Laura Evensen, MPH, is the coordinator of the Northern Manhattan Stroke Club, which is the only bilingual stroke support group in the city. She makes sure that stroke survivors have a safe place to go once a month to hear lectures about ways to improve their wellbeing and talk to people like themselves to learn more about what they're going through.
Q: As the coordinator of the Northern Manhattan Stroke Club, what have you learned from the members of this support group?
A: I have learned a lot about the importance of a person's outlook from them. I've learned that attitude really is everything. If you take things lightly and you roll with it, things will be easier for you. If you take something, like a stroke, as if it's a life sentence or jail it will become that.
Q: Have there been any people who have shared their stories of strength or who you've seen handle a stroke especially well?
A: Everyone has an amazing story of their courage and strength! There was one young man who came to Stroke Club who I remember well. He was about 19-years-old when he had a stroke. He was very seriously affected by it. He couldn't talk and he had a problem putting words together in sentences. He knew what he wanted to say, but it was as if he was locked in his own body and he couldn't express anything. He also had a lot of trouble walking at the beginning.
A year after his stroke you would never have known that there was ever anything wrong with him or that he had had a stroke. He wrote a letter to all of the people who helped him recover telling us about his progress and thanking us all for helping him get to the point he was at. It was truly amazing to see this! He was a great example of the "never say never" or "never give up" attitude. In order to make such a huge recovery, he worked hard. He was always practicing speech exercises to try and improve it and he put the same effort into doing physical exercises to improve his strength. He taught me a lesson about what it means to be a survivor.
Q: You said that he was only 19 when he had his stroke-a lot of people think that you have to be older to have strokes. Are they common in younger people?
A: About 10% of strokes happen to people younger than 40 or 45. It can be really upsetting to these young people. But young people tend to bounce back easier because they have nobody telling them that they can't. They also usually have a lot of people behind them supporting their recovery.
