Kelly Studebaker has been recovering from the challenges of a ruptured AVM from the tender age of 11. In the years that followed she has overcome many of stroke life’s challenges and achieved so much.
Socials: www.instagram.com/thiscriplife/
Highlights:
00:32 Introduction
02:01 Arteriovenous Malformation
11:35 A snowball effect
16:29 The importance of counseling on stroke recovery
26:01 Never say never
34:45 Deficits and challenges after stroke
39:45 However long it takes
47:59 Emotional issues
Transcription:
Bill 0:00
You know what? I want to highlight this I want to highlight that it took you five years to get there. And I think that’s an amazing feat because you know, stroke survivors need to know that if you can put something in your mind, it doesn’t matter how long it takes, you can most likely get there, just work towards it every day. Small steps and you’ll get there.
Intro 0:24
This is recovery after stroke with Bill Gasiamis, helping you go from where you are to where you’d rather be.
Introduction
Bill 0:32
Bill for recoveryafterstroke.com This is Episode 106 and my guest today is Kelly Studebaker. Kelly became a stroke survivor at age 11. Due to a ruptured AVM and almost 40 years old now, she has recovered so well that she decided to become a one-armed powerlifter.
Bill 0:51
Now just before we get started, if you’ve just found this podcast, you might not know that you can download the full transcript of this episode from recoveryafterstroke.com. Simply go to recoveryafterstroke.com/episodes, scroll to find the name of the episode you just listened to click on the link, and scroll down until you see the orange download transcript bottom.
Bill 1:15
Click the Download Transcript button. Enter your name and email address and your download will begin. Also when you get to the end of this episode, whether you are watching on YouTube or listening on your favorite podcast app, please do me a favor and share this episode. In other groups, you’re hanging out in.
Bill 1:31
This will help someone who is doing it tough at the moment perhaps feel a little better about the journey they are on. If you feel this podcast makes a massive difference to you and the stroke community please do me a favor and give the show a five-star review on iTunes or wherever you download your podcasts from. And now it’s on with the show.
Bill 1:49
Kelly Studebaker Welcome to the podcast.
Kelly Studebaker 1:53
Hello.
Bill 1:55
Tell me a little bit about what happened to you
Stroke caused by Arteriovenous Malformation
Kelly Studebaker 2:01
So I was 11 I’m 39 now I had a cerebral hemorrhage, which was an AVM arteriovenous malformation. I hope I’m getting that right. And they rushed me to the hospital and I had my first brain operation, just to stop the bleeding and, you know, for them to get in there to see what was wrong. And then I waited for three weeks because they wanted to see if I would survive.
Kelly Studebaker 2:47
During that time I had a coma and then that lasted for 10 days and then they titrated me off medication so I could wake up because they didn’t want my brain to swell. And then I pretty much started physical therapy. I don’t know the timeline because I was so out of it drugged up.
Bill 3:24
And you were young you were only 11 years old. Were there any signs before that, then I imagine you spoke with your parents about it was there any type of sign that might suggest that this little innocent 11-year-old was about to have a bleed in the brain?
Kelly Studebaker 3:42
So I would get these headaches, which now I know that headaches are pretty, you know, substantial to having a stroke but it was the 80s. So you know, if I had a headache, I would just lay down it was probably a migraine just because. I wouldn’t like light.
Bill 4:28
So where do you sound sensitive as well? Or it was just light?
Kelly Studebaker 4:32
Yeah. Now that I’m looking back on it. I mean, I didn’t have headaches all the time, but when I had them they were pretty intense.
Bill 4:54
And when you wake up, perhaps can you recall all that you had to learn and how to do again what you had to regain. So you would have been 11 years old until after surgery, what was it that you lost?
Kelly Studebaker 5:12
I had to learn basically how to do everything over again because my right side was paralyzed. And that was my dominant side. So I couldn’t talk because of my stroke. So my mom found out that I could write, but I was writing with my left hand, so it was scribbled. Just so she could, you know, communicate with me. They didn’t know if I would ever be able to speak again. Because the part of my brain where it happened that part of the brain really speech is that part.
Kelly Studebaker 6:16
And my right hand It’s like, behind my left ear. So I don’t know what section that is. But yeah,
Bill 6:28
It’s an important section.
Kelly Studebaker 6:30
Yeah, for sure.
