Stroke Runner: My Story of Stroke, Survival, Recovery and Advocacy

By Eric Sarno

Eric Sarno was an elite amateur triathlete, race director, successful bio-pharmaceutical sales representative and single father of two young daughters when the unthinkable happened—he suffered a near-fatal stroke. In this riveting and emotional memoir, he describes his journey to recovery, from re-learning to read to being able to hug his children again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733019309

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Copyright © 2019 Eric Sarno

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical

methods, without the prior written permission of the author,

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and

certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, write to the author, at the e-mail address

listed in the resources section on page 171.

ISBN: 978-1-7330193-0-9

This is a work of creative nonfiction. All references to events,

real people, or real places are portrayed to the best of

Eric Sarno’s memory. The conversations in the book all come from

the author’s recollections, though they are not written to

represent word-for-word transcripts. Rather, the author has retold

them in a way that evokes the feeling and meaning of what

was said in all instances, the essence of the dialogue is accurate.

Book design by Michael Petersen

Printed in the United States of America

First printing edition 2019

R.R. Bowker, Publisher

New Providence, New Jersey, 07974

www.ericsarno.com

Dedicated in loving memory to Beverly Wilson, Fred Peterson and Kathryn Petersen. I wish you all could have read this book.

CONTENTS

Foreword: Dr. Robert J, Dempsey MD, FAANS, FACS

Prologue

Chapter One

OTHER VOICES: Cary Grunder, Neighbor

OTHER VOICES: Janet Tegtmeier, Friend

Chapter Two

OTHER VOICES: Madeline and Olivia Anderson-Sarno, Daughters

Chapter Three

OTHER VOICES: Carol Engels, Mother

Chapter Four

OTHER VOICES: Sean McMillan, Friend

OTHER VOICES: Curt Wilson, Friend

Chapter Five

OTHER VOICES: Paul Olsen, Coach, Augustana College

Chapter Six

OTHER VOICES: Carol Engels, Mother

OTHER VOICES: Terese (Tracy) Bovre, Therapist

OTHER VOICES: Steve Tanner, Friend and Caregiver

Chapter Seven

OTHER VOICES: John Punkiewicz, Friend

OTHER VOICES: Kirby Winn, Friend

OTHER VOICES: Stephanie Cramer, Friend

OTHER VOICES: Stephanie Cramer, Friend

OTHER VOICES: Kirby Winn, Friend

Chapter Eight

OTHER VOICES: Haley Nehring, Therapist

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

OTHER VOICES: Linda Mitchel-May, Friend and Colleague

OTHER VOICES: Beth Battaglia, Friend and Colleague

OTHER VOICES: Nicole Hudzinski, American Heart Association

OTHER VOICES: Jodi Atwell, Nurse Case Manager, Neuro ICU

OTHER VOICES: Ann Boriskie, Founder, Brain Injury Peer Visitor Assoc

Chapter Eleven

Acknowledgments

Courage doesn’t always roar.

Sometimes courage

is the little voice

at the end of the day

that says I’ll try again tomorrow.

—Mary Anne Radmacher

I learned a long time ago

the wisest thing I can do

is be on my own side,

be an advocate for myself

and others like me.

— Maya Angelou

FOREWORD

By Dr. Robert J. Dempsey, MD, FAANS, FACS

Although U.S. death rates for stroke have been improving, the disability resulting from stroke worldwide remains one of medicine’s greatest challenges. Indeed, stroke will become the number one cause of death and disability in the developing world in the next decade, far surpassing infection and other traditional diseases.

Among the many types of strokes, the most challenging remain the brain hemorrhages like the one Eric Sarno suffered, and documents in this book. Advances are slowly being made, but the biggest challenge always remains the recovery from stroke and what can be devastating disabilities.

It is therefore phenomenally rewarding to hear a story such as Eric’s. In many ways, he and the team of friends, staff and medical professionals that supported him are the real heroes of this story of recovery. Eric’s story is truly one of heroism, both personal on his part, and in the efforts of the many people who gave him the support necessary to make a truly miraculous recovery from an often-fatal type of stroke. That he would then dedicate so much of his life to the advocacy of paying back is equally remarkable.

His Peer Visitor Program working with stroke victims is exactly the encouragement that makes recovery possible. Even more, he advocates with citizens and government for the importance to all society of increased awareness of stroke. A disease that so robs people of their function and their self is one worth battling and this is an inspirational story of just such a battle. It is our hope that readers will understand that this battle is really one for all of us, and that we all play a part in the recovery of people like Eric, and those who may suffer from stroke in the future.

It is a story of inspiration and perseverance that in turn inspires us all.

