How Survivors help each other.
Recently I had the opportunity via my stroke experience assist another survivor come to grips with his own experience[non-stroke] and that of his late father.
Last week after almost 15 years of no contact a former work acquaintance reached out to me via that technical wonder ZOOM and as I will explain I was able to help him in his quest for assistance regarding his late father.
He had recently heard on the corporate grapevine of my experience and went about tracking me down- the corporate consulting world is a small village in this country!!
He was a senior exec in a consulting company a person extremely driven in a career sense, a “take no prisoners approach “and whose company I enjoyed and opinions I respected and often sought.
Perhaps he was a mirror image of me!!-the comparison was often made!
I digress- just setting the scene.
After the normal pleasantries, he told me of his recent health challenges and the sad demise of his father.
C as I will call him related his battle with Hairy Cell Leukemia \{ hairy cell leukemia - Bing \} and the impact on his life, lifestyle and family.
Fortunately, he won the battle after chemo and other treatments and is now getting on with life, albeit with a different, softer, more tolerant approach to life!
His father in 2012 suffered a stroke and was admitted to Bankstown Stroke Unit \{my alma mater\} where sadly he passed away. C was understandably saddened but what was troubling him was “what is it like to sustain a stroke”- what had his father experienced.
No one could give him a satisfactory answer so he went about contacting me to see whether I could answer his question.
Fortunately, I had written a blog” What’s it like to have a stroke” \{See Link below\} and we discussed this at length- which I am pleased to say answered some of his questions.
Also, together we worked out a plan for C. to get him back to exercising, improving his weight and general outlook. We set an overall quantifiable objective, time frames and evaluation check points.
I sent him the link to my blog- ‘The SMART’ way to writing rehab objectives \{See link below\}
Every fortnight we will ZOOM \{ah, techno’s, I love it\} to evaluate progress plus rehash old times etc.
I felt good catching up and helping C. address his questions- it is the least I could do for a fellow management consultant!!
Happy Trails Boys and Girls.