Bill 6:34
So then at some point, you would have gone back to school. Did you have to? Was that a big struggle? Do you recall what kind of challenges you faced when you went back to school after this experience where your body was not working the same way that it was before the bleed?
Bill 6:54
So I had when I got shipped down to Children’s in Cincinnati, Ohio, which I probably don’t know where that is, but it’s a very good hospital and I had my second operation to fix the brain bleed. Because I knew I was surviving. And then they had physical, occupational, and speech therapies and I did that. every day.
Bill 7:41
I was in the hospital for about three months. And then when I went home from the hospital, my mom and my dad were working at the time. My mom would drive me down there two times a week. Just for physical, occupational, and speech therapies.
Bill 8:06
When I went back to school, like getting on the bus. That was a whole new experience for me because half my body didn’t work. I walked with a cane for a while. I don’t think that I went to school with a cane. I don’t. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t but I was a lot slower because of the stroke, because I can’t run you know, I can’t even now I can’t run.
Bill 8:46
So like, I had an aide and she would give me like five minutes. The school would give me five minutes. So I could get out of class, I could go to my other class and then, you know, all hell would break loose and all the kids would come out of the classes. And then, you know, it was a big change. But my family and my friends protected me. I wouldn’t be where I am today, without them.
Intro 9:31
If you’ve had a stroke, and you’re in recovery, you’ll know what a scary and confusing time it can be. You’re likely to have a lot of questions going through your mind. Like, how long will it take to recover? Will I recover? What things should I avoid in case I make matters worse, doctors will explain things, but obviously, because you’ve never had a stroke before. You probably don’t know what questions to ask.
Intro 9:56
If this is you, you may be missing out on doing things that could help speed up your recovery. If you’re finding yourself in that situation, stop worrying, and head to recoveryafterstroke.com where you can download a guide 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. 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.
Bill 10:43
In the 80s, when you went through that, were there a lot of support services for a child who had experienced such a traumatic event? Did you have counseling was it therapy was anything to help you?
Kelly Studebaker 10:58
So I had it in 92 and there were physical, occupational, and speech therapies. I didn’t go to a counselor to deal with my head stuff. I have been to two of my counselors to deal with my head stuff, like mental stuff a couple of times just because it’s a lot
Bill 11:28
Do you mean it’s a lot to deal with, or there’s a lot to overcome? What do you mean by that?
A snowball effect
Kelly Studebaker 11:35
Well, I’ve had an interesting life. Four of my friends have passed away and my dad has passed away and stuff. So after those, you know moments of hell. I didn’t know where to turn and I would go inward and like, freak out. So that’s when, like, after my dad died and after actually, I had a tragic experience with a boyfriend of mine. And after he died, I had counseling just because I didn’t know how to deal with it. And like anybody, like nobody knows how to deal with stuff.
Bill 12:39
Do you find that there are unresolved things that also come into play? So, life goes on. Everyone has a traumatic experience like a stroke experience. And then life goes on normal regular life, things happen. Did you find that when those other things happen, then it kind of added to what you’re all already gone through in life? And perhaps too much to deal with because you hadn’t dealt with other issues?
Kelly Studebaker 13:08
It was like a snowballing effect. Like, I have all this other stuff to deal with because every day that I live is like a recovery day. And nobody goes over that with you. But every day when I wake up, I realize that half my body is kind of screwed up. So yeah and then adding on, things that I’ve had to go through during my life.
Kelly Studebaker 13:52
It kind of shocks the system, it is kind of like you don’t know what to do with it. didn’t know what to do with it.
Bill 14:02
By counseling, or talking therapy helped? How did you find that helped you?
Kelly Studebaker 14:10
It was, you know, I went to a grief counselor, and they just talked me through scenarios and stuff like that just because I went to two years of grief counseling when my dad died and two years of grief counseling when my boyfriend died.
Bill 14:41
So it helps talking about it helps and getting another person’s perspective helps. And did you feel better when they kind of made it normal? In that people die, you don’t feel well you don’t know how to deal with it. Did it kind of make it feel better for you that you know that okay other people go through this thing as well? And I don’t have the skills to deal with it. But now that I’ve been to counseling, I have a better understanding of the whole process.
