April till about October, and then that’s been basically I spent my life, and then I work for an events company.
Kevin Nakawatase 2:11
I’ve been doing that for over 30 years, and married, no kids, and just living life vicariously through. I guess what we’re supposed to do when we get, you know, as we were taught by our parents, that, you know, get married and have a good life and things like that, save your money all those different things, right? So that was the standard fare.
Kevin Nakawatase 2:35
That was things, you know, I was working at the church and stuff. When I was more in the youth age, I wanted to be a Olympic coach was sort of my ambitious goal when I was trying to when I was going to school, I took I graduated through that degree in in Toronto, and the plan was to go to teach at a high school and then, and then end up in the Olympics.
Kevin Nakawatase 3:00
But some things changed during my like course of doing something like that, so I got into the events game, really enjoy it, and I’m still teaching people, because, you know, you manage people. I worked in retail as well for a while, so all these different things came at me where I continue worked with people, and that’s basically what I wanted to do my whole life, is work with people. So I’ve run camps, you know? I’ve coached teams, and even after the stroke, it continues on right now as as we speak.
Bill Gasiamis 3:33
Yeah, in 2014 How old were you?
Kevin Nakawatase 3:36
I was 54 when this all happened, so I am 10 years along now.
Bill Gasiamis 3:42
Did you have a sense of your health back then? How it was? Did you consider yourself healthy, unfit, any of that kind of stuff?
Kevin Nakawatase 3:51
Yeah, I was on blood medication, pills. Did I take it regularly? No, was I should I’ve been in better shape? Yes, but I wasn’t Should I’ve taken care of my health? Yeah, I think I took my health for granted, like most people do, and then, little did I know, until my mother, just before a passing we found out my mom had many TIAs, so she had two of them in her lifetime, and we had no my brother and I, my our family had no idea this was going on.
Kevin Nakawatase 4:22
The only thing we kind of knew was mom kind of we thought she was getting lazy, in terms of, like, she was starting to use a walker more. She wouldn’t walk. She needed help. We she wasn’t that old, like at the time, she’s, like, in her late 70s. And we didn’t really think, you know, she seemed really good, but then with the walker we bought, we almost as a mistake, because we thought, because she had the walker, she wanted us to push.
Kevin Nakawatase 4:48
But little did we realize that she actually was having strokes and that caused her to stop walking. So after you hear all that, you know the hereditary and getting a stroke and all that. You know, part of the gene the gene pool, I guess, led to what’s happened, what happened to me on Christmas Eve is when I had mine.
Bill Gasiamis 5:12
Do you recall that day? Was it normal? Was it any sense that there was anything wrong?
Kevin’s Initial Stroke Symptoms
Kevin Nakawatase 5:18
No, um, so what happened was, I was wrapping gifts. We’re going to go to our in laws, my Greek in laws, by the way, we’re going to go to their place for Christmas Eve. I had a sore shoulder, so my left shoulder is really sore, and I kind of got up and I was sitting on the floor wrapping. I got up and I kind of lost my balance a little bit, but I just attributed to I’ve been sitting for a couple hours wrapping gifts and that. So, you know, nothing special.
Kevin Nakawatase 5:44
So I got ready to go out, we ended up at my in laws place, but once I got to my in laws place, I didn’t feel good. I felt really off. We were talking about winters. So it was really cold. It was like minus 20 out. But I had my jacket off, like I was standing with a shirt on that was it, because it was so hot. So my in laws saw me, and they said, you should go to the hospital just get looked at.
Kevin Nakawatase 6:08
Thank God, I took their advice. Went down to the hospital, and the thing they were doing was checking me for heart attack because I had a sore arm, sore left arm, which is the proverbial sign, you know, we have FAST for stroke, but you know, with heart attack, it’s usually sore arm. And you know, chest pains, obviously. But I had no chest pains, so we did the ECG, everything.
Kevin Nakawatase 6:33
So I missed the opportunity to get the medication as well. But we did all the ECG, nothing. My doctor was going to send me home that night. He just said, look, we can’t find nothing. You seem fine. I said, I could have told you I have a, you know, my arm. And then all of a sudden, before I was leaving the hospital, my blood pressure went up to 220, over 120 which at the time is then now you’ve got some issues. There’s something going on to have your blood pressure that high.
Kevin Nakawatase 7:04
So he did some more tests, and he found out. He did MRI or a CT scan, and they found the block at the back of my right side. And so he said, You’re having a stroke. So I said, Oh, okay, now what? And that was the beginning of my next life. What now? What is sort of the whole, you know, like everyone that’s had a stroke, what now?
Bill Gasiamis 7:31
Yeah, so then you’re having a stroke, you get admitted, they intervened. How did they intervene? What happens with the clot in the back of the neck?
Kevin Nakawatase 7:42
So I’m assuming they were going to, they didn’t go in and take it out or anything, nothing, because they’ve seen it. I saw the the X ray or CT scan, and saw the lump, and I guess they filled me up with or give me medication intravenously for about probably close to a week, I had it from the day went in and then until I got moved over three days later, yeah, so roughly, for about almost a week, about five days, I was on some kind of intravenous.
Kevin Nakawatase 8:16
So I guess the medication they gave me was to, I guess, eliminate the the clot as it was going, I guess it did or whatever. Because even when I moved to my rehab hospital, doctor didn’t understand why I was still my blood pressure was still so high. But the doctor at my first place, he’s a neurosurgeon, said we’re going to keep you on a higher level that way, as you decline down, your body won’t get into a shock of having a stroke.
Kevin Nakawatase 8:48
So I did have a typical stroke, like most people were. I didn’t have FAST. If you had to talk to me, fast would have been way online, because I didn’t have, you know, droopy face. I wasn’t slurring my words. I had nothing like, you know, that was it, was just all physical inside, nothing outside that people would have recognized.
Bill Gasiamis 9:12
Same here. But you seem nonchalant about it now. We’re chatting about it like it’s something that happened in the past. And it definitely is right. But what was it like to receive that news? How did you respond at that moment?
Kevin Nakawatase 9:30
So the day I found out, it was like midnight, Christmas Eve, they had a transfer in by ambulance. And you know, it’s Christmas morning, there’s nothing going on, no traffic. So they transferred me from a hospital over to another hospital, which is happened to be about five minutes away. So I get in there, and I start talking to the I had a nurse, a male nurse, who was in my I was in ICU, and for 48 hours he’s he was talking. You mean all that I made my peace with God.
