Introduction: When the Unimaginable Happens
Most women expect pregnancy to be filled with joy, anticipation, and the occasional craving. But for a small percentage, pregnancy also brings a terrifying and unexpected health crisis: stroke when pregnant.
It’s a phrase that sounds almost contradictory—how could something as life-giving as pregnancy lead to something so dangerous? And yet, for women like Emily Sarah Gable, it became a shocking reality. Her story isn’t just about misdiagnosis and survival—it’s about resilience, emotional recovery, and rebuilding a life with purpose.
If you or someone you love is navigating pregnancy and stroke, this post is for you.
Can You Really Have a Stroke During Pregnancy?
Yes, stroke during pregnancy is rare, but it does happen. It’s most common in the third trimester or postpartum period, but as Emily’s case shows, it can also strike earlier. She was 23 weeks pregnant when her cerebellar stroke struck, initially misdiagnosed as sinusitis.
Medical research indicates that the risk of stroke increases during pregnancy due to changes in blood volume, clotting factors, and blood pressure. Some women also experience conditions like preeclampsia or factor V Leiden that further increase the risk.
Recognizing the Signs: Pregnancy Stroke Symptoms
Stroke symptoms can be tricky to recognize, especially during pregnancy, when fatigue and dizziness are common. However, certain red flags shouldn’t be ignored. Here are some stroke while pregnant symptoms to watch for:
- Sudden dizziness or vertigo
- Loss of coordination
- Slurred speech or facial droop
- Severe headache
- Tingling or numbness (especially on one side)
- Sudden vision changes
- Inability to swallow or speak clearly
In Emily’s case, she experienced intense vertigo, vomiting, and sensory confusion, classic stroke in pregnancy symptoms that were tragically dismissed.
Misdiagnosis and Medical Gaslighting: A Common Reality
One of the most troubling aspects of Emily’s experience was the dismissal by medical professionals. She was told she had sinusitis, scolded for choosing a home birth, and even mistakenly treated for preeclampsia with no confirmation.
This reflects a deeper issue: many women face medical bias or dismissal during pregnancy, especially when reporting unusual or severe symptoms. That’s why awareness of what causes a stroke during pregnancy is critical—not just for patients but for providers.
After the Storm: Pregnancy After Stroke
Recovery from a stroke when pregnant is not just physical, it’s emotional and spiritual, too. Emily spent weeks in hospitals and rehab, lost her ability to swallow, experienced left-side numbness, and lived with lasting neurological deficits.
But she also found strength in healing modalities like Iyengar yoga, massage therapy, and body rolling. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby, rebuilt her physical capacity, and became a teacher and healer herself.
Her experience reminds us that pregnancy after stroke is possible, and that recovery is about more than just function. It’s about reclaiming agency, peace, and identity.
Heat Stroke During Pregnancy vs. Cerebrovascular Stroke
It’s important to distinguish between heat stroke during pregnancy and the kind of stroke Emily experienced. Heat stroke is caused by elevated body temperature due to extreme heat or overexertion. Cerebrovascular strokes, like ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes, are caused by blood clots or bleeding in the brain.
While both require medical attention, their causes, treatments, and risks are very different.
What About Stroke During Labor?
Another critical time for stroke risk is stroke during labor. The physical exertion and hormonal changes can sometimes trigger a stroke, especially in women with underlying risk factors. While rare, the outcomes can be life-altering for both mother and child.
Rebuilding: Recovery, Support, and Community
Emily went 11 years without ever talking to another stroke survivor. That kind of isolation is more common than we think, especially when the stroke happens during a time that’s already emotionally and physically complex.
That’s why creating spaces for connection, like the Recovery After Stroke podcast, is so vital. For anyone recovering from stroke when pregnant, the community is just as important as rehab.
Final Thoughts: You’re Not Alone
If you’re reading this and you’ve had a stroke, or you’re terrified it might happen, you’re not alone. Emily’s story is proof that the human body can endure incredible things. It’s also a reminder to advocate for yourself, ask questions, and trust your instincts.
Stroke during pregnancy is rare. But with education, community, and persistence, recovery is possible, and life after stroke can be beautiful.
Stroke While Pregnant And A Terrible Bedside Manner
Emily reached out to the Recovery After Stroke podcast to raise awareness by sharing her story about recovery from stroke and her doctor’s terrible bedside manner.
These days, Emily is a massage therapist, and you can find out more by visiting her website here: http://bodysustainability.com.
Follow Emily on Instagram
Discover how stroke recovery coaching can help you. Click here.
Transcript:
Highlights
04:04 The floor dropped when I was having a stroke
07:20 Misdiagnosed of having the sinusitis instead of a stroke
15:38 Itching from the inside out
18:25 Factor five
22:05 Oh well
26:11 Suicide?
30:30 Shit, out of luck
38:51 Having Horner’s syndrome after stroke
42:27 Almost orgasmic
53:24 Deciding not to take pregnancy medications
59:34 Iyengar
1:15:17 Who are we?
Emily Gable 0:00
I had a Doctor, a psychologist or psychiatrist come in with her students in the beginning, you know, in the first, you know, 48 hours. And she said I will have my students talk to you now. And I don’t remember what she said, but I do remember one of her students said, he held my hands, which I thought was like, I don’t know you like, I’m not.
Emily Gable 0:26
I don’t understand why you’re holding my hand like that. And he looked at me and said, ” Emily, have you ever thought about committing Suicide? Because of all the changes you’ve gone through, your family life has changed, and you’ve changed in your body. All this stuff that’s going on is pretty terrible. Have you thought about killing yourself? Because that’s a pretty serious thing if you have
Intro 0:48
This is Recovery After Stroke with Bill Gasiamis, helping you go from where you are to where you’d rather be.
Bill 0:56
Emily, welcome to the program.
Emily Gable 0:59
Thank you.
Bill 1:00
Yeah, I appreciate it when people contact me because without people contacting me, we can’t do the podcast. Still, also because it’s brave for somebody to get in touch and say, I’m struggling at the moment.
Bill 1:18
Thanks for this podcast because it’s made me feel not alone. Can you start telling me a little bit about what happened to you?
Emily Gable 1:30
Sure, I had my stroke, so is it May 23? Where are you? It was 11 years ago on May 23. 2008
Emily Gable 1:43
Yeah, so it’s May 22. Here, I’m in Pennsylvania in the United States.
Bill 1:48
It is tomorrow here already.
Emily Gable 1:50
It is tomorrow there, So it’s already happened.
Emily Gable 1:56
It’s great to be here. So I was 26 years old. I had a 15-month-old, and I was pregnant. And I was 23 weeks pregnant. I think there is something around there. 25 Weeks Pregnant? So it was we were living in Maine. It was not summer.
Emily Gable 2:25
It was very much spring. But it was the day of the first Farmers Market outdoors. It was a Saturday. And I was excited about that.
Intro 2:35
If you’ve had a stroke, and during recovery, you’ll know what a scary and confusing time it can be, you’re likely to have many questions going through your mind. Like, how long will it take to recover? Will I recover? What things should I avoid?
Intro 2:50
In case I make matters worse, doctors will explain things. But because you’ve never had a stroke, you probably don’t know what questions to ask. If this is you? You may miss out on doing things that could help speed up your recovery.
Intro 3:05
If you find yourself in that situation, stop worrying and head to recoveryafterstroke.com, where you can download a God that will help you. It’s called seven questions to ask your doctor about your stroke. These seven questions are the ones Bill wished he’d asked when he was recovering from a stroke.
Intro 3:24
They’ll not only help you better understand your condition, they’ll help you take a more active role in your recovery. Head to the website now, recoveryafterstroke.com, and download the guide. It’s free.
Emily Gable 3:47
I’d eaten breakfast, and my daughter was, whatever happens when you’re 15 months old, throwing food around. So he said, I’m going to clean up, and I was like, All right, I’m going to shower. So I get in the shower. And right at the end of my battery, I started feeling dizzy, like vertigo.