Kelly Studebaker 15:14
I think that early on when I was rehabbing, like my junior high years, that’s when people’s brains started developing, and I didn’t have time to get all that information. I was still at the trauma of my stroke. So I guess I was like, not innocent, but naive, and then when stuff happened, like, I’m like, Hey, I didn’t get I don’t know what to do here. And that pissed me off. Like, I couldn’t deal with it on my own. I’m a very stubborn person.
The importance of counseling on stroke recovery
Bill 16:29
You kind of have to be a stroke survivor and continuously go through rehabilitation, every single day all the time constantly on the road to recovery. So that’s a good thing. But if it’s getting in your way, and it’s interfering with your recovery, then then it’s a bit of a challenge. I reason I asked you about your counseling and your therapy and all that kind of stuff is just for people who are listening and watching to get a bit of an understanding of what happens and why we might have void counseling, and then how counseling might help us move on and move forward.
Bill 17:04
And also the complexity of life. And then, for stroke survivors, there’s a little bit more going on with regular life than regular people who are well, and we’ll call them people who haven’t had a stroke or a serious health issue. There are usually more complicated situations happening when you throw a stroke in the mixer into life.
Bill 17:29
And if people have been avoiding going and speaking to somebody and getting some talk therapy or getting some understanding about what, you know, what their feelings and their emotions are doing, then it’s just gonna sit back there stroke recovery a little. And a lot of the times I hear a lot of stroke survivors say I did a heap of physical therapy. I did that for five years or 10 years and then one day I realized that I never did the emotional therapy that I needed I never healed from all that stuff.
Kelly Studebaker 18:01
Yeah. Like, sometimes I remember stuff even now. And I’m like, I am so angry about that. And that happened when I was 11. Like, it’s so weird. But I guess everybody has to go through what they have to go through.
Bill 18:29
And the fact that you have that realization at some point in your life is a great thing. But how silly is it? And I know what happens. So I’m not, I’m not playing it down. But how silly is it? Because I’m the same I’ve done the same thing. How silly is it to be angry about something that happened when you were 11 and now, nearly 40, and you’re still going on about something that happened at 11?
Kelly Studebaker 18:53
It’s challenging at times and I’m laughing about it because It hasn’t driven me crazy, but it’s been a challenge.
Bill 19:11
Yeah, but now that you’re aware of it, is it easy to let go of that thing that happened when you were 11 and move on?
Kelly Studebaker 19:19
Yes and no. I’m a very physical person. like, I’ve done competitive powerlifting for a while, like five years now I’m out of it. Out of the circle. I guess you can call it but like I’ve done a half marathon on a rower just because I thought I couldn’t do it. So I did it anyway. I’ve flipped over tractor tires like I’ve pulled a car and those things make me happy. I am in ballet. I’ve always been in some sort of dance ever since I was little.
Bill 20:20
So you said that you can’t run or do anything like that, but can you stand and walk?
Kelly Studebaker 20:28
Yeah, I can stand and walk and I do pretty intense workouts because I can.
Bill 20:43
That’s what I do about walking up a flight of stairs. So if I go to a public building, or a big building somewhere where they’ve got escalators, or an elevator, instead of going in the escalator and the elevator, I make sure that I take the stairs and the only reason I do it is because once Upon a Time I couldn’t.
Bill 21:02
Now that I can I’m never taking an escalator or elevator if I can avoid it.
Kelly Studebaker 21:09
So there was somebody in Dayton, Ohio who got a hold of me some of the firefighters, and wanted me to do a 911 stair climb. And that’s like 111 flights of stairs. And I’ve done that. Three years. Last year, I had to take a year off because I had a headache. And, you know, when I have a headache, like, it’s no joke. I’m down for the count.
Bill 21:50
Nothing’s happening.
Kelly Studebaker 21:51
Yeah.
Bill 21:52
So do you think that kind of weirdly, experiencing a stroke at 11 kind of puts you a little bit in a situation where you’ve got a lot of time to create a good recovery? And therefore, you benefited from having a stroke at 11. Because most AVMs rupture in people’s, mid-30s to mid-40s.
Kelly Studebaker 22:22
I think helped me. I was so young and my brain was still developing because your brain doesn’t stop developing until you’re in your 20s. So I had a lot of neural plasticity happening. And then like, my brain was like, Oh, wait a minute. We have to switch gears. And I’m doing so well because I was so young and I know what my body, goes through before like adulthood because as you get older, your knees start to wear out, you know, everything starts to wear out.