Kevin Nakawatase 10:03
I know it sounds weird, I got mad at him, I basically told him I used the four letter word in my head. I didn’t yell in the hospital, but I kind of said to God. I just said, look, I have no idea what the hell’s going on, but if you’re going to give me this, if this is what you want from me, this is, you know, I’m religious, but you know, I don’t, I don’t practice. And I just said, look, if you want me to work hard to get better, and this is your sign, then, you know, let me get better.
Kevin Nakawatase 10:36
But do me one favor, I’ll work hard to recover. I will do whatever it takes, whatever direction you send me. But don’t you dare give me a second stroke, because I’ve heard stroke, you know, from other people. You know, secondary. I had a lot of people have secondary. I don’t know about yourself, but I did heard that people do get it a lot of times like it’s, I don’t know the numbers are big. You know, 70%, 80% people can get a reoccurrence.
Kevin Nakawatase 11:06
And I made my peace. That was the only time I ever got angry. That one moment lying in bed, and it’s like one or two in the morning. I’m lying there waiting, and I’m I know I’ve effed up if you, if you looked at because if I take it like you asked me a question, if you’re taking care of yourself, I probably may not have been in that position. You know, if I’d taken my meds, worked out, got better, health wise, ate better. I probably would be in a better position.
Bill Gasiamis 11:33
But if you’re working on hand recovery after stroke, there’s a tool worth knowing about, the Hanson rehab glove by Syrebo is available through Banksia Tech. It’s safe to use at home even years after stroke, with six therapy modes, including stretch, grasping, release and a patented mirror function, it helps retrain your brain and hand together.
Bill Gasiamis 11:55
Banksia tech ships internationally, and it qualifies as a low cost assistive technology. Visit Banksiatech.com.au or check out the links in the YouTube description and show notes at recoveryaftstroke.com to learn more. Now let’s pause. You’ve just heard Kevin describe the moments his stroke symptoms defied the fast checklist, and how in just a few days, his left side stopped responding entirely. He could have given into the fear, the statistics, that this is as good as it gets, mindset.
Bill Gasiamis 12:29
But he didn’t. He pushed harder. He made rehab his full time job, even after the formal therapy ended. If you’re in that place where your progress feels slow, where it’s tempting to ease off. Let Kevin story remind you, the plateau is not a full stop. Gains can still come years later. Effort compounds over time. Let’s get back to Kevin and how he turned personal recovery into public advocacy. Was that your acceptance moment? Did you accept that right there and then?
Stroke Symptoms for Men: Accepting The Reality of Stroke
Kevin Nakawatase 13:01
Yeah, I did. I said, what am I going to do? Like, it’s sort of like I play poker, you know, not for a living, but, you know, when you play cards, you play sports, you can’t change the moment that passed once it’s happened. If you’re playing cards, you’re dealt the hand. Play the hand. That’s just the way guards are played in sports. If they score a goal on you, or hit a home run, or whatever sport you’re playing, that moment’s done. You have to accept the fact that your team played lousy that game, and you move on.
Kevin Nakawatase 13:32
And I coached for years, and you can’t dwell on the past. So I couldn’t dwell on it. And you know, I had no excuses. I blame myself for the stroke. I mean, I know a lot of people don’t, because there’s different. You know, I met a lot of people that were healthy and in great shape, and things just went awry. Yeah, for me, was okay. Kevin could have taken care of better care of himself, he should have, and he didn’t, and these are things so and answer your question, Bill, yeah, I made my peace with myself.
Kevin Nakawatase 14:06
That was the fine moon right there. And then the moment I found out what was going to happen, the doctor came in the next morning. I didn’t know I was going to be paralyzed. I thought it was just going to be okay, you know, I’m going to have a stroke, and then I’m just going to get better in three months, and I’ll just get back to normal, but I’ll take care of myself.
Kevin Nakawatase 14:27
And I was wishful thinking, because the doctor came in the next morning said, this is going to get worse before it gets better. And I go, how can it get worse? I’m lying here on Christmas morning in a hospital. He goes, you’re going to become paralyzed. And I had no idea there was paralysis in stroke. I’ve seen stroke people, a lot of them have disabilities with walking their hand. What I didn’t know paralysis was part of the numbers.
Bill Gasiamis 14:53
How did he predict that?
Kevin Nakawatase 14:55
He I guess he knew because of where my blockage was and. The was going to be because it was at the very back, and I think he knew, based on what was the communication line from my right side to my left side was going to be non-existent, which is so true because within the day by Christmas, Boxing Day. We call Boxing Day here the day after Christmas, and I was in a chair, and I couldn’t use my left hand, I couldn’t stand all those things were gone. It’s like, I was, like, devastated, but I knew they told me this is what to expect. So, you know, I’ve always trusted doctors to the point.
Bill Gasiamis 15:38
Yeah, and you’re watching your ability on your left side decline. Devastated, yeah, but then, how do you deal with that, like are you watching it? Are you going, Oh, my God, it’s going. Are you looking at it? Are you feeling it? Are you trying to walk? I would have been. I was kind of when I started noticing after the brain surgery that I couldn’t feel my left side properly, and I couldn’t walk, when I got out the bed for the first time and fell over because my left side wasn’t working.
Bill Gasiamis 16:14
And they pulled me into rehab like I was kind of looking at it, willing It, telling it, making it, doing everything I could to just, I don’t know, coach it back to better, which was not going to be the way that it was going to work out. But I kind of got there. It took a lot longer than I imagined as well. But I woke up from surgery and it wasn’t there, but you were seeing it decline.
Dealing With Post-Stroke Paralysis
Kevin Nakawatase 16:46
Yeah, I didn’t go into surgery, like a lot of people. I just went to bed. So what had happened was the nurse that was there, I had he, I talked to him a lot because there’s no doctors around, and he I had a night nurse, and he kept talking to me, and I was looking at my hand. I really noticed when the paralyzation was setting in. It was I looking at my aunt.
Kevin Nakawatase 17:07
Well, my hand was underneath the cover of the blanket, and I’m trying to tap, I’m trying to tap my leg like just like that, and it felt like I was tapping my I was felt like my hand was moving, but it wasn’t because it couldn’t move. And like, I’m thinking, like, I’m going, like this now, and it’s like, okay, my hands moving, and I can see my hand move under the blanket. I didn’t want to look. It was kind of like, I hit it.
