{"id":10123,"date":"2017-04-14T11:40:48","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T17:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=10123"},"modified":"2023-09-20T15:18:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T21:18:15","slug":"young-stroke-survivor-spreads-the-word-about-rehabilitation-and-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/young-stroke-survivor-spreads-the-word-about-rehabilitation-and-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Young stroke survivor spreads the word about rehabilitation and recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"Cynthia
Cynthia Joi Towner’s stroke struck the basal ganglia neurons in the brain at the age of 33. She volunteers every week at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central to talk to stroke patients about recovery and rehabilitation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cynthia Joi Towner taps softly on the outside of a patient\u2019s door at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central and asks if she can come in and tell her story.<\/p>\n

Towner is not a formal kind of woman, but when she greets a patient who has just had a stroke, there is a reverence about her. She refers to patients as Sir or Miss, followed by their first name.<\/p>\n

She is a member of Memorial\u2019s Stroke Survivors Taking Aim at Recovery, a group formed last fall to provide patients and families with information on how to proceed and navigate through post-stroke rehabilitation and recovery<\/a>. The splint on Towner\u2019s hand hints that she has been down that challenging road.<\/p>\n

At age 33, Towner, an Army wife and mother of two sons, ages 5 and 8, collapsed in her living room. She had just shampooed her son\u2019s carpet when she started feeling weird. Her foot fell asleep, so she called her husband, who rushed home from Fort Carson. In the meantime, her then 5-year-old told a neighbor that \u201cmommy needs help,\u2019\u2019 and the neighbor called 911. Her husband arrived at home, and he wasted no time driving\u00a0his wife to Memorial, where neurological experts discovered a hemorrhagic stroke.<\/p>\n

Towner half expected that one day she\u2019d suffer a stroke<\/a>. After all, her mother died of a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 36, and her father had four strokes. Despite those challenges, there\u2019s a light in Towner\u2019s eyes when she speaks to patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just here to give you a little encouragement. Are you up for talking today or do you need a little more time. Can I share my story?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Recovery from stroke that struck the basal ganglia neurons in the brain<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Adrienne Walsh is a stroke coordinator at Memorial who helped establish the SSTAR program to help patients and family feel supported and to connect them with community resources during their transition through the stroke recovery process.<\/p>\n

\"Cynthia
Cynthia Joi Towner talks to patients about her stroke experience and what they might expect.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four volunteers currently comprise the SSTAR program at Memorial. Volunteers are required to attend volunteer orientation\u00a0and training from the SSTAR program. Volunteers help to bring unique insight to the stroke recovery process, Walsh said, and they\u2019re there to listen and share their journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy passion is really life after stroke, because not everybody gets better,\u2019\u2019 Walsh said. \u201cJoi is young and her life was forever altered the day she had her stroke, but she has done things that she never thought she would do.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

In recent months, Memorial has begun to see more acute neuro patients because the hospital offers the most advanced neuro care in southern Colorado. Memorial has hired new neuro doctors – Dr. Daniel Huddle<\/a>, interventional neuro radiologist; and Dr. Shaye Moskowitz<\/a>, endovascular neurosurgeon — who provide 24\/7 interventional endovascular coverage.<\/p>\n

These doctors use highly sophisticated imaging to look at the vessels in a patient\u2019s brain to determine whether they can advance a catheter to a clot caused by an ischemic stroke and use a suction device affixed to the catheter to extract the clot, much as cardiologists do when placing a stent in the heart to open an artery. Once a clot is extracted, blood flow is restored to the brain, reducing the long-term deficits that can arise after a stroke.<\/p>\n

Having comprehensive stroke services available in southern Colorado has resulted in an\u00a0increased need for people like Towner to offer inspiration and encouragement to patients.<\/p>\n

Towner\u2019s stroke initially took her ability to move her left side and her speech was slurred. Her face drooped. The stroke struck in the basal ganglia neurons in the brain, which control movement, perception and judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what,\u2019\u2019 she tells patients, \u201cYou don\u2019t just stay in this bed like \u2018Woe is me.\u2019 Stretch your muscles. Mine tightened up so quickly \u2026learn from me, I want you to stretch your muscles.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Another of her favorites that she relays to patients: \u201cWe are not handicapped, we are handicapable.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Towner said she gains momentum and strength when she knows she has helped someone else, like a woman she visited recently in the Intensive Care Unit.<\/p>\n

\"Cynthia
Cynthia Joi Towner with her sons Rhylee, 5, and Javyn, 8.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cShe wasn\u2019t in a happy place and by the time I left that room, she was happy and that made me happy. Having that lady in ICU tell me: \u2018It was such a blessing to meet you.\u2019\u00a0 Hearing those kind of things, and knowing that I am encouraging people to keep going, it means so much,\u2019\u2019 Towner said.<\/p>\n

Towner tells patients how she again learned how to walk and talk, smile and sing and that she\u2019s a fan of old-school R & B. She tells them how her stroke has created a desire to put words to paper:<\/p>\n

STRIVE….<\/p>\n

Strive is being strong enough to live. You can live still though things are real; time will heal. It’s the will to rebuild. So You had a Stroke but choose to have Strength\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Be strong enough to fight; it’s your life. Make that stroke your wife; love it, nurture it, and work with it and trust it will benefit you in the end. Forcing you to grow spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Life is not over, it\u2019s just new, so strive for better days; don’t be blue.<\/em> \u2026<\/p>\n

Walsh said that\u00a0having someone like Towner visit,\u00a0is another way of letting\u00a0patients know that they are not alone in their journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that after a stroke, people are worried about their bills, jobs, and their families. Can they get it back, the life they had before?\u2019\u2019 Walsh said. \u201cJoi has a way of meeting patients where they are.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Towner tells people straight up that her recovery wasn\u2019t pretty at times, and she\u2019s posted some short videos to Facebook to document her struggle. \u201cI wasn\u2019t ashamed of anything,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, she said, the first day she got home from the hospital, she made nachos for her family\u2019s dinner.<\/p>\n

In volunteering, Towner has found she offers the gift of encouragement for people who have had a stroke. Tapping on doors and telling her story to people who have suffered a stroke, she said, is a good way to set an example for her children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be able to teach my boys, because they saw me go through it. And they have a little PTSD because of it, so I want them to see: \u201cYou saw Mommy go through struggle but now, watch Mommy rise. So I\u2019m showing my boys, even though you\u2019re going through something, you\u2019re going to help someone else because you have the power to do it. That\u2019s kind of where I\u2019m at.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cynthia Joi Towner taps softly on the outside of a patient\u2019s door at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central and asks if she can come in and tell her story. Towner is not a formal kind of woman, but when she greets a patient who has just had a stroke, there is a reverence about her. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":10125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[715,55,184,745,869],"class_list":["post-10123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-comprehensive-stroke-center","tag-memorial-hospital","tag-neurology","tag-rehabilitation-therapy","tag-stroke-care"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYoung stroke survivor spreads the word about rehabilitation and recovery - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cynthia's stroke struck in the basal ganglia neurons in the brain, which control movement, perception and judgment. 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