Rising From The Ashes: A Spiritual Odyssey

By Mike Proko

First released in print in 2004, Mike Proko's "Rising From the Ashes: A Spiritual Odyssey" broke new ground for a stroke rehab book, a journey seen entirely through the eyes of the survivor, written entirely from journal notes composed by the author. Hailed by Doctors, therapists and caregivers, Proko guides you through the minefield that awaits those with Brain Injuries, in his case, strokes and the physiological, emotional, mental and physical toll it takes on any patient. While the print edition contained an exercise section that helped the writer, the ebook version does away with that. (No worries, the exercises are available at no charge on You-Tube). However, as a bonus in the ebook version, the book is concluded by an article by Mike's wife, his story as seen through her eyes and in her words. This is Victoria's first crack at writing and the response from around the country and indeed the world has been more than positive.
Yes, this is a book about a devastating malady but it is also a tome about starting your life over again with the tools that each one of us has at our disposal. Whether your problem is physical, mental or emotional, Mike takes us all by the hand and shows us what each of us is capable of achieving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Proko
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985005740

Mike Proko

"You'll learn a lot more by watching people and listening to them, Mikey. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes & ears open. Listen to their stories. Listen to the way they paint their picture. Listen to the way they use language. And remember the emotion in their words. " Gram & GrampsI guess I became a writer in the usual way like so many others, by reading and listening to stories particularly those of my grandparents. Depending on who told the story would set the mood; the Russian side of the family usually told mostly sad stories; the Irish stories were somewhat melancholy with some touches of humor and the Czech stories that were usually light hearted. But like a good homemade stew, all went into the same pot and added their own flavor. Through their tutelage, my observational skills and tonal dialects were honed at a very early age.Born and raised just outside Chicago, I got to grow up in an atmosphere that would make any seasoned writer jealous. What a list of characters! Priests. Politicians. Mobsters. Union leaders. Actors. Poets. Drunks. The high-lifes. The low-lifes. Strangers who would give you the shirt off their backs. Relatives that would take your last 5 cents. I would find out at a very young age that some of the people that you were supposed to look up to were the ones that you should look out for and that more often than not some of the bad guys were the good guys. It wasn't by accident that my first book,'Some Things My Grandparents Taught Me' [1994] was an homage to my instructors. All that I had learned about life and story-telling I had learned at their knees.Next up was a screenplay for the story, 'Golf In The Kingdom'. Six months after completing the three year project, life threw Mike a hard curveball. One massive stroke. Then another. Writing, or the thought of writing, would have to take a backseat for a while until an off-handed remark by one of his doctors would set up his next work. 'Rising From The Ashes: A Spiritual Odyssey' is based on his journey through the stroke rehab process, taken from journal notes he wrote to himself while in the hospital. He broke new ground with that first book [2004] because it contained a 45 page exercise section.But the strokes and the subsequent paralysis would have an adverse effect on his otherwise stellar golf game. The second in the Rising From The Ashes series: 'A Golfer's Tale About Starting Over' is based on his golf experiences, friendships and teachings while rebuilding a golf swing damaged by the strokes. Could he climb as high as he had in the past? Actually, he would climb higher for what he was able to find inside of himself. Not just a book about golf & strokes, this is a book about life no matter your circumstances.Then, Mike began a series of short stories which would become 'A Box of Shorts'. Each of the stories reads like a movie. A few of the stories were dark and somber [must have been the Russian side] that fellow writer & friend H.J. Weinand wondered if Mike should turn his pen towards a lighter fare for his next book. That suggestion would give birth to 'Pendleton The Penguin and His Magical Friends', an ongoing series of children's books that focus on the values of being assertive while being polite, being respectful and seeing the magic in all that is around us on a daily basis. Time and time again, Pendleton also shows us that our dreams can only be limited by the breadth of our imagination. The books are now being translated into different languages by children helping kids all around the world learn to read. Hopefully, one day these children will be able to tell stories of their own.Weaving his way through all of these books and stories, Mike has also penned over 120 columns aimed at the people who made our country great, our forgotten middle class, a humorous common sense look at the changes we are going through on a personal as well as national level in his books 'Life in America' [vol.1&2].Mike Proko continues his wide range of writing genres as well as other multi-media adventures. He & his family currently live in the southwest but will always call Chicago home and answers to being a citizen of the world. Pax.

Book preview

RISING FROM THE ASHES:

A SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY

A STROKE SURVIVOR’S PERSPECTIVE

by Michael L. Proko

Smashwords edition, copyright 2004

License notes: COPYRIGHT ©2004, PUBLISHED AND PRINTED IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, COPYRIGHT © 2004 by Michael L. Proko. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ● Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photo copying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This publication is designed to provide a personal accounting and information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the author/publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If medical or any other expert advice is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

*Please go to www.mikeproko.com for further information.

ISBN# 0-9770324-6-9

LOCC# TXu 1-162-993

A STROKE IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY—CALL 911

Sudden numbness/weakness of face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body.

Sudden confusion, trouble speaking and/or understanding.

Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes.

Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance and/or coordination.

Sudden severe headache with no known cause.

COURTESY of The American Stroke Association

The American Heart Association

To Victoria

To Sara

The well from which I draw my inspiration and my strength

X

Table of Contents

Preface by Bob Connelly

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Odyssey begins

Chapter 2 Starts With A Single Step

Chapter 3 Tick-Tick-Tick

Chapter 4 Movin’ On Up

Chapter 5 Laying the Foundation

Chapter 6 Who Will Take My Bet?