Dr. Dempsey is also affiliated with:

— Chairman and Manucher J. Javid

Professor of Neurological Surgery

— Department of Neurological Surgery,

University of Wisconsin SMPH

— Co-Director, University of Wisconsin

Comprehensive Stroke Program

— Chairman, Foundation for International

Education in Neurological Surgery

— Co-Chairman, Co-ordinating Committee

for International Initiatives, WFNS

PROLOGUE

In the warm months now, there are mornings when I am up before dawn, headed for Wisconsin’s Devil’s Lake State Park, a 35-mile drive from my home in Madison.

It is especially beautiful at sunrise, and when I stroke my paddleboard – a relatively new sport for me - the water lapping over its nose and against the paddle is the only sound on the lake.

Balancing on the paddleboard is a challenge for me. A decade ago, when I was 36, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke that very nearly killed me. I spent 45 days in the hospital, and nine months in almost daily outpatient rehabilitation.

These days, I like to challenge myself, although I am careful now as to just how large the challenge should be. Before my stroke, I did Ironman triathlons. Since the stroke – to the surprise of many – I’ve competed in five triathlons of varying distances. Still, the stroke and its aftermath have forced me to slow down, and now when I’m on my bike, I find myself taking in the world around me, much more so than when I was racing. I enjoy that, and I love the quiet of those early mornings at Devil’s Lake, the chance to think and reflect.

A decade on from my stroke, many people see me as recovered, and I am proud of the progress I’ve made. It has been a long, and, at times, arduous journey. In many ways, I feel recovered. Over the past 10 years, I’ve been here for my two daughters, loving them and watching them grow into confident young women. I’ve been successful in my professional life, as a pharmaceutical sales representative.

I’m grateful to have recovered to the extent I have, and whenever I am in a public forum, relating my story, someone will come up and say, I can’t believe you had a stroke.

Yet I continue to have good days and bad, related to the stroke, and likely always will. Though I may seem the same to others, I know I’m not, not quite. My brain has been injured. I learn differently. I’ve become a little more reticent, wanting to make certain I understand exactly what is transpiring in any given situation before I engage. There have been times when I have been perceived as standoffish, overly quiet and reserved. But when you’re recovering – and I am still recovering – you must be willing to be thought of differently, whether that’s fair or not. You have to do what’s right for you.

One thing that has proved enormously right for me – and something I began early in my recovery – is sharing my story, using what I’ve been through, and what I’ve learned, to help and advocate for others who have suffered brain injuries and strokes. It started in the year following my stroke, when an outpatient nurse asked if I’d be willing to speak to a group of survivors who were early in their outpatient therapy. It has evolved significantly since then. I have served on numerous boards and committees related to stroke and brain injury, and traveled to Washington, D.C. to help encourage legislators to address issues facing survivors and their caregivers.

Most meaningful have been the dozens of personal visits I have made to the neurological intensive care unit at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison, where my life was saved, to speak with survivors and their families during some of the darkest hours they’ll ever face.

Those visits have evolved, too, from informal stops I would make by myself when my schedule allowed, to a more formalized approach – launched in fall 2015 – called the Brain Injury Peer Visitor Program, with a number of volunteers involved.

We answer questions and offer encouragement, while being careful not to underestimate the challenges ahead. I know our visits are helpful, both from the personal feedback I’ve received from survivors and families, to the fact that there are survivors I’ve visited who subsequently became peer visitors themselves. If I ever needed validation, that’s it. But I get something back from the visits, too. I remember those days and being in that situation and it can be therapeutic and even inspiring for me to see patients and families begin the road to recovery.

Nothing about it is easy – not recovery itself, and not the peer visits. What of lasting value is ever easy? I remember once going in to talk to a patient who had suffered a stroke several days earlier. This man, who was sitting in his room in a chair by himself, was a highly accomplished professional, an attorney.

We were just chatting a bit. I was telling him my story. He seemed a bit foggy, either from the drugs or the trauma that he was still experiencing. That’s not uncommon during peer visits. Even family members can seem dazed from the shock of what’s happened.

At one point, he looked at me and said, How do I know if I’m strong enough to get better?

How do you answer that? Here was a highly functional person, who had been thrust into a new reality where his brain was a scramble, and he wanted to know if he had it in him to get better. It was a profound moment, and I did my best to formulate an answer.

You won’t know until you have to know, I said. You’ll be as strong as you need to be when you get there. Sometimes you’re not strong until you have to be.

I told him, There’s nothing in life that will prepare you for what you’re going through right now. You’re going to learn as you go. You will develop the strength and the capacity to be strong, and you will know where to push and where not to push. Our bodies are capable of amazing things.

All of it, the lows and highs, the fear and uncertainty, the trying, failing, and trying again - that’s my story, too.