The floor dropped when I was having a stroke.
Emily Gable 4:08
And I got out of the shower, and suddenly, the floor dropped. And there was no upper down or left or right. Everything was just crazy. It was like I was on one of those Spinney rides, but I couldn’t get off. And I’d had this happen before.
Emily Gable 4:30
For eight years, I had been experiencing very short bouts of vertigo, but very short, like 30 seconds. This was going, and it kept going. And I was in the bathroom. I was like, just out of the shower. I was wet. I was naked. I don’t know why.
Emily Gable 4:49
But I grabbed all my dirty clothes, like my pajamas, on the floor. And I stumbled into the bedroom and onto the bed. And I just started throwing up into the clothes. I vomited everything I had just eaten into the clothes, like whatever ounce there was. I don’t know if I was just like, I should take the clothes so I can throw it into them. It was bizarre.
Emily Gable 5:13
So I was like, Oh, my God, what is going on? It’s not stopping. But I couldn’t find my voice. I don’t know how my husband learned to see me. But I couldn’t call out. And he was downstairs, and I was upstairs. And I don’t know what happens. But he came upstairs, and I was like, I don’t know what’s happening. I’m spinning. And he has been with me when I’ve turned before, and I’ve never puked.
Emily Gable 5:42
And I was like, This is different. I don’t know what’s going on. I was planning a home birth. I had our first child, my daughter, at home. And it had gone beautifully. It was amazing. So I had another set of midwives; I’d had her in a different state. So, I was planning to have my next child with others because we live elsewhere.
Emily Gable 6:02
And so he’s tried calling them, that was the first thing he was like, I’m going to call the midwives and see what they say; well, they weren’t answering because they were attending a birth. So he’s like, well, they’re not picking up. They’re not picking up, and I was like, call 911. So he called 911, they came, and the ambulance arrived.
Emily Gable 6:23
We lived in an ancient house. It was like rickety stairs; they came up with a stretcher and put me on it. And the only thing I remember about that is that this guy who was one of the EMTs was so overweight. And like he was like, and I was like, oh my God, He should be here. Like why am I on the stretcher?
Emily Gable 6:48
This dude is like, he’s like, going to have a heart attack trying to transport me. So I remember that. I don’t know much except when I got to the hospital. They had; they didn’t know what to do with me. They were assessing me. They didn’t know what, I was just the world was spinning, intense vertigo. So they’re trying to do some cognitive tests, you know, I was passing the cognitive tests I had
Misdiagnosed having sinusitis instead of a stroke
Emily Gable 7:20
The OB-GYN on call hit my sinuses hard, tapping them. Does this hurt? Does this hurt? I was like, yeah, that hurts. He goes, Oh, you’re just another neglected pregnant woman with sinusitis. You’re dizzy because of the inner ear. And I was like, whatever, dude, I don’t think so.
Emily Gable 7:43
But whatever, they disapproved of going the natural home birth route at that hospital. It was a community hospital. He was distraught to hear that I was going to see a midwife, thought I was being neglectful of my body, and said I was sick. And that was because I was doing that. And he left.
Emily Gable 8:07
They left me alone in this little triage room. My husband was in the hallway with our daughter, and suddenly, my tongue tingled and went numb. And I feel like this weird tingling sensation in my arm. And I call it my husband. And I was like, James, I think something is happening here. As I stopped, I realized that I could not swallow anymore.
Emily Gable 8:33
And I was like, I don’t know what’s happening. But I can’t feel my tongue. I can’t swallow. All of a sudden, my voice started getting weak. And there were no medical staff around. I don’t know where they went. There’s no one around. So we had to find somebody.
Bill 8:49
That went to the people who respect their bodies and babies with sinusitis.
Emily Gable 8:56
Right, there, like, oh, it’s just whatever. We will fill out your paperwork and give you some anti-dizzy medication and antibiotics for your ear infection. I don’t even know if he looked at my ear, but whose sinuses wouldn’t hurt if you had someone tapping them hard? So they were like, Oh, no, we need to get you in the MRI machine right away.
Emily Gable 9:19
So they took me in for an MRI and found a blood clot in my cerebellum. And I had a stroke. I didn’t know what the hell that meant. They said you had a stroke. And my husband’s like, Oh, my God, you had a stroke, you’re having a stroke. And I’m like, what does that mean? So you googled it and told me what it meant, according to Google, because I didn’t know anyone in my family’s ever had a stroke.
Emily Gable 9:49
No one I know has ever had a stroke. And it wasn’t enjoyable to the people around me. But I didn’t know what was going on. I was trying to figure out what was happening in my body because the world was still spinning. And I had lost sensation in part of my body. And they didn’t know what to do with me at the hospital that I was at. So they immediately were like, Okay, this woman had a stroke. She can’t stay here.
Emily Gable 10:16
We couldn’t do anything with her here because it was a community hospital. It was small. So they decided to transport me to the nearest city, about two hours away. But they said we’ll get a helicopter for you and put you in a helicopter so you can be transported immediately. Well, I think I waited for about three hours in the hospital because they couldn’t figure out where the aircraft was handed over to get it to me. In the meantime, they could have rushed me by ambulance to the hospital in Portland.
Emily Gable 10:46
But instead, they just, there was a lot of miscommunication, whatever. They got me on a helicopter and sent me to this city hospital. It was Maine Medical Center. And it was Memorial Day weekend. That’s the other key factor here. Which here is like a three-day holiday weekend. Many people go on vacation, take time off, and what have you? I learned things don’t happen on Memorial Day weekend; if you’re going to get sick or have an emergency, that’s not a good time.
Emily Gable 11:25
So I ended up in the primary Medical Center; I was alone, and my husband wasn’t there yet. He had to, you know, go back home; we had a dog, and he had to go back home, figure out what to do with her, figure out, you know, quickly get everything in line and come down and meet me there. And he, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know when he got there. I don’t remember the next time I saw him. But I know I was put into a couple more MRIs; I remember them putting headphones on and giving me a thing to squeeze; we’ve all been through. Squeezes, you’re going to freak out.
Emily Gable 12:07
Don’t move, And I was like, how do I do? Like, I don’t even know how to move right now. So, I guess I’m just going to breathe. My breath was the most powerful thing for me; I could still live. And I remember I just had to try to live. And there was crazy bagging all around me, which would scare theShitt out of me in any other circumstance. But because I was so, I didn’t know what was going on. And everything that was happening in my body was so foreign that I just dealt with it. I didn’t have a way to freak out.
Emily Gable 12:41
I remember they didn’t know what to do with me because I was pregnant. Should she go to prenatal? Should she go to the cardiac unit? Should she go somewhere else? We don’t know what to do with this woman. Where did we put her? Wow. So, I think I started in the prenatal unit. And they monitor the baby. And the baby was fantastic the entire time.
Emily Gable 13:09
He was never. They gave me the stress tests, put this strap around my belly, did ultrasounds, and checked my heartbeat. So they were checking his heartbeat every four hours. For the first two weeks, I was in the hospital. And he was fine. Never a sign of any stress. Now, this was the complete opposite. When my first child was born, I didn’t even have an ultrasound, not one ultrasound. This child is radioactive; I had morphine ultrasounds and who knows what else in my body when I was pregnant with him. He’s great. He’s ten now, and he’s fantastic. But I had to let go of my preconceived thoughts about this child.
Bill 14:00
That would be tough for a mom going through a stroke and a concern because of the baby. And it couldn’t possibly be worse. Many women I hear have hemorrhagic strokes during the pushing episode, you know, to deliver the baby. And that’s dramatic. And you even hear about women passing away during childbirth. And sometimes it’s caused by a blood vessel bursting or something like that.
Bill 14:37
So I can imagine how scary it would have been, especially knowing that now they will put you on many medications and have your baby in your belly. And how these things are going to impact the baby. So many uncertainties about the future weren’t there?