Kevin Nakawatase 17:32
And I said, Okay, let me see what’s going to happen. And then I had to start helping my hand out because we couldn’t move it. And I looked at my hand, I asked the guy, go, what the hell is going on like? Why is my hand? He goes, that’s the paralysis. Your whole body shutting down. The other thing too is I had a lot of spasticity in my left leg at the beginning, before the paralyzation sank in, and my leg kept going up and down every five minutes.
Kevin Nakawatase 17:59
So I look like a kicker, like from rugby or soccer or something. So my leg kept going like this, and I kept looking at the guy, and I go, what the hell he just goes. Your body’s spasming out right now, and you’re going to have a problem with that for who knows how long, but for the next while. And I just felt like I was playing a soccer game, like I was like those 20 men, you just kick it and you will, and you look at it, or if you play foosball, like the thing’s just doing that that drove me crazy, like it was just like, what the hell? My leg just keeps moving and wouldn’t stop. So, you know the term Happy Feet.
Bill Gasiamis 18:33
Yes. So there was acceptance of what happened. But what about what was happening? Were you able to kind of get your head around that and go, Okay, whatever this is, we’ll work it out. Or was it more challenging?
Kevin Nakawatase 18:48
No, I’ve always been and you asked me a question back, like all of my life, like I’ve always lived, I’m not a panicky kind of guy, and I think, you know, my wife sometimes doesn’t like that, because I seem very calm when things happen around us with friends. I don’t panic. I know things can be done, but panicking, even when I coached, wasn’t my style, because if you panic and the kids see you’re out of control, the kids are going to get out of control.
Kevin Nakawatase 19:13
So you have to stay in the moment, and you have to kind of stay forward. And I try to implement, some of the things I taught kids when I was coaching the same thing I was teaching myself. I said, Look, you’re going to go through hell for a while, and I’m sure you’re going to get the best care possible. And all you gotta do is you gotta deal with it as it comes and you’re talking to a guy like you know, moving forward is I never went to the gym, I didn’t work out, I didn’t do yoga, I didn’t do anything.
Kevin Nakawatase 19:47
So my life was just sports, like playing. That’s where a lot, that’s where all my exercise was. So it was like, it’s a reversal of fortune, because I couldn’t play sports anymore. And then. And I tried, but I couldn’t play like I used to. And then working out, working with trainer and all that after the fact, was something I had to implement, because I was the only one who’s going to get better.
Bill Gasiamis 20:12
Yeah, how long did you spend in that acute phase where just diagnosed your, your left side’s not working, you’re still in hospital in the early days. How long did that last? And then how long after that, did you end up in rehab?
Kevin Nakawatase 20:28
Three days? So I went in boxing day, and then, because of the holiday, it was very skeletal. So they put a request, I guess after the doctor saw me, and a physiotherapist came in on Boxing Day and was working with me, they did. They determined I needed to get out of there fast and get to a rehab center. So I went in on Thursday, I think, and I was in a rehab facility, my new facility, on Monday morning they, they ambulance me out there Monday morning, I was starting physio Monday afternoon, because, I think with the paralysis, it was only going to be temporary.
Stroke Symptoms for Men And Having a Recovery Mindset
Kevin Nakawatase 21:10
The doctor knew that, and I think he wanted me to keep my joints moving and keep them active so they didn’t get atrophy. And that’s one of the things I preach a lot to people, like right now, even in support groups nowadays, you know, even though your hand seemed like it’s pretty bad, just try to move it. Do small things, you know, I discuss that with people, just that, you know, people think, because it’s kind of dead right now, I look at it like a plant. You can re water plants and get back to normal, same thing.
Kevin Nakawatase 21:44
And that was sort of how I had to anticipate everything is. I was determined to be back on the baseball diamond and play hockey in the summer, within three months, like so in December, I wanted to make it to baseball in April. So three to four months, I wanted to be back to normal.
Bill Gasiamis 22:06
Did you get back?
Kevin Nakawatase 22:07
No, because it was kind of funny. My occupational therapist, Stephanie, I remember her name. She was, we’re going through all the stuff. I worked with her for four weeks, and just before they’re gonna discharge me as an outpatient, I said to her, well, okay, I want to go, I’m I’m ready to go play ball soon. How long is it going to take me to get better?
Kevin Nakawatase 22:31
And she just looked at me, and she did it with a very straight face, but she respected me enough to be honest with me, and said, look, Kevin, I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high, because you don’t know how serious your stroke has been. And I would suggest you just work through the summer. And this summer is not going to be fun and games. You’re just going to be trying to get better.
Kevin Nakawatase 22:52
And she gave me a weight like just before we left. She says, Here, I’ll prove something to you as well. She put a weight down on the table. Had no idea what weight it was. She was pick that up and try to lift it. And I said, Are you kidding me? How big is this weight? Well, I looked at it was really tiny, right? I go, so, okay, this is nothing. So I try to pick it up. I couldn’t even lift it.
Kevin Nakawatase 23:14
And I said to her, how much is this 10 pounds? She goes, No, it’s one. And I go one pound? She was that’s what I wanted you to understand how serious your situation is, and if you don’t get better, you have to work harder to get better. And that helped me too, like it pushed my boundaries of, you know, working out and, you know, getting instructions, which I took forward after the fact.
Kevin Nakawatase 23:42
Because how can I, you know, how am I going to get better sitting around and I know that is one of the things that I know, you and I and all the people we sit with trying to get better has been the hardest thing for everybody, because unless you’re financially rich, unless you’ve got good health care, or you’ve got a good health system within your country, a lot of people just stay home, and then they just and you know, and then you know, covid came along, and all these different things, and that really upset the apple cart in terms of how Recovery went.
Bill Gasiamis 24:19
Man, covid came along six years later, so this is interesting. We’ll delve into that in a minute. So you’ve gone. So this lady who helped you at rehab gave you, kind of one of the biggest lessons, or one of the biggest eye opening experiences, just proving to you that you might be ahead of your mind, might be ahead of the game, like where you’re at right now is recovery, overcoming, regaining your strength, etcetera. It’s not go back to the diamond and start smashing balls.
Kevin Nakawatase 24:59
I tried. So I did go back to the team, it was horrible. It was like, I was like a little kid. I tried skating the next in September of the next after try skating again. And I was like, starting all over because my left leg was so badly damaged, like the hamstrings and everything. So yeah, if it wasn’t for Stephanie and her talking to me and all my therapists, like I had four or five at the hospital, because I went back as an outpatient to the same place.
