by Louis Ruppe

Created on: March 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 07, 2007

This is about my stroke and how it effected my life. I had a major stroke 3 1/2 years ago I was paralyzed on my left side. This is how I see a stroke today. your life as you know it now dies and you are reborn into a new life.
I will explain what I mean, you are now a new born or physically disabled. As a baby you have to learn how to coordinate your movements, which you only have one side that works. While you are retraining your disabled side you need the help of a caregiver (which will play a big part in your new life) this is a hard job as they have to move you and take care 0f you like a new born baby. You than are trained to use your arm and leg again, and possibly you will be taught how to speak again. You will start to train and you will have to learn to eat again.

The hospital will get you started on your new road to life,it will be a hard road and you will have to work very hard to recover. Your care giver will be working with the hospital and the therapist to work out a plan to get you back. I was in the V.A. hospital (thank God) they decided to work me 8 hours a day 6 days a week. Which brought back 80% of my movement. When I left the V.A. I could walk and use my arm. I thought I was great and I had licked it. Ha Ha
After being home a few days I decided to cut the lawn I made one 30ft cut and was done, I could not do any more. I was really down by that and saw an article by The American Stroke association about doing a marathon They were looking for people to either walk or run so I called and got involved with them and my wife (caregiver) said that she wanted to also hoping to pay back for all the wonderful people who helped me.
I started training with just short walks increasing them up to 6 miles a day. I was walking slow as we were going to increase the speed as we went along. Doing the Disney Marathon you had to walk a 16 minuet mile. So we decided to do a 5k walk and I was going to walk it at a 16 minuet mile. The day came and we started the race i did most of the race at the proper time but the last 1/2 mile I could not make and i walked slow and finished. I knew than that there was no way I would be ready. My wife continued to train and I was giving support to the group. She finished the marathon, she was 66 at the time and it was her first marathon. I feel that I will try it again.
The V. A. had set up a retraining program for me. I was a Carpenter be-for so I thought that I would make a good home inspector. I was retrained for that when

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