Emily Gable 14:54
Yeah, it was pretty wild. So they kept assuring we do not give you anything that will affect your child, morphine, that’s got a concise half-life. That’s what they’re saying. So it’s not going to go into the fetus. That’s what they told me. There’s a drug they usually give people who have ischemic strokes to kelp break up the clot.
Emily Gable 15:19
They couldn’t give it to me because it’s contraindicated for pregnancy. So I went through the whole thing without the intervention they usually provided to someone who wasn’t with a child.
Emily Gable 15:34
I did have a lot of morphine.
Itching from the inside out
Emily Gable 15:38
The first 24 hours, I had a lot of, like, I call it, itching from the inside out. It was like my nervous system was being activated. And I felt like I wanted to itch myself, but it was like coming from the inside. So it was super uncomfortable. Like I had these jolts of, you know, nervous system jolts,
Bill 16:05
Like electrical impulses.
Emily Gable 16:07
Yeah, like electrical impulses, but it was ticklish. And it turns out that the whole left side of my body dissents like I can’t feel the temperature. I still can’t feel the temperature. Therefore, I can’t handle the dampness. I can’t feel moisture because a lot of that is temperature. And I don’t feel pain. So, I have cut myself many times accidentally, not knowing. And then I looked down, and I got blood. Like crap, what did I do? So yeah, that’s very Interesting.
Bill 16:45
Yeah, it’s exciting. We will talk about that, because that is very interesting, however. Usually, there’s something done to sort out a blood clot in the brain. How did your blood clot resolve itself? Because if they didn’t intervene? What happened to it? Where did it go?
Emily Gable 17:04
I don’t know. I honestly have no idea. So they told me that the area that it blocked would slowly the blood cells, the neurons that were damaged, to find new pathways. So, part of what happened was I was unable to swallow. So, it took eight weeks for me to be able to eat again. So, I had a feeding tube placed directly into my stomach. First, they put an angio line down my nose and throat. I felt like I was on some alien operating table because I had to be awake.
Emily Gable 17:46
But they told me that it would just resolve itself. I took a lot of blood thinners until after I gave birth. So they said to me that their speculation was pregnancy caused the stroke that I had, this is I love that look on your face, like yeah, whatever, like okay, that’s not a new pregnancy book I could read.
Bill 18:16
Well, I will add that to the things that pregnancy does to women that we generalize about stroke now come on.
Factor five
Emily Gable 18:25
So there’s more to it than that. I had some midwives I met with, like way afterward, that said, there’s this thing called factor five. That is something that women experience during pregnancy that doesn’t always show up, but it’s an affinity for clotting. A lot of times, it’ll happen and let in women’s legs, you know, they talk about beware of varicose veins or blood clots in the lungs.
Emily Gable 18:50
They tested they did imaging of my heart to make sure I didn’t have a hole in my heart. I didn’t have a hole in my heart. They verified that. I came up positive for this lupus anticoagulants test, which doesn’t make sense because it’s a hypercoagulated state. And I don’t have lupus. So many of the nurses were like, Oh, you have lupus. And I’m like, No, I don’t have lupus. That’s what this syndrome is called; whatever it is, this factor is called.
Emily Gable 19:24
And so I tested positive for that until nine months after I gave birth. And then I tested negative. And then they wanted, so they were trying it every six weeks. They’re testing my blood for this. Then, they tried to enjoy a double negative before they took me off a blood thinner. And they pushed me again. And it was negative again, and then I went off blood thinner. And I’ve never been on it again since they also told me I should take a baby aspirin daily for the rest of my life.
Emily Gable 19:56
And I don’t think I’ve taken the baby aspirin in six years. It felt more like a placebo crutch to me. And I decided that I was okay. But it’s a risk I’m taking. I could take it, but I don’t feel it’s sustainable for my body for the following years. I was also misdiagnosed with preeclampsia. After they put the Angio tube up my nose and down my throat, once I got nutrition, I lost 12 pounds in the hospital in the first week when I was pregnant because I didn’t have any food. After all, the nutritionist was on vacation.
Emily Gable 20:37
So I also had
Bill 20:39
Sorry I laughed
Emily Gable 20:41
That’s okay. I mean, it’s absurd. So, my experience with my stroke was the most traumatic with my interactions with the hospital staff. I had to put down my throat earlier that evening. I just had it for the first time, and feeling okay, I had a sponge bath. This kind nurse came and gave me a sponge bath. I was feeling clean. You know, you start to feel disgusting.
Emily Gable 21:12
You smell like all this stuff they’re putting in your body. It’s gross. You smell the scene; you don’t get to move. You know, I think I had an alarm on my bed. So, if I like the setup, it would go off. So I couldn’t move. And this woman comes in. She goes, Emily, I think you’re preeclamptic. And I was like, why? And she’s like your blood pressure’s through the roof. Look at it.
Emily Gable 21:35
And she showed me the stats. And there’s like, Oh, that is high. But I don’t feel bad. And she was like, No, this is not good. You’re pregnant; your blood pressure is high. That means you’re preeclamptic. And I was like, Well, how would you know definitively there’s got to be a way besides my blood pressure? And she said, Yeah, a 24-hour urine sample. And I said, All right, well, why don’t you do that? Why don’t you start collecting my over 24 hours? I had a catheter, too, because I couldn’t urinate.
Bill 22:03
I am collecting it anyway.
Oh well
Emily Gable 22:05
Yeah, she’s like, we’ll wheel you down to the prenatal unit. Because they had decided to put me in the cardiac unit at that point, they wheeled me back down to the prenatal team. And they agreed that they would treat me for preeclampsia, whether I had it or not, because that was the best resolution. Because if I had it, I could die, and my child could die. Suppose I didn’t have it. Oh, well.
Emily Gable 22:33
So, the treatment for that is pumping you full of magnesium for 24 hours. And it’s hell. It’s like having a nightmare inside of your body. It’s like you feel like you’re on fire. And they told me they were like, you’re going to feel like you’re on fire. And I just, it’s like having the most intense sweat. But for a prolonged amount of time, you’re not moving. In that timeframe, another doctor talked to me about giving me an emergency c-section when my child was 25 weeks, and he probably wouldn’t make it.
Emily Gable 23:08
And I was like, it was it was devastating. And I asked, Why are you coming here and talking to me about this? Like, who are you? And why are you talking to me about this? And then they’re like, we’ll check back in with you. My husband and I are just like, What is going on? And we’re devastated. I didn’t understand any of it.
Emily Gable 23:27
Well, it turns out I wasn’t preeclamptic. They did the 24-hour urine sample. And they gave me the results after they had treated me for preeclampsia. And I wasn’t preeclamptic that woman; that resident never returned and said a word to me. And she never showed her face. Again. She didn’t say she was sorry. Nothing at all. So, neither did the guy who said he would give me an emergency C-section. They said, ” Oh well, we’ll go back to the cardiac unit now.
Bill 23:58
If you don’t have enough to struggle and worry about with a stroke, you must deal with all the other stuff. And it’s expected, what you’re saying is common, it’s not uncommon. And I find that good people who become doctors to help people allow the ego to get in the way of what the heart desires. And what the heart wants is to help people overcome life-altering challenges, bring good health, and bring them home to their families and all that. And then, somehow, they allow their ego to get involved, make rash decisions, not talk things through, and not ask for your opinion and feedback. And as if the patient has acquired no rights.
Bill 24:47
And I experienced that. in the hospital for the first time when the doctors would come and talk to me in a team. They wouldn’t speak to me. That would come in a group standing at the end of my bed, and they’d talk about me. And then they would leave. And I was just full of questions. And I needed to ask. And they wouldn’t answer anything. And they wouldn’t hang around. There was a lot of unknowns. Fair enough.