Kelly Studebaker 23:21
So you just have to have you have to stay physically active, especially for stroke survivors just because, you know, once you stop, you lose it all. And that’s just horrible.
Bill 23:39
Just keep going. I know I agree with you. So you know, your 11 year experience a stroke and you’re starting to recover. did it affect did the stroke affect you growing up in that critical time when you were a teenager and you’re starting to think about you know, who you liked and dating and all those types of things?
Kelly Studebaker 24:03
Yes, I didn’t have a relationship until I mean, I went out with a boy to prom or whatever, but like, I didn’t have a relationship until college because I was just, you know, trying to get better from my stroke and had homework and, you know, lots of things that just, the relationship wise stuff kind of fell away. Just because I was dealing with a lot of stuff.
Bill 24:52
And then you finish school. Did you go to college? Did you study to do something specific?
Kelly Studebaker 25:01
I went to school. I thought I wanted to be a pastor, but that all changed. But I went to school and I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree and communication from Ohio State. And I always wanted to do that. And a lot of doctors said that I couldn’t do that. They didn’t even think that I could finish high school. And I was on a track to prove them wrong.
Kelly Studebaker 25:44
A lot of my accomplishments have been stuff that people said that I couldn’t do. So I’m like, Well, I’m going to prove to you that I can do it. So you know, watch me fly.
Never say never
Bill 26:01
You’re one of those people, I love that I was one of the opposite. Somebody told me I couldn’t do something, I believed them. And it took me a while to get over that in my life. You know, I think I was 30 before I started to get over listening to be able to say something is not possible. Now I had my brain hemorrhage at 37.
Bill 26:20
So I only had just started growing up at 30 when I started not paying attention to people telling me that something’s not possible or I can’t make money working in that field, or I can’t do that, or whatever. So I love the fact that I come across people who do something just to prove somebody else wrong.
Kelly Studebaker 26:47
Did you have your stroke did it happen on your left side, or does it happen on your right side?
Bill 26:54
It happened on my right side.
Kelly Studebaker 26:56
Okay. So your left side is affected.
Bill 27:03
My left side was affected. So on my left side, I’ve got numbness from the top to the bottom, and pretty much from the middle of my chest over. So I can stand, I can walk, I can run, not a marathon, but I can run. I could probably run a marathon if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.
Bill 27:26
And I have a couple of balance issues. So when I get tired, I get a little bit more wobbly. Riding a bike was a real issue because my foot would get tired and it would fall off the pedal. And then I would lose my balance. If I put my foot on the ground. I didn’t know where my foot was. So I would fall over those types of things.
Bill 27:49
But most people who see me wouldn’t know that I’ve done anything wrong. But for me, every day when I wake up my left leg has to kind of wake up as well. And I’ve got to tell it remind it that you’re on the ground you know, make sure you’re paying attention so that I don’t trip over or anything like that. And my left side is cold much colder than my right side.
Kelly Studebaker 28:19
Yes. In the wintertime, it is fierce like I have to wear super heavy socks. And when I go to sleep at night, like this whole side is like chilly chilly.
Bill 28:38
Do you ever get in summer you know what I get? I get perspiration on one side of my body but not the other.
Kelly Studebaker 28:46
Now I don’t have that problem.
Bill 28:52
So my left side doesn’t get sweaty and my right side does so it takes a bit longer for my left side to feel like it needs to be sweaty. It’s like two different people living in my body simultaneously.
Kelly Studebaker 29:06
You have two different sides of your body. And if they’re squashed together,
Bill 29:10
Did somebody challenge you that you couldn’t knit and you thought you decided to start knitting?
Kelly Studebaker 29:17
Oh, okay my sister taught me how to knit on looms about nine years ago. And I’ve done like probably 500 to 600 hats. Like for people just, hey, here’s a hat, here’s a hat you know. And just recently, I have started to do hats with brands. I finally learned how to do that. And then I’m working on a scarf. That isn’t a tube it’s just one. It’s cool. It’s really warm. I like it this winter.
Bill 30:12
I see you wearing it on your Instagram. I’m going through your photos now and I can see the scarf.
Kelly Studebaker 30:18
I love to knit. I just love it. It’s like my peacetime.
Bill 30:27
It’s like your peacetime what does it help you?
