S10E12: The 4 seasons of Stroke Surviving. ❄️🌷🌈🪾

0:00 Hello beautiful survivors, how are you? This is Karina, the host and creator behind Stroke Surviving the ONS, the podcast. The show is all about moving forward past the events of the stroke. It's here to help you reclaim your life, reclaim your identity, and realize that there's so much life to live after a stroke. 27 years ago, I suffered a brain stem dissection that led me to coma Interlockton Syndrome.

0:28 As you can see, I'm here today sharing all everything, tricks, hacks, how I got to survive the world as a stroke survivor myself. I'll invite you to grab a pen and paper because the faintus of ink is better than the best memory. Come and join me here as we are recording today's episode. Now I have a little news for you guys. I am recording my audio podcast that is being published on Spotify, Apple, Google Podcast and iTunes. But I also have on YouTube once a week a special guest and I have a video of the interview that I post on my YouTube channel.

1:15 So make sure you download the episodes on Spotify and you subscribe on YouTube. I would love that. And also, I need to tell you, the more we share guys, the more we share the podcast, the more the algorithm pushes the podcast forward and we get more visibility. That way, we get to help more people around the world.

1:41 Doesn't that sound great? Today is going to be pretty cool because we're going to be talking about The Four Seasons of stroke survival. So you're not going to want to miss this show. I'll see you in a bit. All righty. First season I'm going to start talking about for stroke survivors is winter.

2:09 Winter is when the stroke happened. You're dormant, you're a little bit lost, you're very gloomy. Winter is a time to be a little bit comatose, a little bit out of it. We eat, sleep more than we usually do, we hibernate. And for stroke survivors, well, it's a time to do all that but also get stronger.

2:44 Unfortunately, the stroke happened and the stroke moves everything, shifts, everything around you. It's kind of like a tornado and it just shuffles relationship, families, communication, every single thing. More than just walking and talking, much more than that. But at the same time, spring is on its way.

3:15 So you're going to your therapy, You're having a hard time. It's winter, you kind of have the winter Blues on top of being a stroke survivor, you're dealing with a lot, so you got to give yourself a chance. But guess what? Spring is coming in a couple of months and spring is beautiful. Easter, Turkey, The grass starts peeking around underneath the snow in some areas. It's time to rejuvenate.

3:49 It's time to get back to life. Sort of like a rebirth. And I know that you've heard that stroke is like having a second chance. A lot of people say that. I say that it's a rebirth. Springtime, you start noticing all the buds on the trees. Everything starts blooming again. The plants start opening up.

4:19 The colours are vivacious. Well, at least they're starting to, right? Springtime is a redo. Yeah. It's like a Mulligan gulf. And it's a chance for you to do over what you didn't do. Maybe before the stroke. Change your life, maybe. Before the stroke, you were a very harsh person, a very hard person, and now you have more empathy towards others, more understanding, more patience, more kindness, more joy into your heart. You're seeing that your hard work is paying off. And after, after spring, what happens? It's bang.

5:14 It's summer. Oh my God. I don't know about you, but that's my favorite season. Summer is really where everything is in full bloom. The colours are vivacious. That means you have been working your ass off in PT and OT and in psych and in everything in different aspects. Whenever got affected by the stroke, you worked your ass off. But now you're really seeing you get to wear your sneakers. You actually don't have a Walker anymore. You actually don't have a cane and you can maybe go on your bike.

5:59 Hell, I'm 27 years down and I can't paddle. I can't pedal my bike for shit. I used to go everywhere with my bike and now I can't. Do I let that stop me? Nope. Nope. Guess what? I didn't have a podcast 27 years ago. I wasn't able to talk to the masses and talk to all these people like I am now.

6:28 And now I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. I'm here talking to you. This is my purpose. Not having had the stroke, I wouldn't have found my purpose. I know you guys are saying what the freak is Karina talking about today? Yep, I found my purpose in my late 40's. The more involved I got with the stroke community, my community, the more involved I got with my podcast and with sponsors and, and all that, and the more I saw, damn it, this I'm needed because 27 years ago, guys, there was, I had no help. I had no help.

7:19 We wouldn't hear about strokes back then like we do now. So let's get back to the seasons, guys. Let's do it. So summer, everything is in full bloom. You're not walking with a cane anymore. You're actually wearing sneakers. Maybe you're doing half a half mile, half kilometre marathon, who knows.

7:44 But it feels so freaking good. You feel energized. You feel gung ho. You started working out of the gym again by yourself. No trainer, no, no, no supervisor. You're doing it by yourself. And the best part is you have young children and you're leading by example. Or maybe your kids aren't that young. Maybe your kids are in their late 20s like mine, but you're still leading by example because you're not giving up. So summer is the best season of all. You went through hell.

8:23 Winter. You were dormant, you were comatose. You had the stroke. You lost your motivation. You you were cursing everything you were. You were discouraged. But then spring sprung and you saw the possibility. You saw the possibility of you moving forward and you're making it happen. And now it's summer and you've, you've made it happen, baby. You haven't given up on yourself. Things are just done differently. And what happens after summer?

9:06 Fall, another favorite season of mine. I love all the colours. But guess what Fall things become a little bit stagnant. You know, we don't here in Canada. We have winters like snowy very 40 winters. So we don't know if it's going to be raining or is it going to be snowing. Do I put my rain boots or do I put my snow suit?

9:40 You're kind of waiting for winter. There's a little bit of anticipation because you know that in the fall we have Thanksgiving, we have Halloween or vice versa. Christmas is around the corner. You're going to be going to different parties. What does that mean for you? Well, that means that you keep going because you're on a roll and you have your motivation and motivation and discipline go together and motivation, discipline and consistency. Consistency is doing the same thing over and over and getting better and better and better every time you do it. So fall is here.

10:33 It doesn't stop you. Things are boring, things are stagnant. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know how to get dressed, but we don't know what to do. All we know is that winter is coming and after winter, spring is here and then we do it all over again and we never stop. We slow down maybe, but we never stop.

11:03 Guys, this is what I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed and you leave me any comments on Spotify. There's this new feature. I'm also going to leave you all the different ways you can communicate with me on my social medias. I'm going to leave you with that and remind you to download the episode on audio.

11:25 That way you can listen to it at your ears while you are recuperating and on YouTube make sure you subscribe. That way you never miss any episode and any content I may be publishing on YouTube. Alright, so have a great day and remember how much I love you and I'm grateful for you.