Bill 25:13
But they didn’t even really tell me. We didn’t have an answer for that or will know better in X amount of time. It was just no information whatsoever. Extremely rude is what I felt like. I don’t think I was being sensitive because I was very well able to participate in the whole conversation at the beginning. After all, I had no neurological symptoms other than a numb left side. I didn’t have cognitive issues. But these guys, they just weren’t up for having a chat.
Bill 25:46
So, I discharged myself from that hospital. Because I was able to, but when it’s Emily with a baby in a belly and all the other stuff going on, how do you do that? How do you, and when you’re in a location that doesn’t have many hospitals, how do you discharge yourself and go elsewhere? You have to do the best you can with the people around you. It would have been as frustrating as anything.
Thinking About Suicide?
Emily Gable 26:11
Yeah, I didn’t have any options. There’s one other hospital in the city, but they didn’t have the facilities to deal with it; they took me there because that was the only place to go. I had a doctor, a psychologist or psychiatrist come in with her students in the beginning, you know, in the first, you know, 48 hours. And she said I will have my students talk to you now. I don’t remember what she said. But I remember one of her students said he held my hands, which I thought was like, I don’t know you, like, I don’t understand why you’re holding my hand like that. He looked at me and said, ” Emily, have you ever thought about committing Suicide?
Emily Gable 26:59
Because of all the changes you’ve gone through, your family life has changed, and you’ve changed in your body. All this stuff that’s going on is pretty terrible. Have you thought about killing yourself? Because that’s a pretty serious thing if you have, and I was like, I don’t even know what the hell is happening inside my body. I haven’t even considered all these changes happening yet because I’m just trying to freakin get through the next hour.
Bill 27:24
Emily, this sounds like you’re making this up.
Emily Gable 27:29
I didn’t, I swear to God, this. It was nuts. It was like, I don’t understand. He was a student. So he didn’t
Bill 27:40
I didn’t understand what he was implying, yet
Emily Gable 27:44
And like, look at my chart, like I just entered this hospital 24 hours or 48 hours ago. Like I didn’t have time to think about this. Maybe if I had been here for a few weeks, I’d jump out the window because you people are crazy. But like, you know, I was so I couldn’t see. I couldn’t tell where the world was. I wasn’t going to kill myself. Like that was not an option. And I hadn’t thought about how my family life had changed how my life had changed because I wasn’t; I was still in a hospital bed, freshly in a hospital bed.
Emily Gable 28:22
So it happened that later that day, my husband and my daughter weren’t there. And my mom had come, and she was there. And I’m like, Where are James and Perilla? My husband and my daughter. And she’s like, oh, they’re coming. I was like, okay, something is going on here. But I don’t know what. So they come in. My daughter had been in the ER because she broke her arm.
Emily Gable 28:47
My 15-month-old doctor broke her arm the second day I was hospitalized. My husband was checking the weather on the TV and the hotel and went to turn it off. And she weirdly fell off the bed and broke her right arm. And I had been nursing her. So she had to like it was cold turkey, like no more. No more Mom, I’m inaccessible. And he had to deal with that. And now she had a broken arm.
Bill 29:17
Mom is in the hospital dealing with all this stuff while pregnant.
Emily Gable 29:20
And all I wanted to do was cuddle her and say, ” Oh my gosh, it’s going to be okay. But she was afraid of me because I was hooked up to every machine and IV and all this stuff. So that was tough because she was scared of me. She didn’t want me to comfort her, and she had a broken arm. But kids heal so fast. I think she was out of the cast before I left the hospital.
Bill 29:44
How long were you in the hospital before?
Emily Gable 29:46
So I was in the
Emily Gable 29:47
Whatever you call the medical center hospital for two weeks, I was in a rehab hospital for two weeks. And I fought hard to get out of the rehab hospital, and I got out of the rehab hospital on the summer solstice. On June 21. I was like, I can’t be here anymore. It was it was too much. I was exhausted. I didn’t sleep for a month. A woman at the rehab hospital told me she was so grateful for her children’s health because she saw what a wrong place I was in.
Shit out of luck
Emily Gable 30:30
And wasn’t it such a horrible thing what happened to my life, and therefore she’s just reminded of what a great situation her family’s in because I’m like shit out of luck. And I was like, What? Are you kidding?
Bill 30:48
You attract those weirdos. What’s going on?
Emily Gable 30:50
And so I told my physical therapist, who I liked; I told her about this because it hurt my feelings. And she said, Oh my gosh, I have to talk to this woman, I guess. So she went and spoke to this woman. She said she told her to apologize to me. And she came into my room late at night. Whenever her shift was, it was late. It wasn’t like during the day when I was awake and aware. She was like I’m so I’m supposed to apologize to you. And that was it. Like that was her apology was I’m supposed to apologize to you.
Bill 30:50
How old were you? You were 25?
Emily Gable 31:21
I was 26. And I had my 27th birthday in the hospital.
Bill 31:32
Yeah, so you’re relatively fresh and young as well. 25 26 27. Because, you know, we’re just growing up, we just come out of the teenage years, we thought we knew everything, then life happens. Kids come along, and you’re still really. You have an adolescent brain, but you’re an adult. And you’re responsible for children, paying a mortgage, and doing everything. And now you’re dealing with the lack of ability to comprehend how stupid people say things.
Bill 32:05
And it’s more about them than it is about you. But you don’t have the skills yet. To appreciate that and turn it into a, Ah well, just a weirdo. She said something: It’s more about her than me, and I won’t let it bother me. But you are also vulnerable because you’ve experienced a stroke. You’re pregnant, you’re concerned. You’re a baby who broke her arm. And then this person comes and says this, and it’s like, wow, it would be highly emotionally traumatizing because you’re in a fragile state.
Bill 32:43
Sometimes, it’s better for people when they turn up to visit a stroke patient. If you’re listening to people and watching out there, and you have a stroke member or patient, sometimes it’s better just to turn up and say nothing. Just be there.
Emily Gable 33:01
Yeah, I had some great friends come and visit me. This all happened before Facebook Ins, Instagram, and social media. It was like maybe that baby stage of Facebook, I don’t remember. But we had email; my husband knew my email password. Right after I had my stroke, when I went into the hospital, he emailed everyone on my contact list and said, Emily’s in the hospital; she needs your prayers and an overwhelming response. And he printed it all up for me. And that’s really what kept me going was all of these people, some of whom I didn’t know, some of whom were random contacts I had in my email list.
Emily Gable 33:48
But like I didn’t ever really talk to that said, I’m going to be thinking of you and sending you, you know, prayers and whatever. And I think that helped. I genuinely do. And I had friends come and support my husband because he didn’t have anybody. He was trying to care for our daughter and doing his best to get her fed, see me, spend as much time with me in the hospital, and then provide her again. And that was like, that was what he was doing.
Emily Gable 34:19
That was his job. And it was, once we got home, his career was to take care of me. And here, and it was a big task. Once I had my son, I had to return to the hospital for a week. They induced me; I had him but could not carry him. When I walked, I had to say he got a ton of love and attention because I just sat in and held him all the time. So I would sit and hold him a nurse if I had to get up and walk around; he had to go with that.
Emily Gable 35:01
I just couldn’t; it was enough to try to walk alone; I could not be holding a child. So it was a very humbling experience all around everything. And I spent my 20s breaking things, hurting myself, and having a stroke. I broke my arm and abalone my hands. And I also broke my ankle. And then I had a stroke. So I do my idea now is I sp I ent my 20s hand abalone elf, and I’m spending my 30s repairing so that I can live further down the road feeling amazing.
Bill 35:47
That’s pretty typical of most people until about 3536 37; I’ve met so many people who have had severe health issues around the age of 37. So many people have experienced the type of stroke I’ve encountered around the tired period, which is quite bizarre, around 3536 37. There’s quite a lot of them. And then, I have friends who I went to school with who have passed away in, you know, their late 30s and early 40s. And it was because of what they had been doing and what everyone had been doing when you were wearing out their body, wearing it down sooner rather than later.