Kelly Studebaker 30:30
Just mellow out and just do something creative.
Bill 30:42
Yeah. And it’s not something that you have to go and do anywhere. In particular, you don’t have to put a lot of effort in. You just need to get some needles. Sit down with a couple of balls of wool and go for it right?
Kelly Studebaker 30:55
Now Actually, I have a loom. Oh, circle loom. I do it because my right hand doesn’t work. I mean, it’s just my right hand is just around for you know. I don’t know it’s just hanging out when you see me walk, you can tell that you know something happened.
Bill 31:27
So you know how you’re now nearly 40 and you’ve had almost good age. I was gonna ask you have you been surprised over the years when you’ve noticed something come back or start to work? That took a long, long time to come. Have you had any surprises like that? The years where one day you just noticed something was different.
Kelly Studebaker 32:05
So in what year, my boyfriend died in 2013? And he told me that I couldn’t flip over a tractor tire a month before he died. And like, I didn’t say anything but that was just like bumbling in my chest. I’m like, Oh, no, you didn’t. So I went into this gym, and it was a powerlifting gym. And when I went in there, it was just all Viking dudes with long beards and it was bench night and everybody was looking at me weird.
Kelly Studebaker 33:00
And I’m like, what am I doing in here? I just wanted to flip over the tractor tire. And I went in for a boot camp class, and it met like three times a week. And that’s what I told the instructor and little did. I know, she was a physical therapist. So she had me flipping tire tractor over in four months from that time, so yeah, and it just kind of built on. I’ve gotten much more confidence in myself because I’ve been able to work out with weights know what I’m doing and be confident that I’m not going to hurt myself. Which I have done, but I get back up and I go so it was kind of like our rediscovery of myself.
Bill 34:22
Yeah, I’m looking at one of the photos and you lift a barbell with two yellow on the side. I don’t know how heavy they are. Wearing a brace your right arm is not working and your left arm is.
Kelly Studebaker 34:44
Jacked.
Deficits and challenges after a stroke
Bill 34:45
How do you deal with trying to get balanced, sort of strength or muscles in both sides of your body when you’re when one of your hands is not able to do the weights how do you work that?
Kelly Studebaker 35:05
So I just basically told myself that my right side is going to get stronger without a doubt. But it’s not going to be as well defined as my left side because I’ve been working out my left side, my entire life. You know, there’s lots of times when I’ve carried up my laundry up and down the stairs, you know, so I mean, my right side is, stronger, but not as strong as my left side.
Kelly Studebaker 35:52
I mean, you can tell a difference between my calves just because I’ve been walking with this left side being dominant for 28 years, so it’s going to, I’m never going to match. Like, I’m never going to be symmetrical. And I always use when I was growing up, I would always wear jeans because I didn’t think that people could see my disability through my jeans, which was not true,
Bill 36:38
It helped you.
Kelly Studebaker 36:40
Yeah.
Bill 36:43
That is interesting to me. I don’t lift any weights or anything like that. But my chiropractor noticed that my left side is a lot less defined than my right side and I don’t have that level of disability all I have is numbness and a preference to avoid using one side because if I try and do barbells and or benchpress on the left side gets a bit shaky, I get panicky and of course, my right side can lift way much more than my left side.
Bill 37:23
But it kind of always in the back of my mind that I might drop the left side because my hand might just go to sleep in a second you know sometimes and he’s noticed that there’s a massive difference and I don’t notice that I’m referencing one side over the other. But I can imagine what it’s like for you, especially as a powerlifter lifting with one arm that much weight is a cool thing do you have to do things slightly differently than the regular abled-bodied person because you’re gonna kind of shift your balance somehow, to protect yourself differently.
Kelly Studebaker 38:11
There’s this cool guy that I got to know, early on in my powerlifting, you know, journey, whatever. And he hurt himself in a motorcycle crash, so his right arm doesn’t work. So he lifts with one arm. And I met him, and we just started talking. And he’s like, well, you can deadlift, and that’s what I’m doing in that picture.
Kelly Studebaker 38:54
And I’m like, No, I can’t like how and he showed me like the fee like you have to get your feet lined up a certain way because of my disability. And I just, I started low like, I couldn’t do what I was doing in that picture like that took me like five years to do. And I think I did like 10 reps and 120 I don’t know 121 pounds. But that was when I was, you know, training and stuff. And now with this pandemic going on and stuff, I couldn’t do that.