Kevin Nakawatase 25:37
And one of the great things that I found is when I was there, everybody wanted to work with me, and it’s not because, you know, Kevin’s this nice guy and all that. It had nothing to do with that. It’s just that most of people, when I was in the hospital were in their 70s and 80s, and recovery is going to be very thin and they had no enthusiasm.
Kevin Nakawatase 25:59
A lot of them had cognitive issues, so they couldn’t comprehend so it’s like, if you have a mother in their 70s right now, tell her to go, you know, walk up and down the stairs like it’s something they can’t do that even when they’re normal. So a lot of them are therapists. You know, their frustration is they want to help people, and it’s sort of hard if the people aren’t responding, it’s like you’re talking to yourself.
Kevin Nakawatase 26:24
And whenever I had an empty moment because I wanted five hours a day in Canada, they just implemented three hours a day, cuz it used to be one to two. And then in January of the year I was I was in there. They, they did three. They the man, my minimum was supposed to be three hours. So I begged them. I just said, Give me anybody, and you don’t even have to work me. Give me a task. I’ll do it. So if you The Karate Kid, one was my favorite because they did the wax on, wax off. You ever saw the movie?
Kevin Nakawatase 26:57
So we did a lot of that. And I said, Here, just put me in front of the board. I’ll wax on, wax off by myself. And then all the therapists had to do was sit near me and just keep an eye on me, but didn’t have to work with me. And they loved that, because at the same time, it gave them a chance to see my progression, and they’re also willing to try different new skills to see if, you know, they learn, to see if it can help me, which, you know, I appreciate it immensely that I started getting a lot of this attention to do therapy, and that that really helped in my recovery, and why I got kicked out in 30 days, as opposed to maybe three months.
Bill Gasiamis 27:40
Yes. So interestingly, I had been booked in for two months. And I remember those conversations specifically about, you’re young, and you’re going to get results, whether they knew it or not. I don’t know what it was, but you’re young, you’re going to get results. And they put in the effort, and they were encouraged, and they were encouraged by my attitude, and I was encouraged by their attitude, like it was a loop of amazingness, you know, without their words, it would have been, you know, more for me to work out, more for me to contemplate and understand.
Bill Gasiamis 28:19
But I went in there pretty motivated anyway, you know, I was 40 years old, you know, needed to get out of there. I needed to go home be the kids, work all the usual stuff. But they did use those words. They did allude to the fact that I was 40, and that was a real benefit, you know, in the whole process.
Kevin Nakawatase 28:39
It’s sad, but I’m 54 and I’m the youngest guy in the place, in our wing, in our ward. Because if you look at 54 now, it’s old like in in the terms of, you know how things are, but it’s just the way it is.
Bill Gasiamis 28:56
I was similar one of the youngest people in there as well. And I don’t know it’s good not to see other younger people in there, which means hopefully they’re not being injured by something in the brain. So that whole experience was pretty cool. And I would say, when people asked me, when I got released from rehab, how far along are you? I would say 95% and it’s stayed at 95% since then for 10 years now, when people ask me how far firstly, I tell people I’m fully recovered, I’m fully healed.
Bill Gasiamis 28:56
But I still have all the deficits so but my physical capacity is nowhere near 95% like I can’t run like I used to. I can’t play soccer, I can’t run around with a football or anything like that, but, I can go to the gym, push weights, walk, you know, do that type of stuff, be physical at work, all that type of thing. And when people ask me. How, far along I’m recovered now it’s still 95.
Bill Gasiamis 29:32
What I didn’t realize was what 95 was back then to what 95 is now is a completely different thing, because I was nowhere near 95 I would judge myself by my ability to stand up and look at myself in the mirror, touch my nose, pick up a pen, that kind of stuff. But that was so fleeting. Those wins, those gains, they weren’t massive gains, they were little gains. And if I didn’t focus and concentrate on them for the next 10 years, I’d lose that that would go, it would be so quick.
Stroke Symptoms for Men And The Small Changes After The Stroke
Kevin Nakawatase 30:36
Absolutely, one of the things Stephanie had told me as well too, where her or one of my other therapists, they said, look, in the first six months, you’re going to notice a lot of different changes in your body as you recover. You’ll see the big changes, because in the first six months to a year, the biggest gains in recovery are during that time. And they said to me, do not get sad in the next year, if you’re not recovering, and you don’t think you’re recovering because you are.
Kevin Nakawatase 31:05
And I said, What do you mean? Well, you’re not going to notice as much, because the stuffs are going to be small, like, you know, walking. You don’t watch yourself walk. You can feel yourself walking. You don’t watch yourself, but your wife or your friends are going to make comments to you and say, well, you’re walking better.
Kevin Nakawatase 31:22
Take that as a grain of salt. Take that with, you know, with a lot of enthusiasm, because they’re the ones that don’t see you every day, and they’re the ones that notice these smaller changes in you. But I think that’s when, when I was leaving rehab as an out into outpatient, I took that so wholeheartedly that all my recovery was going to be small down the road, and I’m going to have to accept that. And I my story to everybody is, if a person broke their leg, just broke their leg, they would never recover to 100% they would get back to about 95 and I kind of look at that was the attitude I’m going to have to take.
Kevin Nakawatase 32:02
It’s like, oh, my body’s broken, okay, but I’m going to recover, and I’ll try to recover as much as I can. Like, I don’t know about you right now, but I still stretch a lot. I do a lot of exercises in the house just to keep my just to keep the body from stiffing up, because I didn’t at the beginning, and then I worked with a trainer, like I got right out, and then I start working a trainer. And one of the trainers had pushed me to just continue to work at home, and, you know, just do stretching exercises and do all the small things that keeps your body active, like, keeps the mind telling the body what to do.
Bill Gasiamis 32:43
Yeah. So I would encourage that. It sounds like that therapist was telling you about the plateau, without using the words you’re going to plateau and all that kind of stuff. It sounds like she said, like, when you get there, don’t worry about it, recognize it and then just keep going.
Kevin Nakawatase 33:02
That was her word plateau. That was the word she used.
Bill Gasiamis 33:06
Yeah, brilliant. And that means that at least you’re aware of it and using it as a way to kind of say you’re going to get there. And this is the positive part about it, instead of how a lot of people receive that information from doctors, which is you’re going to reach a plateau and we’re going to kick you out of therapy, because that means you’re not recovering anymore.