Bill 36:34
And unfortunately for them, they didn’t get away with it. I got away with it. And I’m still here; they had one lousy experience with health. And that was it for them. And the most recent one was only 17 18 days ago. Shockingly, I’m here, and they’rehealthnd I don’t know. And I made a post about I called that sadness, you know, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t get it; it doesn’t make sense to me. And the only thing I can do is take responsibility for myself like you are doing and like a lot of people recovering from a stroke are doing.
Bill 37:10
And first, is to learn as much as we can to try and prevent us being the cause of our disease or our, you know, our next health scare. And the first ally, what I’m about, is just about me, preventing myself from harming myself. That’s, that’s all it is. And yeah, this podcast makes it possible for me to do that because I put it out there to the planet. And I, t everybodyrybodyI’mhat Im doing and how I’m going about it. And I’m supporting people.
Bill 37:42
And it just makes me practice what I preach. Everybody says I’m a terrible thing. So I’m glad that you’re doing the healing part and the rebuilding of yourself part. One, did you come out of rehab? As far as neurological deficits? I know you said your left side was impacted. So, how was it specifically affected?
Emily Gable 38:07
So, I had to learn how to walk again. I can move my body just the same as before. I don’t know how I moved back because I was unaware. So I can move my body. Great. Now. I don’t know what I could do before; I never thought about it. So that’s one thing, my awareness has changed dramatically. So the left side of my body from about my chin down and over, and then the right side of my face. So, in my right eye, I used to wear contacts.
Having Horner’s syndrome after a stroke
Emily Gable 38:51
I can’t anymore. I can’t create tears out of my right eye. And I had this thing called Horner’s syndrome, which was my pupil always stayed dilated. Everyone was like, look at this girl. She looks like she’s on drugs. She’s got this crazy eyeball. And I was like, thanks. I was like, so whenever I go to the eye doctor, I’m there for three hours because they’re fascinated with my eyeball. It’s constantly moving at a breakneck pace. My neurons have rewired, so I’m used to it.
Emily Gable 39:25
I can see things, but I have a tough time. When we go, like if my husband’s driving, he turns a corner quickly. Or I’m watching an amusement park ride. It sends me into a dizzy spell. So my eye is I don’t have the Horner’s syndrome anymore, but it’s like chronically dry. And because I can’t feel, I can’t handle the surface of my eyeball, and it’s dry.
Emily Gable 39:57
I scratch my cornea very easily. And then my vision becomes worse. So, my prescription on my right eye is three times worse than the left eye because of that. And so I’m constantly like putting an eye drops lubricants. Again, it’s one of those things like, do I have to put these petrochemicals in my eyeball for the next 40 years? Because I don’t think that’s a good thing.
Emily Gable 40:21
So I’ve tried all sorts of alternatives and sprayed like plant hydro lattes and all this stuff. So I vacillate back and forth between those things, so that’s affected. I couldn’t swallow for eight weeks, so my esophageal nerve was damaged, and the muscles in my throat were weak. So when I have to cough because something goes down the wrong way, people are like, are you okay? Because it sounds terrible. But it’s because muscles are fragile; it might still, even 11 years later, it’s tough for me to recall something from my throat. I can puke. I’ve done that before. And it works.
Emily Gable 41:15
But I have,
Emily Gable 41:19
I get upset. My throat closes up; I can still breathe just fine. But I can’t swallow; it feels like someone’s stabbing a sword into my throat. And there’s also a big stone at the same time. So when I get worked up, like when I get emotional and upset, that’s my tell, like, I know that I’m distraught because my throat starts to be extremely painful. And I can’t swallow.
Emily Gable 41:47
And then the temperature thing on my left side pain. And I’ve had an exciting experience with the pleasure of figuring out that when something hurts, it tickles. So, it tickles if I pick up a pot lid with my left hand off boiling water. But initially, it took my brain a while to figure out what was happening. Now I have the wits to be like that’s boiling water; I should use a pot holder. In the very beginning, I was like this is cool.
Emily Gable 42:25
But
Almost orgasmic
Emily Gable 42:27
That’s kind of what happens. So I have many tattoos, and the ones I have on the gotten, and I’ve gotten them all since I’ve had the stroke. The ones on the left side of my body, I haven’t felt at all. And the ones on the right side of my body are like it was painful. I had one done on the back of my left calf last year. And I was almost orgasmic the closer you got to the center line. It was extremely pleasurable. And the guy was like, how are you doing? Do you hold them? And I was like, I’m great.
Bill 43:01
Please give me more of that.
Emily Gable 43:03
Yeah! So that’s interesting,
Bill 43:07
Let me tell you something that I heard that one of my messing friends said to me about the reason why people enjoy having their toes is that, in the brain, the area for toes and the sensations and the feeling in the brain is very, very close to the spot for the genitalia.
Emily Gable 43:31
Interesting.
Bill 43:33
So when you are arousing somebody, his genitalia, and you’re touching their toes, sucking their toes simultaneously, or they’re going through that arousal process. It’s straightforward for those things to wire together. So when the Princess of Wales or whoever it was, decides to have her toes stuck by the captain, or whoever it was, it is basically getting that person stimulated to that extent, in some cases, actually to, you know, maybe have an orgasm. I don’t know. But that’s just some information that came into my head right now. So, it’s not necessarily a stroke e. It’s podcaster sort of information, but Interesting, nonetheless.
Emily Gable 44:24
Well, it’s interesting. It is very fascinating. Mainly because I work with people with their feet. And I love feet, too. So that’s interesting.
Bill 44:34
Everyone loves a foot rub, don’t they? Everyone loves having their feet rubbed. So it releases tension, and the feet are the gateway into the whole body because they’re always on the ground. They’re always supporting people. But people don’t understand that they are so closely linked to the brain, to that section where arousal occurs. And that’s one of the reasons why you know men: you can message your woman’s feet, and she’ll almost do anything for you sometimes.
Emily Gable 45:06
Wow. Fascinating, huh? Cool.
Bill 45:10
So, your tattoo was an excellent experience.
Emily Gable 45:15
It was. Yeah, I’m sure to get more on the left side.
Emily Gable 45:21
But I’m trying to think that there’s been some. So my lasting neurological effects were what I said, and I had a feeding tube that couldn’t swallow for eight weeks. It was summertime in Maine. So everyone was on vacation, and then it was Memorial Day. It can’t be helped Memorial Day weekend. That’s not okay. Then it was the summer. So hea, even forbid, there should be a doctor that works in the summertime because they’ve got to go out sailing. They told me that I could get the feeding tube out in September. And I started swelling again in July.
Emily Gable 46:06
And I was going to have my baby sometime in August because I knew that would probably happen. So I was like, I have a growing belly. I have this tube directly to my stomach. There’s food coming out of it. Now I’m swallowing food, but there’s still food because it’s open to my stomach. There’s like a valve you can turn it off. So I had to travel again to the bigger city to the big hospital. And the doctor there took it out who wasn’t on vacation.
Emily Gable 46:37
Yeah, but it was another experience when they gave me a very high-calorie carnation instant breakfast. There were these cans of really new high-calorie food. And that’s what they fed me in the hospital through my feeding tube. And they sent me home with to give myself when I went home. Now, that would be like eating McDonald’s blended up. Maybe I don’t know, I don’t eat McDonald’s. That’s not how I eat. I didn’t then. And I don’t know, I don’t know.
Emily Gable 47:17
And I did not then, I don’t know if you remember. But I said we were going to the farmers market. So, like, I eat vegetables. Things like that. So, I was grossed out by that. And I started swallowing after I’d had enough of the very high-calo kind of; I was out of it. My husband was there was so much going on. We’re like food. This is what we’re supposed to do. Let’s do it. And then I was like, What the hell am I doing? This is disgusting.
