On March 16, 2021, my life changed forever on a trip to the Dominican Republic. I was alone and awoke at 3 a.m., thinking I had slept on my arm wrong, as it was numb, only to find it was paralyzed along with my right leg. Even my speech was affected as I could barely talk.
The feeling started coming back to my arm and leg at about 4 a.m. and I drove several miles to the Emergency Room.
Unfortunately, the ER doctor misdiagnosed my symptoms as a heart attack. He ordered an echocardiogram . . . which showed that my heart was fine. The problem was my head, not my heart. A CAT scan would have shown I was experiencing TIAs.
Realizing that I needed to get to a U.S. hospital and some good medical attention, I drove to the airport. I found a flight at 11:00 to Miami, and while waiting to board I suffered a major stroke.
I was on the phone with Monica (my wife) when a janitor passed by. I was able to signal to him that I was in trouble. Monica said to hand the phone to him. She spoke to him in Spanish and said I was having a stroke and to call the ambulance.
I was taken back to ER . . . and you guessed it . . . the same doctor.
The hospital tried to keep me there, saying I could not leave. Thanks to Monica and her brother, Andrew, I escaped to a an airfield where a private plane was waiting.
My friend Josh Reidinger had chartered a plane to fly the three of us to Miami. I call it the “Great Escape.” Being back in the US was a relief . . . the Dominican Republic is no place to have a stroke!
I spent four weeks at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in their Stroke Unit. The therapists there were outstanding. We flew back to Reno, Nevada, where we had recently moved to.
I was in a wheelchair, and contemplating getting a wheelchair lift, to get up the 18 steps to our condo. It was then that Monica, through her Internet search, found that they were doing breakthrough work on stroke patients at Stanford University. We applied for the stem cell trial Dr. Gary Steinberg was conducting, and several months latter I found out I was accepted along with 17 others who had suffered an ischemic stroke.
The surgery took place in late October, 2021, at Stanford. Dr. Steinberg performed the surgery, which entailed drilling a hole in my skull and inserting stem cells.
I remember walking up the next days and Dr. Steinberg told me to raise my right arm . . . which I could barely move before. I raised it up off the bed. He then told me to raised my leg . . . it rose off the bed. It was a miracle.
We returned to Reno and with the help of JD Albright, a physical therapist in Minden, Nevada, we embarked on a three-days-a-week routine of therapy in the gym lifting weights and ultimately swimming at the pool. JD drove 45 minutes to work with me and Monica for three years.
Today we live We live in Atlanta, Georgia. We work out six times a week at the gym through a combination of swimming and biking. I plan to go fly fishing this fall with Monica in the mountain streams near Blue Ridge, Georgia. It’s been something I never thought I’d be able to do again.
Recently I got a call from Dr. Steinberg asking me to speak at the University of San Francisco (UCSF) to the medical students about my stem cell transplant. Monica and I traveled there in late May to talk about the stroke and the stem cell therapy. “From the Wheelchair to Walking Again” is my speech. It’s an emotional story about how one man’s tragedy and the brilliant neurosurgeon who got him to walk again.
Steve Parish