Kevin Nakawatase 33:27
Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot, and I’ve heard people. I’ve heard different people. I met some young people because I ran a couple events last year in the States, and I met two people in LA. One was now 32 the other one was 29. They’ve had a stroke at three and seven. The the guy was seven, he was now 29 his parents was told they’re going to let him die in the hospital, and within 24 hours, he had a turnaround in recovery from the stroke not the stroke itself, he has a stroke, but his body got better, and he was able to, you know, not do big therapy like we do, but as a kid, he got to become a kid again.
Kevin Nakawatase 34:11
He still has some after effects. But to hear those stories, I met a guy in Germany last November. I had gone out for a project, and he was told he had a stroke two years ago, and he thought he wasn’t going to speak ever again. And then here he is, two years later, he’s speaking, not well, but he’s speaking, and I just don’t like that kind of stuff. When people are told never, you’re not going to that’s just wrong.
Bill Gasiamis 34:38
I agree. It’s the one of the worst words that people can use, therapists, doctors. It kind of undoes the good work they’ve done. You’ve done all this good work. We’ve spent millions of dollars in medical miracles, machines, training university students. And then you’re going to send the guy home and say you’re never going to do that again. Oh, what’s the point of that?
Kevin Nakawatase 35:03
Yeah, what’s the point doing therapy in the first place? And now just let the guy you know just throw and bury him six feet under, but that’s when you ask the question mentally, that’s where I knew I wasn’t going to let this define me. And you know, maybe you and I are in that small percentage of, you know, we’re not going to let the stroke define us.
Kevin Nakawatase 35:26
It’s not going to, you know, it’s going to make us different in some aspects, but we’re going to be the same people we were, you know, before the stroke. And that’s all I’ve done, is just try to be the guy that people knew me as before, and then, you know, I won’t let the stroke define me. I mean, I never got into the stroke world for first eight years.
Kevin Nakawatase 35:48
You talking to me now is only because in the last two years I decided to do something about it, because I met a girl online, and that’s how we formed our events last year. Is because it just I heard all the stories. There are a lot of horror stories of how healthcare is not here, only in Canada, globally, you know, Australia, Asia. So that really made me sad.
Bill Gasiamis 36:13
We’ll talk about what you’re doing in a moment as well. But I want to go back to the covid days, right? So six years after your stroke, I would imagine recovery is going forward. Everything’s sort of tracking along, and you’re overcoming all your obstacles. You’re getting stronger and physically fitter and healthier as much as you can so how does covid get in the way of your recovery? Because when I got to covid, I was like, you two, two years extra of recovery, by the way.
Bill Gasiamis 36:36
But when I got to covid, it was like, in Melbourne, we had the long lockdowns and all that kind of stuff. And I took it as a time. Oh, well, it was annoying, frustrating, all that kind of stuff. But I’ll occupy myself in another way. And I didn’t feel like I was missing out on the physical part or the other therapies. Do you know what I mean? Like I had moved on from that stage of it? What happened with you?
Kevin Nakawatase 37:16
So prior to I was working with train different trainers. So I hired private trainers. I went to the gym for the first time. I signed up for a gym for the first time in my life, 56 almost 60 years old, I finally signed up for a gym. Kevin’s on a gym guy, he liked I, you know, he’ll do his exercises on the ice and all that. And I signed up for the gym. And during the time of covid, I wasn’t allowed in the gym where, you know, everyone was banned from going in.
Kevin Nakawatase 37:45
That kind of put a damper on the next part of my recovery, because I, as you said, like a plateau, and I was getting into walking better. I was working with a treadmill. I had a trainer that I worked with. Had two or three different trainers that I was working with. My one left, they went to another one of them, and it was kind of sucked, but it was actually that time too that I, you know, my trainers are saying, Look, you can’t go out. You’re going to have to do a lot in-house.
Stroke Recovery During COVID
Kevin Nakawatase 38:14
And not that I wasn’t before. I bought a yoga mat, I got weights, I got bands, I got all these things, so I started doing in house, and I quit the gym like I got rid of my membership after the covid was over, because it just felt the money wasn’t needed. The only thing that they had there that might have helped me was the treadmill, because my gait was so off, I wanted to keep working on it.
Kevin Nakawatase 38:39
But now covid Didn’t have the big, big impact, but I’ve met a lot of people that got it during covid, and I’m telling you, man, I have a friend still in the hospital right now, he got it during covid, and his recovery has been so slow because he didn’t get any recovery during covid, and for me, it’s just watching him wilt away as, you know, with no help. And he’s so depressed his mental health is, you know, through the roof because of all this. And covid just didn’t help people in that normal, you know, hopefully would have better recovery.
Kevin Nakawatase 39:16
And I am. I thank God that you know, like you and I, we didn’t have it during I don’t know what would have happened. I honestly try to believe that it wasn’t going to impact me to a level, that I’m still going to be the strong guy and work out and do something. But I don’t know. I can’t, you know, I’m thank God I don’t have to figure that part out. But I just can’t imagine anyone having a having a stroke from night 2019 to now. Like, how devastating the whole process has been.
Bill Gasiamis 39:50
Yeah, even worse than you normally have to deal with, like, you’d have to deal with all the stroke stuff, and then all of the non, non access. Services, and then all of the difficulty with people coming to see you, and all that type of it was just it would have been difficult for a lot of people, way more difficult than it needed to be, yeah, but absolutely, what’s interesting is you’re still doing all the recovery stuff.
Bill Gasiamis 40:15
Six years later, you know, you’re still at the gym, you’re still going for, you know, personal bests, you’re still trying to overcome. You’re still trying to get fitter and stronger. Your your gait is still on your mind. You need to work it out. You need to fix things more. That’s, the interesting part, to see, that even six years later, you’re still going for improvement.
Kevin Nakawatase 40:40
Yeah, I think it’s one of the things that I think if I could, you know, if you really could stand up in front of stroke recovery and caregivers, that’s the message is, you can’t give up, no matter, we’re going to be recovering for life. That’s just the whole thing. It’s this is not like short, you know, when you break your leg, like I said, before it might take three months do the rehab get recovered and you’re back out playing hockey again, or whatever sport you want to play.