However long it takes
Bill 39:45
I would say, you know what, I want to highlight this, I want to highlight that it took you five years to get there. And I think that’s an amazing feat because stroke survivors need to know that if you can put something in your mind. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. You can most likely get there and most likely do that thing, just work towards it every day. Small steps and you’ll get there.
Kelly Studebaker 40:09
Yeah, like I didn’t know. I love Tarot. It’s a rowing machine. It’s called the Sea to Rower. You see him a lot in CrossFit. And I love to row it’s something. It’s not. I don’t get the feeling of running, but it’s more. It’s like a full-body workout.
Kelly Studebaker 40:38
So, I would just do it with one arm. And, you know, both my feet are up. And one day last year, I’m like well, why not do it with both my arms and I basically tie my right hand down to the handle, and I can pull back I can row a couple of strokes. But it’s gonna take me a while. But I learned that.
Bill 41:26
So tying it are you putting your hand? Are you kind of wrapping it around the bar and tying it?
Kelly Studebaker 41:35
Yeah, I wrap it around the bar and then I tie it on with the bench strap because that’s what I had in my bag at the time yeah, so it’s really interesting you can do stuff, it just takes a while.
Bill 41:35
You have to be a little bit more creative as to how you go about doing it. I often am fascinated seeing those in Australia, we’ve got the world champion wheelchair tennis player. And I don’t know what happened to the dude. But all I know is I don’t know if he would have been a world champion at anything if he didn’t have the disability that he has. So he kind of just seems to me to be a normal guy, but the fact that he’s got this disability is pushing him further and further than he’s ever been pushed.
Bill 42:03
So he’s in a wheelchair and it doesn’t look like he might be paralyzed. from the waist down. It appears because he’s pretty handy. above the waist, you know, he’s fit, he’s got good arms, he pushes away around his wheelchair around this tennis court like nothing else is the best in the world.
Bill 43:05
I see people who are the best in the world in the Paralympics or other sports. And sometimes I would love to interview them just to wonder to find out like if you didn’t have this disability, do you reckon you would have been that much that motivated and I suppose that’s a good question for you, you know, do you think that you would have been that motivated?
Kelly Studebaker 43:27
Now, probably not. I mean, I probably would have a family with kids and stuff. I’ve never been married, you know. And that’s, I don’t know. That’s just not the way that my life went, so I have other hobbies that I can explore, I guess.
Bill 43:57
Awesome. And they have hobbies. Let me ask you a question about powerlifting and eating when you’re training tell me about how much food you have to hit.
Kelly Studebaker 44:08
I didn’t pick up my eating or whatever, but like, there were people around me that like, you know, they would eat six times a day and stuff like that and I’m like holy mackerel, you know, I eat three times a day, I was eating like, you know, two eggs in the morning and then like, just hearty stuff, you know, but I didn’t go into it.
Kelly Studebaker 44:52
I didn’t go into it thinking like, Oh, I have to eat this and I have to do this. You know, I just kind of It was just like a trial and error. Like sometimes I would get so sore and have to take some time off like a couple of days when I wouldn’t go to the gym just because I would overdo it. I mean, I slept a lot, because my body was just going through changes and wrecked basically.
Kelly Studebaker 45:36
Because when I was competing they would take you through like these 12 or 14-week training cycles and the instructions like do this many reps of this and whatever. Like it was for a normal person, and I’m not a normal person. I’m not a normal person at all. So, when I would do these workouts, and I would do them with the best of my ability when I would come home, I would just crash just because I was so tired. I mean, it’s something that I like to do.
Bill 46:24
Yeah. Do you ever or do you still experience neurological fatigue? Is that something that was part of your life after the stroke?
Kelly Studebaker 46:37
Like brain fog or when I get brain fog, it’s normally because emotional stuff is happening to me. I’m when I’m training. I’m not training right now. But when I’m training like it seems I don’t have brain fog when I’m training. But I’m more physically tired. I don’t know. it’s just something to do.
Bill 47:25
I’m just curious about like how your body reacts to doing that much to putting that much effort. A lot of stroke survivors talk about neurological fatigue and brain fog. However, I love what you said, which is slightly different from what most other people say. And I imagine there’s a lot of people who experience what you just said, which was neurological brain fog, after an emotional, a big emotional experience. That’s interesting. Most people don’t say that.