Chapter 7 Sweet Dreams (Or Not)

Chapter 8 Exercise, Strength and ‘Steve’

Chapter 9 Sharing Foster Parents

Chapter 10 The Bear Leaves His Cave

Chapter 11 Aye, Aye, Captain

Chapter 12 Square Peg – Round Hole

Chapter 13 Why Do I Feel Like This? Should I Feel This Way?

Chapter 14 In Sickness and In Health

CHAPTER 15 LIKE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, THANK YOU MR. TRUMP

Chapter 16 Weight Times Time

Chapter 17 Devastating

Chapter 18 Back On Course

Chapter 19 Let’s See Those Muscles

Chapter 20 The Guy On The Treadmill

Chapter 21 Where we’ve been; where we’re going

Chapter 22 Once In A Lifetime

AUTHORS NOTE:

Chapter 23 Wrap It Up

Chapter 24 Journal Notes

E-BOOK BONUS SECTION - RISING FROM THE ASHES: The View From My Side Of The Bed

Exercise Section

Preface

by Bob Connelly

What a privilege to give the preface to Michael’s touching and powerful book. Mike’s life, stroke and recovery made a profound impact on my life long before he began to pen this tome. This book eloquently speaks about his near death stroke, the months of his recovery and the months of his life as he penned the various exercises and modes of therapy and the physical insights he personally achieved throughout his pain and road to recovery.

Mike is the author, patient and recovering GIANT! As I read through these pages I saw Mike living through each page; Mike, the totally powerless man he had become, near death; Mike, the fighter, as he begins his battle; Mike, the patient victim in therapy with love and understanding of those who touched him; Mike, the man who fought and continues to fight in the journey to being just himself; Mike, who taught Bob Connelly how to fight, laugh and live joyfully and Mike the man who has touched hundreds if not thousands of lives as he struggles back to life with his stroke and his God right at his side.

Read this book, enjoy every word, but most of all listen and feel the beautiful life of Mike Proko and his relationship with God in their journey back to his life today.

This is a lot more than a book about a man, his stroke, recovery and therapy. This is a story about re-birth. I think its Mike’s way of saying, Thank you, God, for my gift.

To Mike

With love and thanks,

Bob Connelly

Introduction

He came at me while I was asleep. Only a coward goes after someone when they’re asleep. And make no mistake about it, the Angel of Death is a gutless coward. You never know when he’ll strike – that’s his edge. And when he left that night, he had robbed me of half my body, a forceful stride, a livelihood and had poked a hole in my brain the size of a quarter. But in his haste, he had neglected to grab any of my tenacity and had overlooked my will to live. That was his first mistake. You simply cannot beat someone who refuses to stay down. I was paralyzed and left for dead. He didn’t finish the job – mistake number two. All of us, at one time or another, will have the ability to rise from our own ashes. Now, this was to be my time.

On average, someone in the U.S. has a stroke every 45 seconds.

On average, someone will die from a stroke every 3.1 minutes.

In 2000, 38.6% of deaths due to strokes were males, while 61.4% of deaths were females.

Each year, about 700,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke.

Black men and women have almost twice the risk of strokes than their white counterparts. Hispanic men and women will mirror the blacks in this category.

Strokes come in all sizes, all shapes. There are thousands of places for strokes to occur in your brain. A stroke occurs when a dense tissue that feeds the brain bursts or is blocked. When the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, the affected brain cells do not get the oxygen and nutrients they need. Brain cells cannot live without a constant supply of oxygen/nutrients. When this happens, even for a short time, the affected part of the brain becomes injured and may die.

Brain injury from a stroke may affect how a person will move or feel or think or behave. And a stroke does not affect mental, physical or emotional functions equally. Some people will suffer from physical paralysis but be fine otherwise. Some might not suffer physical symptoms but will be challenged mentally and/or emotionally. These strokes are as individual as the people they attack.

Since my stroke, a local t.v. station found out that only 38% of all emergency room personnel in the Chicago area could identify stroke symptoms. That’s kind of scary. About six months after my stroke, one of my doctors confided to me that most people would not have survived a stroke like mine. Why was I spared? I’ll probably never know. But while I was in the hospital, I started keeping notes about my condition, my therapy, conversations with my doctors, my therapists, and all of those created the basis for Rising From the Ashes. I would like to think that writing a book like this was not necessary, that there one day would be a magic pill to make you whole again. But there never will be a magic pill and hundreds of thousands of people will have strokes this year, and next, and next.

The sad fact of the matter is that most people faced with rebuilding themselves will chose to do nothing about it. I wanted to write a book about hope, a book of empowerment that would show all people that they have necessary tools to combat this thing that will affect your brain, turn your life upside down and drain you to your wits end. I am not special, have no special powers, just a guy with an average job. About 90-95% of what I accomplished, I did on my own. I had people show me what to do, and then I went off by myself and did it. All stroke survivors that are successful in their therapy have done this.

Under normal circumstances, you have something wrong with you, you go to the hospital, the doctor figures out a plan, puts his hand on your shoulder and walks you through it. Not with strokes. Your doctor stands off to the side and says Do this, Do that, Go here, Go there." Because that’s the way it is. A part of our brain doesn’t work anymore so it’s up to the individual, you and me, to re-train our brain. This will be the hardest thing you will ever do in your life, but you can do it. The alternative is to look out the window and watch life pass you by.

From the get-go, I had three things going for me:

1) My faith in God

2) My love for my wife and daughter

3) The sense of wonder and the heart of a child.

My function will be to give you some direction, some advice, some help. I will not offer any medical advice; I’m not a doctor. I will not try to sound like a physical therapist. What I will do is tell you what worked for me. One of the things that worked for me was a sense of humor. If you don’t have one, this is going to be one tough road. Another thing that worked for me was my journal. Start one today. I’m odd – so amuse me. Something comes into your mind, write it down. This will be your own little history book. And this might help us in