Kevin Nakawatase 41:07
For us, it’s always going to be, you know, you’re worried about having a secondary stroke. And then secondly, you know your body, you don’t know what it’s going to do, if it’s going to break down, if, if you keep working out, is it going to be preventive? Nobody knows. There’s no real solution to it. So you gotta hope that all the hard work you put in is going to be worth all the time and effort that you’ve lost to make yourself better as you move forward.
Kevin Nakawatase 41:35
And that’s I think, you know, that’s my only message, is, that’s it. You just want to keep pushing yourself to get better, stay stronger. I think the only the positives I got out of the stroke. I mean, there’s a lot of positives for my body wise, I had two torn meniscus in my knees, and with all the work I’ve been doing on walking and weights and stuff on my legs, my meniscus don’t bother me anymore, but they’re still torn, but I’ll deal with that down the road, you know, because you can get arthritic. But it’s kind of a weird thing that something like that has changed through the fact that I had to work out and do all these exercises.
Kevin Nakawatase 41:35
Yeah, you improved it. That’s awesome. You’re very matter of fact, right now, you’re very logical. But did you have some tough times emotionally and mentally at all?
Bill Gasiamis 42:22
I don’t. Did I have mental health problems? I don’t know, I’m not trying to brag about it.
Bill Gasiamis 42:39
That’s alright, it’s not essential.
Kevin Nakawatase 42:43
I know. I don’t want to sound like that. You know, I’m a tough guy and all that. I think internally, I had my moment. My defining moment was this Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve that comes by, every the last thing, Christmas Eve and Christmas have come by, you know, I thank God that I’m not in bed, and things are good. And I thank God for all the work I put in 10 years ago to now has paid off for me being, you know, normal.
Kevin Nakawatase 43:14
And when I say normal, I don’t know about you and your friends and your family, if they treat you like normal, like you never had a stroke before people see you and say, Hey, Bill, you you had a stroke. Like you, come on. No, there’s no way in hell, right? When you get those kind of things, because people have seen people with strokes. And all the commercials that are out there on the television, you know, globally, aren’t pretty. We’re, you know, it’s not a pretty thing.
Kevin Nakawatase 43:38
So I take it is a tribute that people don’t come up to me and say, well, what happened to you? You know, if they ask, Oh, sure, I’ll tell the story. I’m not ashamed of what’s happened. It’s happened, but I tried to put some of it behind me, and hence why I didn’t get really involved in the community earlier until now.
Kevin Nakawatase 43:56
Because now I feel the story needs to be told how to to keep pushing, because I see so many people having, you know, issues, just trying to recover, mental health obviously, we talked about covid. Since covid has become a very big, big thing. I mean, it was there before, but we really hear about it now, because being alone can really cause a lot of depression, sadness and there are people that you know haven’t had the support to recover, like me, and you have probably.
Bill Gasiamis 44:32
Yeah, absolutely, The spectrum is wide, right? So everyone, not everyone, falls in the same part of the spectrum, and it gets different, hard, differently for everybody. So that brings me to the work that you’re doing now, so the community that you’re talking about, and the support groups, etc. So tell me what you’ve set up in Canada. And how people access it, who accesses it, and what you guys do?
Advocacy and Community Involvement
Kevin Nakawatase 45:05
So right now, what had happened last year is that I met a girl in New York. We partnered to do couple of American events for stroke, because she had a lot of connections, so I wanted to build off of that we have since kind of parted. She’s now kind of dealing with her mom, and that’s fine. I’m, you know, she’s still doing it. I support her immensely. I think it, you know, I think it’s great that we’re doing it.
Kevin Nakawatase 45:27
Well, I focus more on Canada. The second part of it is, I want to run the events again, but now I want to get the health care people involved. I want to get insurance government. Because I really don’t think that community, all these people, understand what we’re going through, the cost associated all these things. I think there needs to be a different, a better definition.
Kevin Nakawatase 45:49
When I hear people go three months and they know they’re going to get cut off from their, financing, and needs to be they need to understand, but there’s not a timeline in recovery. Recovery recovery is different. You and I have taken different timelines, but they all think it’s three months. It’s like, okay, that’s not right. So the events are going to be I’m trying to get these started in Canada.
Kevin Nakawatase 46:12
The hard part is all the medical companies that need to get out in the forefront to, you know, the products that they don’t have the money. And this is where I’m trying to find entrepreneurs, some kind of rich person that’s going to support and put the money in. That’s still my angle I’m trying to work on. So I’m trying to do these events to bring everybody together so we can talk about and discuss how we get better.
Kevin Nakawatase 46:37
My whole objective is not just in Canada. I want to do it globally. You know, talk to people in Australia, do it there. Do it in Asia, do it in Europe and and just make it something. I mean, there’s lot of stroke events, yeah, but it’s all on neurology, and it’s all for doctors, the stroke people and caregivers need just as much information to do better. I wrote a book. I’m just trying to get it published. I’m working. I’m trying to get it published.
Kevin Nakawatase 47:07
It’s, it’s called The Stroke Road Map, and that’s more for caregivers and what you need to do, what you need to you know, I don’t know who your support was when it happened to you, but the person who supported you has no idea what’s up. This is not like, and there’s no guidebooks out there. I mean, you get, you go online and read all the stuff, but I put a whole kind of package together from things like, you know, getting insurance, talking to doctors, what’s the plan?
Kevin Nakawatase 47:35
What’s the future going to be like? What are you going to need? What is as friends? What should you do? What shouldn’t you do? You know, because I had a lot of people call me and their friends had strokes, they go, what do we do? And I said, Well, here’s what you should do, and here’s what we want. Because we don’t want, you know, we don’t want empathy and sympathy. That’s it. Well, I didn’t, and I can’t speak for you, yeah, but what I want is support.
Kevin Nakawatase 48:00
And you know, if you need something, sure, you know, we’ll take that support. But try to help us be better or not, try to help us, baby us. I don’t want to be baby right? And that was the whole thing. So that’s part of the whole package I’ve done. And the other thing I just came back from Germany in November, and bear is now doing a look at secondary stroke, and so I’m on the campaign of that with them.
Kevin Nakawatase 48:26
They filmed my wife and myself. They took six of us from Europe and North America, two from North America, and we told our stories, just like I’m doing with you today. And they filmed it. And bears running campaigns now on secondary stroke, it’s noted too, is the campaign. So the whole idea is, how do we prevent it? And so I continue to work with them.
