“On July 5, 2012, James suffered a massive stroke which left him paralyzed on his right side. James was unable to speak or perform any of his daily activities. This was a challenge for him being that James had just retired from the military after 27 years and he was ordained as a pastor in May of 2012. But God knew the plans that he had for James.
James stayed in the hospital for three months. After returning home he began therapy at Wake Med in Clayton. He was then introduced to TAP…

My name is Kristen and I am 14 years old. My mom suffered a stroke over Labor Day weekend 2012.
Although I knew what a stroke was, I always had the impression that it happened to older people and not a 40- year-old like my mom. The three weeks in the hospital were very stressful and also very uncertain. We were lucky that the physical side effects from the stroke were not as bad as they could have been…

I was distressed at my inability to help my wife, Anne, who was widely known as an educator, leader, and community activist. Two strokes had impacted her communication skills. She still possessed her wit and intelligence, but her speech consisted largely of made-up words, garbled language, and misused words like her favorite, “chicken”… I later learned this communication disorder was called aphasia…

Last June, my husband found TAP through a friend of ours involved in speech therapy. At the time, I was nonverbal after I sustained a kick to the head while teaching a horseback riding lesson. I was desperate to speak again, and my husband was tenacious in finding a source of support apart from therapy. My doctors and therapists were wonderful, but hesitant to tell me that I could ever regain fluent speech or conquer the aphasia and verbal apraxia I had acquired enough to go back to work…

In December 2010, my sister Melissa, an artist and athlete, suffered a massive stroke while traveling alone in Florida. The stroke paralyzed the right side of her body, and destroyed her brain’s language center. She was left with severe aphasia, the loss of language function. Although she could still understand the speech of others, she could no longer translate her own thoughts into words. Even her own name was lost to her…

Over the past several years, TAP has meant more to my Mother and me than I could ever put into words. The camaraderie between this group of survivors and their caregivers is one that inspired and comforted me in the most difficult time of our lives…

In 1997 Rachel Polsky was at the top of her game. She worked for Wendy’s corporate offices, and had an infant son and a new house. She had planned out her future years before and everything was going according to schedule. Then she started having trouble remembering names. Within hours she was also experiencing vision difficulties and was taken to the hospital. She and her husband Erick were interrogated to determine what illicit drug she was on. Nobody believed that something was really wrong until a CAT scan revealed what later turned out to be MS.

By the end of the week, Rachel had lost all language, along with the use of her right side. She had never heard of aphasia. Her son Ben celebrated his first birthday while visiting her in the hospital. She was told she would never walk again and that her language would probably not improve after a few weeks of therapy…

One Of The LUCKY Ones?
The stroke that hit me in May 2013 impacted the right side of my brain, which lead to physical disabilities to the left side of my body. My speech was not affected to any great extent.
At the time, I was enjoying life to the fullest. My eldest son was to get married the following weekend, and we were preparing the house and garden for the welcome invasion of family and friends visiting from afar. My business was in its infancy, but on the cusp of some great and exciting developments. Much was going my way when the stroke happened out of the blue.
After convalescing at WakeMed, I was referred to Maura Silverman as a highly regarded speech pathologist and a person that could play a major role in my recovery process. But I could speak – surely I didn’t need any help in that area?…

On June 2, 2009, my life changed forever. I had a horrible car accident and was at WakeMed Hospital for five months. I had multiple injuries which included no use of my left arm or hand, very serious vision problems, and a traumatic brain injury. The TBI was the worst. My short-term memory was very poor and I was totally unable to speak. My mother has since told me several times how terrifying that was for me and her and my father. Can you imagine a 26-year-old who could not convey any basic needs to their parents, much less nurses and doctors? After leaving the hospital I spent at least two years on and off in physical, occupational, and speech therapy at WakeMed.

One day, while I was in speech therapy before my discharge in October 2009, my mother asked the therapist, “Rachel will talk again, right?” The response was: “She may say words, possibly short phrases, maybe talking, but maybe not.” My mother never for one moment thought that worst case scenario could happen. She knew I would talk endlessly as I always had! And the great news has been that I’ve started regaining my speech slowly but surely since that time.
About a year after my car accident of June 2009, I started attending the TAP weekly meeting in Cary. Luckily we had met Maura while I was still in the hospital…

Three weeks after serious cancer surgery in January 2013, Alan suffered a stroke which destroyed the receptive language area of this brain and weakened the right side of his body. His primary diagnosis of Wernicke’s aphasia was devastating. He felt frustrated, angry, sad, stupid, and INVISIBLE. His language was largely meaningless jargon. This second crisis threw us into a new reality. We could no longer live on our hillside California home of 50 years, so three days after his release from the urgent care hospital in California, his doctors gave us permission to relocate to our daughter’s home in North Carolina. It took months to find the appropriate medical doctors and get started on our marathon of therapies.
Somewhere along the line we were led to believe that we could expect little to no progress after one year post-stroke. I was terrified that we had only six months to regain some of his ability to communicate his thoughts.
Now comes the good part…..

From David’s daughter, Elizabeth:
When my father, David Hornshuh, asked me to revise something he had written to contribute to “12 Days of TAP,” I thought what better way to share a perspective from the family members that TAP had impacted, as well as those affected by aphasia?

Professionally my father worked as a consultant pharmacist in Medical Communication where fluency was important as he communicated with other health professionals and patients that called for drug information. If anyone was to win someone over just by speech it would be my dad. My father has always served as a figure in my life as someone who was intelligent, strong-willed, and independent. He has always been active, healthy, and successful. He is someone who would intimidate you, yet make you laugh. I looked to him for encouragement and strength and never realized that someday he may rely on me, my brother Nicolas, 14, my sister Alexa, 11, and my mom Huong for what he so naturally gave us…

From Nate (Krystal’s husband):
On what was a typical Saturday evening, January 8, 2012, Krystal Jackson, a seamstress and designer went to bed late, and later got up to wait for our youngest son to get home, as it was past his curfew. This is something she has done for all four of our children. Krys decided to wait for him and watch television in the family room. This was about midnight or a bit after. When she did get up,  I was asleep and did not notice she was not in bed until around 11:30 or so, and went back to sleep. Around 3:00 a.m. our son must have arrived home and found Krys lying on the floor motionless…