Emily Gable 47:46
It’s like, let’s juice, get some vegetables and juice stuff. And, like, blend up. Let’s make chicken soup until it disabled blended it you,p and pour that crap down. You know, run that stuff in the tube. It’s still liquid. As soon as I started doing that, two days later, I started swallowing because I had real food. And my body was like, Oh, right, this stuff.
Bill 48:08
You’re supposed to be eating that.
Emily Gable 48:12
And I didn’t have any swallow therapy because the swallow therapist was on vacation.
Bill 48:17
So many, just so many lousy timing situations. The thing about doctors and the medical profession is that they often get influenced by Big Pharma or big corporations about the best way, even in Australia, and most likely has happened all over the Western world. You hear that formula was best for baby, all that kind of stuff. And there was so much kickback when some lady who knew better said the recipe is not best for the baby; mother’s milk is best for the baby.
Bill 48:52
She wasn’t saying that to give moms who couldn’t breastfeed a hard time; she was just saying that we need to stop telling people that what the corporation creates in a factory is the best thing for the baby. The fact is that until the factory started to develop the stuff, there was nothing better for the baby than breastfeeding.
Bill 49:14
So, how did we change and move into that space? I had my parents bring me food every day when I was in the hospital that I could because I couldn’t eat that crap. And yeah, they talk about healing the brain, and they don’t understand that food is what’s going to help heal the brain, get the patient out of hospital quicker, make it cost less to have them there, have them in rehabilitation list make a cost less to have them in rehabilitation.
Bill 49:40
So, the one thing they skimp on to save money is food preparation. And that’s costing them a ton more money because it’s decreasing the rapid right that the brain will heal just feed the body properly. And it’s the strangest thing: I was at a hospital for a month. They had booked me in for two months of rehabilitation; I was meditating before I was able to start my therapy so that I could stimulate the neurons in my brain.
Bill 50:17
Because when you meditate, you use the same parts of the brain that you are using.ng when you walk the same features in the brain. So, I could do two or three days’ worth of rehabilitation without moving out of bed in the first three days. So I was doing that. I was eating correctly. And I was playing tracks off into, my ears meditation tracks of me walking of what it’s going to and be like how I’m going to feel better. So I set myself up for this, you know, for this path forward that didn’t rely on only the therapists and the nutrition that I was getting from the hospital; it was my responsibility.
Bill 51:01
So that got me out of the hand capital sooner; they were surprised that I think I was done after a month. And it’d be great if you guys could sign up, you know, sign me out. So I can get out of here because I’ve been in here for a month. It’s ready; I’m ready to go home. The fact of the matter is that what you experienced ismon in the stuff after a month that they feed you, although I get it, it serves a purpose. There has to be the next level of understanding that has to occur, which says, okay, like all short-term medications, they’ll save your life and get you back to where you can operate.
Bill 51:40
After that, we need to discuss what do we do then. So, we can’t take aspirin for the rest of our lives. If it’s too thin the blood, what else can we do? Garlic does that effectively, and it sure decreases your blood pressure. So why can’t we have conversations about all these things? Holi, statically, rather than just taking a cane? And off you go, with stuff to eat out of a can. It’s mental.
Emily Gable 52:17
I left the hospital with high blood pressure. I was still in vertigo. I was I was in a vertigo state until December. I couldn’t drive a car; I could not hold my child. And this happened at the end of May. But you know, they gave me anti-dizzy medication, blood pressure medication, anti-nausea medication, and blood. The blood thinner was a low molecular weight because the blood thinners they would typically give people were contraindicated for pregnancy.
Emily Gable 52:56
So I had to have one that would bypass the thea or t, the fetus or, you know, all that Insurance didn’t cover. And it was $3,000 a month. And I had to take it the whole time I was pregnant until I gave birth after the stroke. And I spent there where there were a lot of tears at the p, the, betw,een me and mand my mother like there were many tears. And they were just like sorry.
Deciding not to take pregnancy medications
Emily Gable 53:24
And then it turned out the following year there was like a generic brand. And it was like $30 a month. But it was all about It. It was terrible timing, but I came to realize that I looked at the labels of these things like the, you know, caution could cause dizziness. So, the blood pressure medication could cause dizziness, and taking dizzy medicines could cause nausea and Blood pressure. And I’m taking knowletreatmentmedicine that could cause high blood pressure. Why what? This is so stupid. So I got off all that stuff quickly with no one’s permission. I just said I’m not taking this.
Bill 54:04
And I wouldn’t recommend that to anybody listening, just in treatment 54:07
No, it was my choice. I was taking it up until after I had my son while I was pregnant. After that, it wasn’t very easy for me. I had to recover from giving birth and the simultaneous time. So, I had some setbacks. I had some, like more intense, vertigo spells. A lot of my neurological symptoms came back. I had a curtain come down over my right, and I would see lights. These were all things that had happened to me simultaneously years before my stroke.
Emily Gable 54:49
And then, when I had the stroke, it all happened simultaneously: the vertigo, the curtain, the spots, the bright lights. So I thought that was an intern who went to a neurologist when I was in college, and he said to do yoga and learn to breathe better. He said you’re poisoning yourself. And I laughed. I was like, what a doofus. Well, it turns out that I probably gave myself the stroke because I went to a neurologist.
Emily Gable 55:28
I’ve done a lot of boI’veork; I’d become a massage therapist and a bodyworker. And I’ve taken some breathing work. I’ve done a bunch of breathing work recently, actually, within the past year. And I realized, like, holy crap, I’ve poishabitsmyself. He was right; this guy was right. All that time ago. I believe him now. He was
Bill 55:51
He was ahead of his time because he would say that so much instead. So long ago, he was ahead of his time if I interviewed a gentleman called Patrick McEwen. And I’ll have the link in the show notes. And Patrick, the episode that I did was how to reverse sleep apnea or something like that. And basically, he talks just literally about breathing and helping people breathe incorrectly. And how people don’t realize that living in through the nose and out through decreases the chemical composition of the oxyhat goes into your bloodstream.
Bill 56:34
So many people have less carbon C and carbon dioxide in their blood, and they meant to, and that throws out so many things in the body simply and puts you into a high-stress state. It’s not allowing the proper oxygenation of the body in the extremities and the lungs and all sorts of places in the whole body. Right. So that’s if you if anyone’s interested to learn how to breathe better.
Bill 57:02
Listen to that, and I’ll have the link to the show. Commonly, people don’t know how to breathe correctly. And when you ask somebody that question, they look at you read because when you know, do you understand how to live rightly? Are you breathing? I like what I’m saying to you. I’m living, indeed,
Bill 57:26
But it turns out; it turns out that a lot of people have lost the art of breathing properly. And posture does impact that. So sitting at a computer and looking over it for an extended, you know, decreases the capacity of the lungs to expand and how much oxygen they can draw in. And then sitting down all day, at computer desks, doing all that type of thing causes those issues. I’m standing up at my stand-up sit-down desk today.
Bill 57:56
And I bought that because I realized that I was constricting my organs around my belly, gut, and stomach when I was sitting down too much. And it made me feel quite sick. So the more I stand, the healthier I feel, the better I think, and things are starting to flow, my bowel is beginning to move better, and the bloating is going away. Because I generally eat pretty well.
Bill 58:24
So there are so many that this guy told you back then that would have helped you a lot. But it’s all right, you know now. And now you’re a meditation teacher and a yoga instructor. Tell me exactly what it is that you do. It sounds like you’re a massage therapist. You said sorry.
Emily Gable 58:44
Yeah, that’s okay. So, in my process of
Emily Gable 58:49
Afterward, before I could drive a car again, I had my husband Take me to a senior yoga class. And I went to this yoga class, probably 30 people. And you know, everyone was over the age of 65. And I was tucked away in an ER. I realized then that practice was precious to me because we did a lot of standing without falling over, which was hard. Just being there and God closing my eyes, not falling over, and not swaying l, it was impossible.
