Successful Attitude: Unbreakable Spirit - A Remarkable Story By a Remarkable Woman / Mom

Article source: Newsweek

Turhan (here with her son): ................................ 'I was as helpless as a newborn baby; I had to relearn everything'

"""""" MY TURN HEALTH TRIUMPH ...... by Banu Turhan .... a Newsweek Exclusive """""""

In the Land of Aphasia
A stroke left me unable to communicate and my doctors thought I wouldn't speak again. But with the help of therapists and a loving family, I proved them wrong.
By Banu Turhan Newsweek Web Exclusive

"I cannot speak!" Those were the last words I uttered. And just like that, I lost my ability to communicate in any shape or form.
It was Aug. 19, 2006—my 10th wedding anniversary. I was playing with my 3-year-old son in the living room, helping him solve a puzzle, when I felt something go wrong inside my brain, something terribly wrong. To this day, I cannot explain what it was I was feeling, only that it was something like a panic attack. I stood up and ran to the bedroom where my husband was sleeping, holding my hands around my head in a silent scream. He jumped up as soon as he saw the expression on my face and tried to calm me down. My husband was a physician by training and after a quick examination, he could see that something was wrong with my nervous system--I could smile with only half my mouth, for example, and my tongue skewed to the right. But I was 39 years old, 115 pounds and in good health. I didn't think it could be too serious, but nonetheless, we drove to the nearest hospital.

As soon as we entered the emergency room it all began: CAT scans, MRIs, electrodes everywhere on my body, doctors and nurses speaking jargon. In the end it became clear that I had had a stroke. The right side of my face was paralyzed. Worst of all, my left carotid artery was blocked forever and the Broca's area of the brain, more commonly known as the speaking center, was dead. When I say "speaking," I mean communication in any form: writing, drawing, body language, gestures—in short any means of expressing oneself.
The name of my newly acquired condition was expressive aphasia. Imagine a situation where you desperately want to say something but you simply don't know how. You cannot even make a gesture to say "yes" or "no." That is what it is like to have this condition.
There are approximately 5,700,000 stroke survivors in the United States. It is the third leading cause of death after heart disease and all forms cancer combined, and it is the leading cause of long-term disability. Among survivors, one in six develops aphasia. Although one's intellect and judgment remain intact when you have aphasia, nobody knows about it, because friends and relatives focus on the more manifest symptoms of stroke, like paralysis.
When I was discharged from the hospital, the doctors thought I would not speak again. As far as communication was concerned, I was back to square one, as helpless as a newborn baby. I had to relearn everything: I had to navigate through the fog in my brain to find the right words that go together with the right concepts. I had to think of the right sounds to form those words, and finally I had to command my muscles in and around my mouth to produce those sounds.