When Alison Bonds Shapiro, a children's book illustrator and business consultant, had a pair of massive strokes seven years ago, she found herself in a despairing, near-vegetative state, with slurred speech — unable to walk, focus her eyes or control basic body functions.
Today, she's chairwoman of a university board of trustees.
Shapiro wrote about the road back in her new book, "Healing Into Possibility: The Transformational Lessons of a Stroke," and in talks this week and next week in Ashland and Medford she will offer advice and hope for those faced with serious illness, injury or other seemingly dead-end life situations.
"It's about learning to focus on healing and being able to face any difficulty by learning to look at where you want to go, being aware of where you are and finding that you keep getting better by paying attention and doing small steps, one at a time," said Shapiro, the chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.
Shapiro's gripping, grueling and ultimately gratifying journey began at age 55 when, even though she was young and followed a healthy diet and exercise routine, she was stricken with back-to-back hemorrhages in the brain stem, which, she notes, "controls really important things, like breathing and your heartbeat."
The strokes paralyzed her left arm and most of the left leg and left her trunk muscles unresponsive. She couldn't sit up. Her right arm and leg, she wrote, "responded to thoughts of moving them, but were wildly uncoordinated "¦ I either looked as if I were devoid of feeling or I laughed or cried uncontrollably."
Shapiro says the successful road back from a stroke or other serious injury or illness is governed by four guiding principles:
"If people know these four things, they will find a satisfying life," she says. "If you believe you're helpless, you're going to give up and have a miserable life"¦ . I came out of it by being present, showing up and turning toward what happened. Often, injured people want to turn away and not pay attention to what happened."
Until recently, Shapiro said, science used to think all body functions were performed by certain parts of the brain — and if those parts were damaged, end of story, you lost those functions.
With the new understanding about neuroplasticity, she said, the brain can be taught to re-create the functions using other parts of the brain.
It's a long effort, she said, and physical rehab in the first four months is a big help, a "jump start." After that, you try anything that works, she said. "I walked in the mountains, threw balls, did qigong (similar to tai chi), painted pictures of the cat, washed dishes, brushed my teeth, put on socks — any opportunity to heal.
"Novelty is great. The brain loves novelty. Learn a new musical instrument. If it's your left side that was injured, do dishes with your left hand. Walk backwards "
More than 700,000 people a year are hit with strokes in this country and sadly, she said, if stroke survivors don't have a plan, including a family member participating, they are often turned away by rehab hospitals and sent to a skilled nursing facility, where prospects for recovery are dim.
Until recently, science told stroke survivors they only had a certain amount of time to get better, about six months, or they were not going to get better. However, she said, that's no longer the case and people continue to improve many years after the event.
Shapiro had supporters, an exit plan and was well nourished and in good physical shape at the time of her stroke, thus giving her a "leg up on getting better." The book Shapiro was illustrating at the time of her stroke bore a title — "Just For Today" — that would ironically become a touchstone for her healing and for the recovery of her artistic skills. It was published in 2005, just three years after her stroke.
Today, Shapiro is a motivational speaker and advisor to an HMO and a nonprofit dedicated to stroke survivors. Her Web site is healingintopossibility.com.