Emily Gable 59:34
And I wanted to do more of it. But I didn’t want to do it with 30 people; I needed to be on one with a teacher. So, I asked around about the town I was living in. And I found out about this woman who taught Iyengar Yoga, which is all about alignment and breath. Because Iyengar was the man who founded this practice, and he was very into, like, correct posture. So I’ll spend an hour in class doing two poses because it’s all very much cueing everything exactly.
Emily Gable 1:00:09
So I went to this woman and talked to her about what I was experiencing. She said I want you to sit on this ball. And it was this, like, 10-inch ball, and inflated. And I was like, okay, whatever. And I tried to sit on it, and I couldn’t, I fell off. And it’s not that high off the ground. I never did yoga with her. I only ever did this thing called Yama body rolling with her. And it took me about two months to sit on the ball and not fly off. And I worked on each side of my body separately. So I’d work on the right side. And then I work on the left side. And I’d say, Oh my gosh, it feels so different.
Emily Gable 1:00:53
You know, and it worked on waking it up with bone stimulation. So I ended up doing private sessions with her for about a year, and she convinced me to go to classes; I started going to classes and realized that everybody’s different between the right and the left side. It’s not just me. Maybe I have various others, but perhaps I don’t; we’re all different. Even regular humans have differences. We’re all completely asymmetrical. Yeah, we’d have a hand and a hand here, but they feel other things no matter who you are. So, I ended up training and getting my certification to teach this practice, studying with the woman who developed it.
Emily Gable 1:01:38
And I teach it, and I work on people doing that. And it’s changed my life. It has; I realized that if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it all the time. And it changed my life so dramatically and impacted my life so much that I wanted to share it with as many people as possible. So, I have trained in all of her modalities except for one. And so I teach that I work on people individually; I teach people how to work on themselves. I work with the feet, the face, the whole body. And then, I went to massage school and became a massage therapist.
Emily Gable 1:02:12
And I also do work with plants with medicinal aroma therapy. And that’s something that has drastically changed since the stroke. And I don’t think the sense of smell increases when you’re pregnant. But it was amplified after my stroke and never went away. So, I have an acute sense of smell. So, working with plants and their essences, I enjoy it because I love the way that they smell and the way that they feel. They have different attributes and methods that help me and others overcome something.
Bill 1:02:53
How do you enjoy the smell of sneakers?
Emily Gable 1:02:58
Sneakers, you know,
Emily Gable 1:03:00
I told my mom this, and I gave my mom a massage today. I told her when people come with really stinky feet, and I’m working on them, and I get to their feet, and they stink, I put I’m like, oh, I think your feet want lemon today. So that I don’t have to smell their stinky-toed shoes, and today, I thought I would put some oil on your feet. And she was like, Oh, no, do my feet smell.
Emily Gable 1:03:28
I’ve got I’ve got some solution for it.
Bill 1:03:31
So many unique experiences with stroke. It’s just amazing. Not a single person I spoke to, as we have a lot of similarities. But no one has failed to surprise me by saying this is happening to me. That’s an everyday sense of smell getting heightened is just another fantastic thing, just so bizarre and unique. And I don’t know, maybe you could use it as a superpower.
Emily Gable 1:03:59
Yeah, you, maybe I can definitely, like I can smell. I can smell the insides of people’s houses when I drive by—their open windows.
Bill 1:04:10
Wow.
Emily Gable 1:04:13
I don’t know. And I’m like I say to my family. Do you smell that? And they’re like; I don’t see what you’re talking about; it’s different like someone’s roasting a turkey. You can smell it because it’s very different like I can. It’s Yeah, I don’t know, it’s bizarre. So, it’s hard for me to drive down the road with my windows open because there are so many offensive and nonoffensive smells. But there it’s just, it’s hard. It’s difficult for me; I get nauseated quite a bit.
Bill 1:04:42
So tell me, when we started to chat on Instagram, we started talking to each other. You contacted me because you were feeling down, not depressed, but feeling down and a little bit isolated. And I’m not judging, and I get it. But I’m going to ask all the obvious questions if I’m somebody who doesn’t know anything about stroke, somebody like you, who has gone through so much so long ago and has done so much to help themselves, has taken responsibility, has done such a large amount of healing, and got their life on track and doing what they love and helping people and making a difference.
Bill 1:05:24
How does somebody like you still end up feeling down and feeling isolated? And being so amazed that this community that I’m creating exists? Just don’t strike me as that kind of person now. Yeah, and the person who doesn’t know anything about anything? and answer that question.
Emily Gable 1:05:48
So because I have this family unit, and because of where it happens, and being in a very isolated place, and I didn’t have any friends there, we had just moved there eight months before. So, I didn’t have any friends besides my husband. You, sir, I know you don’t know I had a stroke. But I will tell you that knowing that you did are the first person I’ve ever talked to who’s also had a stroke.
Emily Gable 1:06:22
Knowingly, maybe I have had conversations about my stroke with other people, but I didn’t know. So, I have lived my life for the past 11 years without that connection or community to anybody. And, of course, some people have had cancer, that has cancer, that have other conditions that are going on that I encounter in my life, and people with empathy and compassionate people. And they exist. And I’m grateful for that. And I have my husband’s support, who has been by my side through all this.
Bill 1:06:22
Whoah.
Emily Gable 1:07:02
But I have never connected with anybody who’s had a stroke. I’ve just not been in that. In that place. We lived in Maine, in this tiny little town; I wanted to leave as soon as possible. It took five years. We moved to Mexico, out of the country, and Baja because life is a lot slower, cheaper, and laid back. So we lived there for four years, started getting poisoned by the pesticides and chemicals and all that stuff going on there, burning trash and plastics, and moved back to the US for our kid’s education.
Emily Gable 1:07:46
And there certainly wasn’t anyone there who could empathize with stroke. So, I have been my little island of whatever this is until now. Yeah. And so I felt uplifted listening to your podcast. I’m like, these people like we have, like you said, every stroke is different. But there’s this shared understanding and appreciation for life. We’ve all had to overcome giant obstacles. And we’ve all had to adapt and have a new sense of living. That is not the same for someone who broke their ankle or, you know, got in a car accident, not to say that those aren’t big things. It’s just different.
Bill 1:08:46
It’s different. And I’ve done all the little injuries in my time, you know, broken arm and all that type of thing. And that’s what gets my mind overthinking sometimes. It’s like, well, I broke my arm, I can talk about it like it happened in the past, and it went away. I talked about the stroke. And if I spoke to the wrong people or shared with some people, they say, or whatever we’ve heard that move on, lives with you, every day. And even though I am, I’ve done a lot of counseling. I’m a counselor, sorry, I’m not a counselor, I’m a coach, life coach if for lack of a better term, so I guide people through trauma, releasing, taking, you know, taking action in different ways to get to the outcome that I want.
Bill 1:09:42
Sowe acknowledges that something has happened, but they often leave it in the past to look at it in the distance and say, Yep, that is what happened. And the trauma has been dealt with over there. Now, I’m not bringing that trauma into my life continuously. I’m not living it. And I’m moving forward, taking steps to achieve what I want. And I’m learning about myself and overcoming all this stuff. And that’s what I started doing when I started to go to counseling and get coaching to know how I was getting in my way, all the time when I was completely healthy and constantly sabotaging my ability to grow and achieve new things.
Bill 1:10:24
And then I, I experienced a stroke and everything that I knew about dealing with stuff and leaving him in the past and trauma, dealing with trauma that occurred in the past went out the window because now I wake up, every day and my left side hurts every day, I wake up every day, and my left side is colder than my right side. I sleep every day, and I feel out on my left side. So I have to sleep on it. So that it’s so that I numb the sensations, the mattress interferes with the feelings that I’m feeling. So I don’t feel cold because I’m hot on the other side. So, it creeps back in daily.