Kevin Nakawatase 48:50
Now we’re doing more segments, and they’re, they soft launched it just in May, and they’re going to fully launch it in October in Spain, and then North America is going to get launched next February at the Heart and Stroke. So that’s been another part of this stuff. And I’m also doing support groups. I’m actually jumping on one after we speak later, and that’s been with the March of Dimes in Canada.
Kevin Nakawatase 49:17
And it’s been quite how do I say it? It’s, it’s been a learning experience, not for me, but learning about others and what they’ve gone through. You and I, you know, you seem like me. We’ve gotten through it, you know, we’ve we’ve done well, and we’ve kind of grown with it. You know, they’re sure we saw our mental health issues, but not like some of the other people I met. It is like, I feel like just jumping through the computer, go sit down with them and say, Look, I know this is rough, but you can get through this.
Kevin Nakawatase 49:57
And you know, being a cheerleader is great. But then. And I get sometimes when people see you, and I don’t know if you get this, but you’ve recovered quite well, as I can see. And there are others you’ve met that haven’t quite recovered. And I’m sometimes wondering if people are thinking, why is he so good, and why am I like.
Sharing Different Versions of Stroke
Bill Gasiamis 50:15
A lot of stroke survivors reach out to me to be on the podcast like you, you know, nearly 360 episodes, and that means a lot of different versions of recovery or not recovery. And that’s the challenge. It’s like, I can’t represent everybody, so what I try and do is bring a whole bunch of diverse versions of stroke on my conversations, so that I can then at least close the gap between my awareness of what it’s like and the reality, because my awareness my version, is not the reality for everybody.
Bill Gasiamis 50:53
So just try and close the gap, and then make those stories available. If I get to 1000 podcast episodes, I think I will have achieved that. I’ll have, you know, very broad range of different experiences, and then at least I can connect all the different people who need different versions of stroke together. Yeah, because my version might not resonate with somebody, and that person might not resonate with me and whatever. So I have the same concern.
Bill Gasiamis 51:24
The good thing about is my concern and your concern is, even though we’re doing, you know, like our version of it, I think it’s important without it. I think there’s going to be more of a gap, and it’s necessary for us to push on, push forward in the only way we know how our version of it and yeah, just accept other people as being, just accept other people as being in a different part of their journey.
Bill Gasiamis 51:57
And that if one word that we say in our conversation helps just about mindset, or just about what plateau means, or just about what exercise, how much exercise is necessary, like just one word, I’m done, I’m happy. They don’t have to resonate with me in any other way. Just one word. I’ll take that to the bank. You know, I don’t mind at all.
Kevin Nakawatase 52:23
I agree. I totally agree with you saying I think, I don’t think twice about it, and I don’t shy away from, you know, telling people how I’ve done it. That’s why I keep saying to people, I’m not here. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. This is not like some when some fairy dust came on top of you and I, and we got the the longer end of the stick, not at all. I know, you know, I see stroke survivors, and I can tell how people have done and how well they’re doing based on the conversation and how they how they look.
Kevin Nakawatase 52:56
Because I if my favorite lines always just gotta keep pushing yourself, you know, it’s the only way you’re going to get better and you get stronger. And, you know, some people take it on, and then some people can’t. And I get it because cognitively, sometimes it’s not the easiest thing. And and I think like you, like me, we both didn’t get a lot of cognitive.
Kevin Nakawatase 53:19
I had no cognitive and based on my conversation with you right now, and we just met for the first time, I would think if you had any you’ve gotten through it, or you had very little at all, and you were able to recover to a point to make yourself better, because obviously thinking and a lot of the energy from the mind has to tell the body what to do.
Bill Gasiamis 53:42
eah, I had cognitive issues. They were short-term over probably six months. Couldn’t remember who saw me. Still today, people tell me I came and saw you, and I don’t remember that they did at all.
Kevin Nakawatase 53:57
Long term memory is still up and down.
Bill Gasiamis 54:00
Just in that period of time, yeah, in that six month period of time, I couldn’t type an email, I couldn’t read a book, I couldn’t start and finish a sentence. I would forget mid sentence, what I was talking about, what the topic was, all all these things that happened for a short amount of time. I was in a wheelchair for a short amount of time, probably about six weeks all up, I had four weeks, you know?
Bill Gasiamis 54:24
So I’ve had, I have some spasticity. Everything that stroke survivors say has happened to them has happened to me, but in other areas, like in a small, short version of that. So I have a taste, a glimpse of it, but I don’t have the full life experience of it, you know, it’s, yeah, I’m not living with a wheelchair or anything like that.
Kevin Nakawatase 54:44
So were you, were you dominant side or non dominant? Non dominant? Yeah, yeah, me too. So we’re you and I are very lucky, because I keep telling people, is there, if it’s your dominant side, you actually have to learn it double time, yeah, because you’re teaching your bad hand. How to be good, and you have to teach your good hand how to be better, and that’s double it’s really hard.
Bill Gasiamis 55:07
That’s heaps of work, right? So I totally get it, and I think that it doesn’t matter how you step up with what you’re what. And I’m talking to stroke survivors, watching and listening now, it doesn’t matter how you step up. But what I love is stroke survivors who want to help other. Stroke survivors often reach out to me and say, I just want to be on your podcast if I share my story, and that helps somebody.
Bill Gasiamis 55:33
Job done, and that’s it. See, like helping other people can be just as simple as that. Just share one story that goes out to a global audience. Somebody gets a word out of that, or one idea out of that, and it’s job done. This is what I mean about everyone can support each other in their own unique way with the resources they have and with the amount of time they want to allocate it, allocate to it. Somebody allocates one hour in the next 10 years to helping stroke survivors. Man, that is awesome. I mean, honestly, that’s all we need. We don’t need, yeah, more than that.
Kevin Nakawatase 56:13
If the message gets out of one person hears it and it helps them, that’s all it takes. It’s that one person.
Bill Gasiamis 56:21
I love what you’re doing. I love how you got Bayer, the pharmaceutical company, involved. Like, that’s brilliant.
Kevin Nakawatase 56:29
Well, they came chasing me. I didn’t go to them, though I would have loved to, when I was looking for sponsors. Yes, I reached out to them in Canada. But, yeah, it’s been more and more I’ve been, you know, on my website and everything. I’ve got everything up there uploaded, anything they talk about I like in LinkedIn and and Facebook and stuff.
Kevin Nakawatase 56:50
The whole idealism too is, is that there’s so many people. For me, the message is so many companies, so many people that are getting involved in stroke, myself included, and I’m glad that people are and I just hope that people understand you’re not alone. This is a community. It’s not one that people want to sign up for. Let’s put it that way.