ONE

One thing to remember is, I struggle to remember.

I don’t mean everything. My memory is actually pretty good. I’m referencing a few days in late June and early July 2007, when my life was changed forever by a seizure and stroke so severe my survival was in serious doubt.

Because of what was happening inside my head, the memories of those hours and days are incomplete. They appear in unconnected scenes, like flashbacks in a film.

My admission to Meriter Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin early on the morning of June 30, 2007, came at the end of a period of several months during which I was committed to getting well enough physically to compete in the U.S.A. Triathlon Championships in Portland, Oregon in early July.

The race – commonly referred to as Nationals – is a qualifier for the world championship later in the year. It was a goal of mine to compete in the world event. I intended to take my two young daughters with me to Portland for the qualifier. We were all looking forward to the trip.

I was then 36, an athlete some would call elite, though by no means world class. I’d enjoyed considerable age-group success competing in sprint and Olympic distance triathlons. I served as race director of a well-regarded sprint triathlon in my native Quad Cities. I was divorced, living in Madison, a proud dad, successful in my job with a pharmaceutical company, and coming off my best racing year ever in 2006.

All of which made my debilitating lower back pain through the early months of 2007 very hard to accept.

I’d had back pain, off and on, since my high school days in Rock Island, Illinois, when I came down wrong while fooling around on a trampoline. The pain didn’t last, and it really wasn’t much of an issue until I became a competitive athlete.

I had always liked athletics. I’d played various sports growing up, especially football, without really distinguishing myself. Attending Augustana College in Rock Island in the early 1990s, I began running and swimming, taking to both right away. During the summer of 1993, I called the college’s cross-country coach to say I would like to try out for the team in the fall.

His name is Paul Olsen, and I appreciated what he told me. There are no try-outs, he said, and you won’t be the slowest. Paul now has 50 years in coaching at Augustana. He’s a legend. To me, he was a mentor, and he remains a friend. It turned out I had a talent for running. I also swam competitively at Augustana, fueled by an interest in triathlons I’d developed by seeing some early races on Wide World of Sports on television. Triathlons involve running, swimming and biking.

I think it was the biking portion of triathlons – coupled with long hours behind the wheel of a car for work – that eventually caused my back to betray me. This was some years after I graduated from Augustana. I was as passionate as ever about triathlons. The endurance required is self-evident, but there is also strategy involved in how you approach three different disciplines and the transitions between them during the race.

It was around 1998 – I would have been 27 – when I began noticing lower back pain as I increased my biking training. Looking back, I’m sure I was not properly fitted for the bike. The pain then carried over into running, not while I was actually training, but afterward. I saw a doctor who said it was likely an inflamed disc that would swell and press on a nerve, causing the discomfort in my lower back. Still, I was young, the body bounces back. I became a devoted consumer of Advil.

My first truly serious back injury occurred in 2001. My wife Jennifer and I – we met on the swim team at Augustana – had just moved to Madison, where I had accepted a job with a pharmaceutical company. Our second daughter, Olivia, was born just before we came to Wisconsin. Her older sister, Madeline, was born two years earlier.

It was during a two-week training session at my new company’s headquarters in Indianapolis that I hurt my back. One evening a few of us were playing pick-up basketball and I made a move that caused me to feel like I had been knifed in the back. I was bent over and couldn’t straighten up. It hurt to breathe. The others helped me to an on-site clinic, where I got some medication. The pain eventually passed.

A year later, on vacation in Florida, it happened again. It was bad enough that I ended up in an emergency room. Again, I was helped by medication, but I found I didn’t have a tolerance for the medicine. It made me woozy, and pills certainly weren’t a long-term answer to whatever was happening with my back.

Yet I continued training, and if anything, I ramped things up. By 2004, I was preparing for my first Ironman in Madison. Training and competing was something I did well, and about that time, I needed to feel I was good at something, because my marriage to Jennifer was ending. We would divorce a year later. It was a low point in my life. Competing in triathlons, and sometimes winning – not just in my age group, I won a few overall, too – was an adrenaline rush.

But all that training, coupled with my job as a pharmaceutical representative – which requires long days of driving between appointments – took a further toll on my back. It got progressively worse. I did yoga, saw a chiropractor, tried massage and physical therapy, but nothing really helped.

My body was speaking to me, I just wasn’t listening.

One doctor told me flatly to quit training. Thinking back, she likely meant take a break, but I heard it as quit forever. In my state of mind, this meant I should switch doctors.

Somehow, I managed to have a successful year training and competing in 2006. I did a second Ironman, in Arizona. I had some terrible back pain – especially following a half-marathon in Madison – but I persevered and was determined to make it to Nationals the following year, summer 2007, in Portland. A good performance there would get me to my ultimate goal,