Bill 1:11:09
And it created that reminder, Hey, remember that stroke on your head? Well, that’s the hurts, or that’s the leg that hurts or, and when I get busy with amazing podcast interviews, and when I get busy with coaching people, and when I get busy with my jobs and my tasks, I have this split second situation where I forget about it, and it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like I’ve had a stroke. And then when I rest and reflect on the day, etc…….., it comes up. If I’m tired, or if I’ve overdone it, it comes up. If I haven’t slept well the night before, it’s obvious the entire day that I’ve had a stroke.
Bill 1:11:52
So that’s why I asked the question of you earlier: how have you got to be 11 years down the track and still feeling these feelings? Because I think a lot of people are going through this. And if you’re not the first person to say, Oh my god, I can’t believe this podcast exists. That episode was just the one I needed to hear, and so on. And usually, it’s because they’ve been through the trauma back then. And some of my guests say, Well, I went through the trauma, and I didn’t deal with it, then I just dealt with getting on my feet and being able to drive and go back to work.
Bill 1:12:31
Jenny McAllister, who was the person I interviewed for Episode 46, The episode was called Blink once for yes and twice for No; I think she’s about 11 or 12 or 13 years into her recovery and just realized that the emotional trauma of that stroke cause hasn’t been dealt with yet. And she’s now starting to deal with that. So, have you looked at what you have done? I imagine you have, but what type of counseling or therapy have you done to heal the heart and feel better about things?
Emily Gable 1:13:11
So when I first saw the woman I went to who taught me the body rolling, she did the EFT Emotional Freedom Technique or tapping. And she’s the one that helped me to stop using the medications as a crutch; she never advised me to stop taking them. I decided that on my own and with the doctor, but she helped me see that it wasn’t something that would need to rule my life. So I did a lot of tapping with her. She also helped me; when the day came up, the anniversary of the year after, I feared it would happen again.
Emily Gable 1:13:58
You know, I don’t know if you experienced that. But I was just terrified. I was almost panicked. And she said I don’t know what is happening with you. But we need to tap and tap this out. So I did a lot of tapping around the first anniversary around the fact that it wasn’t going to happen again, there’s no way it was going to happen again, you know, I had to tell myself that, and I did all my tapping with that. And it helped immensely; I was able, I couldn’t talk about it without breaking down into tears—anything about the stroke. So I did that. And that was in the first five years post-stroke.
Emily Gable 1:14:43
I’ve spent a lot of time enrolled in this program through the Institute of Loving, and it’s called the Whole Being program. And it’s fantastic. It’s it’s based on spiritual psychology. And it’s local to where I am now. And we do a lot of diving deep into, like,
Who are we?
Emily Gable 1:15:17
Who are we? What are we here for? And how can you be your best self, which is love? And there’s a lot ofShitt in the way of that. So it’s getting past all that stuff and dealing with it in a safe environment. So, learning how to process with other people and help them process and help yourself process and observe. So I’ve been doing that since January. So we’re in our six months now. And you know, we moved to Mexico, like I said, I watched the sunset over the ocean every day for four years.
Emily Gable 1:15:58
So I spent a lot of time on the beach, and it wasn’t the ocean you want to swim in. Like it’s the kind of ocean that will eat you. So I sat on the beach and watched the waves break. I walked on the beach every morning; I’ve done a lot of work in my body trying to figure out different ways to move. And that’s been a massive release for me. Because I can’t feel pain on my left side, I can ask my left side to do much. So I must be careful; I have a plate and six screws on my right side from where I broke my arm. And so I have an I have like a thing on my right side, not from the stroke, but because of this weakness.
Emily Gable 1:16:51
But one of the things that I love to do to release is to exercise, and I need to sweat. I need to feel like I just stepped out of the shower with my clothes on, which helps my mental health. So those are things that are like significant things that I’ve done. And you know, the work that I do gives people massages, it’s like you said, you step out of that I had a stroke, any pain, any discomfort I have in my body disappears completely, when I work with people. It’s like Emily’s steps aside. And something else happens. I don’t even know what happens when I’m giving a massage.
Emily Gable 1:17:33
And then it’s over, and I step back into my body. But it’s it’s a fantastic experience. And I found my true passion. And if I hadn’t had the stroke, I would not have come to this. So, you know, I heard someone else say it was the worst thing. And the best thing that happened to me, And it indeed, indeed it was like, the universe was like shaking me like Wake the fuck up. It was because that was not the path I was on. And it just, I had to do this. This is what had to happen. I guess.
Bill 1:18:14
The universe has a way of nudging us in the right direction, and the nudge could be gentler. Let’s be honest. But
Emily Gable 1:18:23
Yes, yeah,
Bill 1:18:25
Maybe for a thickhead like me back then. I think the nudge was just right. I think it was just the right three; I didn’t pay attention after the first one. Sure, I dealt with all the medical issues after the second one; I paid attention because I couldn’t do anything anymore. And then after the third episode, after surgery, I just was in the zone to take the lesson on and say, okay, what now? So the class was about, you know, me reinventing myself and told that I am not the person who was putting myself in harm’s way.
Bill 1:19:09
Because that’s what I was doing, and I wasn’t doing it by walking in front of cars; I was doing that by just living so far away from how I think we should have been living our lives. And I say that talking about more the ancestral how we should have. And I’m okay with living in a city and all that thing. And I’m aware of what that does to me. So now I’m taking steps not just to be living my life without being aware of what’s happening to me.
Bill 1:19:45
Every once in a while, I pay attention and observe how I’m responding to people, how I’m acting, and how I feel about my work—and then make tiny this case of stroke survivors making minimal changes regularly to help them navigate the path and get to a better version of their existence. Even though you’re dealing with a stroke, and I get it, it’s tough, and I and some people don’t know worse than we call it—so, minimal changes. In the end, those small changes add up to a massive difference. And then the next part of the key is to look back and observe yourself, see how far you’ve come, and celebrate how far you’ve come.
Bill 1:20:36
Because it’s not just a matter of knowing, okay, great, I used to be in a wheelchair, but now I’m not well, but look at how much you’ve achieved, how resilient you’ve been, what you’ve learned, and how you’ve grown. Now, also celebrate that and tell people how far I’ve come. And if you’ve got to do that on social media, do it there. Somebody can do it there if you have to do it in person. If you have to buy a cake, cut it, and sell it, do that. But don’t have the cake too often. Because too much cake is not suitable for stroke survivors.
Emily Gable 1:21:07
This is true: not too much sugar.
Bill 1:21:11
So please tell me where people can find out more about you if they want to connect.
Emily Gable 1:21:18
Yeah. So, my website is bodysustainability.com. If you need to know how to spell sustainability, look it up.
Bill 1:21:32
I will have all the links on the show notes.
Emily Gable 1:21:35
My Instagram name is Emily Sarah Gable, and I’m on Facebook. And I also have a business page on Facebook—that’s body sustainability with Emily. And right now, I’m doing a challenge. It’s 365 days a body rolling. I put a video up every day of my practice to help me with whatever I needed, from physical discomfort to emotional discomfort to, you know, where I keep my balls.
Emily Gable 1:22:18
There are random things and how I share them with the world, which is also on my Instagram.
Bill 1:22:25
Where do you keep your balls?
Emily Gable 1:22:26
My balls, I told you I do the body rolling.
Bill 1:22:27
Oh, those balls.
Emily Gable 1:22:29
Yeah, there are so many jokes with this practice. It’s I’m used to it. So that’s how you can reach me, and one thing else I wanted to say was I’m just really grateful for you doing this podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t even have words.
Bill 1:22:58
My pleasure. Thank you for saying so; it makes hearing others say so worthwhile. So. Thanks for doing that. Emily, it’s been amazing chatting with you. I wish you all the best in your ongoing recovery. Good on you, and well done for the work you do for other people, and reach out anytime.
Emily Gable 1:23:21
Alright, thanks, Bill.
Intro 1:23:23
Discover how to support your recovery after a stroke. Go to recoveryafterstroke.com