Post-stroke emotional issues
Kelly Studebaker 47:59
I’ve been through a lot, enough stuff that when I’m challenging myself physically, I feel like it’s mind over matter. Like I can do stuff physically. But emotionally I’m weaker because maybe I haven’t had that much training in it. I know probably.
Bill 48:33
100% You nailed it that’s exactly what people don’t do. They don’t do enough training to deal with emotional issues because it’s a bit scary, you know, and it makes sense. But the thing about when you deal with emotional issues, and you train yourself to go there if it’s hard, is once it you’ve gone to the hard part. It’s better afterward. It’s always better out It’s no different than going to the gym and waking up and being Oh my God, I gotta go to the gym, I gotta go to the gym. And then you make yourself go and then after you’ve been you go, I’m so glad I went. That was amazing, you know?
Bill 49:15
Dealing with emotional issues is very similar at least that’s what I’ve found. And, I know they can be traumatic but to release the trauma. It’s the same as climbing up those stairs, you know, those hundred flights of stairs. There’s only one way to do it. You have to push through the pain threshold to get to the other side. And once you push through, then it becomes nothing.
Bill 49:43
It’s like nah what do you mean? 100 flights of stairs, I’ve done that. It means nothing. You know, it’s not a problem for me. And that’s what it’s like dealing with emotional challenges. And I’ll give you this analogy. Say that it was essential that every year you had to climb 100 flights of stairs. And if you didn’t climb it the next year, you had to do 200. And if you didn’t do those, they were waiting for you the next year, and you had to do 300.
Kelly Studebaker 50:18
Yeah, I would just do 100 every year.
Bill 50:22
Yeah. Right. Because by the time you get to year three, if you’ve got to do 300 flights of stairs, it is such a dramatic issue. It’s such a problem, that it’s really difficult to get to that, right? However, if you chip away at those 100 at a time, then you can still say you’ve done 300 flights of stairs in three years. And that’s a better way to do them.
Bill 50:45
And that’s what emotional trauma is like every time you get traumatized. And you don’t deal with it. It’s waiting there for you next time. The next one happens and the next one and they’re all waiting for that ain’t go away until you deal with all of them. And then when we get midlife in our 40s and before we have our midlife crisis, there are so many of them because we haven’t had the training to deal with it.
Kelly Studebaker 51:10
I’ve been through a lot of midlife crises.
Bill 51:22
Every couple of years is that how often you do your midlife crisis?
Kelly Studebaker 51:27
Yeah, I think so.
Bill 51:33
You’re no different from the other human beings on the planet we’re on this planet, and sometimes things happen to us that we don’t choose. So we’ve just got to become a little braver in tackling them like you tackle your deadlift.
Kelly Studebaker 51:53
I haven’t deadlifted in like six months maybe.
Bill 52:01
Are you looking forward to getting back to it?
Kelly Studebaker 52:08
Right now I’m doing this program. His name is Derek. He’s a military guy. And he’s retired because he has a prosthetic? And he’s a big CrossFit dude. So I’ve been working out like a home workout. And man. It’s intense. Like I couldn’t like my kneecaps were sweating today. Like, my kneecaps were sweating.
Kelly Studebaker 53:09
I couldn’t even finish the workout. I felt like such a wimp. But whenever it happens.
Bill 53:20
Tell me a little bit about the thinking behind your Instagram tag this crip life. What’s behind that?
Kelly Studebaker 53:30
So in America, we have this TV show that was on my so-called life, and I liked that in the 90s. And when I was thinking of a name like it just appeared in my head, I’m like this crip life yeah, I guess it’s like a slogan for people to you know, log on to my page or whatever. And it’s kind of like a play on words like, you know, I’m crippled, you know, but I’m doing cool shit, you know?
Bill 54:25
You are. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and making a massive effort to be on here because the first time we tried to get together it didn’t work, and it seems like you’re in a way better location today. I appreciate getting to know you a little bit and understanding a little bit about what’s behind the person who I’ve got to follow on Instagram keep doing what you’re doing and I’m looking forward to getting to know a little bit more about you and seeing more of what happens in the years to come.
Intro 55:06
To discover how to support your recovery after a stroke go to recoveryafterstroke.com