Kevin Nakawatase 57:15
This is not like everyone’s going to want to come to this group. But at the same time, the groups out there, and there are so many people that I’ve talked to that, you know, they’ve all got advice, and that’s good. I think the advice is important. What you do with is up to you. And you know, your journey is going to be different than mine, Bill and and then different from the other people.
Kevin Nakawatase 57:35
But are all we all have one common goal, and that’s to get as healthy as possible, to what we are. Don’t expect yourself to be back to, you know, like I said, the broken leg theory, if it’s broken, you’re never going to be 100 that’s just the way it is. But don’t ever give up. You always can strive for 100, and the closer you get, the better. That’s all you want. If you hit the 100, good for you. I’m not trying to downplay not to be I just think you gotta have the acceptance of small things may not just always work perfectly for you.
Kevin Nakawatase 58:08
But I’m only one person. There’s so many others I’ve seen, prime example in the NHL, Chris Letang plays for Pittsburgh Penguins. He’s had two strokes. He’s still playing in NHL now, what he goes through, I have no idea. You know, there are a lot of other people have had strokes, you know, entertainers and people like that, and they’re still living their lives. And, you know, that’s why.
Bill Gasiamis 58:37
Where would people go if they wanted to connect with you might be Canadian listeners here going on. I need to connect.
Kevin Nakawatase 58:44
Go to my website. It’s K as in, Kevin N as in, Nancy S and Sam C as in, Charlie T as in Tom .com so knsct.com, my, all my details in there, all my events that I’ve done are in there, my bear videos in there, I have actually did another podcast with a gentleman from Oregon I met in LA, and he’s got, it’s called stroke warriors, stroke warrior radio, and he’s doing exactly like you, but in the American version, yeah.
Kevin Nakawatase 59:17
So I’ve been on that one as well. And, you know, good on you guys for, you know, putting this together. I’m not tech savvy, so it’s, you know, I get my niece doing all my work for me. My two nieces are doing my website, my prints and everything. All I do is just feed it out. So, you know, I appreciate the family. But this is, you know, this is sort of thing that, you know, it’s my expertise in terms of what I’ve done for work and, you know, reaching out to people. I just want to continue to help the community.
Kevin Nakawatase 59:46
Everyone goes, you know, what’s your goal out of this? I said, you know, probably like you, if you win the Nobel Peace Prize, it ain’t what I want the Nobel Peace Prize, but it does mean that we’ve done something good, and people recognize. You globally for doing something well. And that’s, you know, the whole idea is to make people understand that stroke survivors need tension and need to get fixed. Because I always, you know, I don’t like comparing apples to oranges heart attack, you know, they go and they can fix it. You get a bypass pretty much normal. They can’t, can’t go in our head and start fixing and playing with it. We have to live with this disability and things like that. So I said, you know, we have to work harder to get to get to some normality. So
Bill Gasiamis 1:00:35
I agree. If anyone wants to nominate me for the Nobel Peace Prize or something like that. Please do.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:00:42
I will. Yeah.
Bill Gasiamis 1:00:44
If I get it, if I get it means that we bring to light more of these issues. That’s all the the only reason I want to get it, my ego’s got nothing to do with it, but if you want to give me the Nobel Peace Prize or any other prize that allows me to get in front of 1000s of people and give my acceptance speech or anything like that, and talk about stroke, start nominating me. Just do it everywhere.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:01:09
Yep, I agree. I totally agree. I’ll be the first. I’ll be first in line with the nomination forms come up. I know you laugh when I said that, but when I was saying it and you’re going, but I tell my friends the same thing, and see they go, Noble Peace. What’s the biggest globally? It’s the biggest award worldwide. I mean, we can’t win an Oscar. You know, that’s, that’s total different thing.
Bill Gasiamis 1:01:30
I’m going to have the links in the show notes, so anyone wants to reach out, they can. And I really appreciate your time. Kevin, great to meet you.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:01:42
I appreciate it. I’d love to get together. And if you’re ever thinking of doing an event in Australia, I’d come down like I absolutely would love to help you guys out out in Australia. And vice versa on, once I get stuff here, I’ll invite you down. And for me, it’s just a matter of Bill, just trying to pass the message on, trying to people, make people understand, you know, we’re going through a disability, but it can be worked out. And you know, it’s, it’s your life’s not over because of something like this. Yes, you’re going to have to work harder, smarter, but those are things we have to work on in real life, whether we’re sick or not?
Bill Gasiamis 1:02:21
Yeah, 100% man. Thank you so much for joining me and being on the podcast.
Kevin Nakawatase 1:02:25
Thank you for having me, Bill and wish you guys a happy winter while you’re you’re down there. We’re enjoying the heat right now, but yeah, let’s stay in touch, and we’ll, we’ll keep connecting and trying to make this world a better place for stroke survivors.
Bill Gasiamis 1:02:40
Before we wrap up another thank you to Banksia Tech for supporting this episode and making stroke rehab tools like the hands and rehab glove accessible to more survivors. If hand movement is part of your recovery, this glove might help visit banksiatech.com.au, or use the links in the show notes and in the YouTube description.
Bill Gasiamis 1:03:02
Now, let’s reflect, Kevin didn’t just experience a stroke with no fast signs. He didn’t just survive paralysis and months of uncertainty. He built a recovery lifestyle. He worked past a plateau. He kept training. Years down the track, he stepped into advocacy, partnering on awareness campaigns, hosting survivor events and joining support groups, because for Kevin, recovery isn’t a deadline, it’s a way of living. If this episode resonated with you and you’d like to help me reach 1000 stroke survivor interviews, please consider supporting the podcast on Patreon.
Bill Gasiamis 1:03:38
Your support covers, editing, publishing and sharing real recovery stories like Kevin’s. And if you want more stories of post stroke growth, check out my book, The Unexpected Way The Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened, written by a survivor for survivors. Links are in the show notes and Youtube description until next time. Keep going, keep showing up and remember, recovery is for life.
Intro 1:04:03
Importantly, we present many podcasts designed to give you an insight and understanding into the experiences of other individuals. Opinions and treatment protocols discussed during any podcast are the individual’s own experience, and we do not necessarily share the same opinion, nor do we recommend any treatment protocol discussed.
Intro 1:04:20
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Intro 1:04:37
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