How Thomas Graham Rewired His Life After a Pons Stroke

Recovery After Stroke

Ischemic Pons Stroke: What It Is, What to Expect, and How to Recover

An ischemic stroke in the pons, a key area of the brainstem, can feel like life-changing in an instant. Recovery can be complex and emotional, but healing is possible. In this article, we explore what a pons stroke is, why it matters, and how stroke survivors can begin to reclaim their lives with a sense of hope, direction, and support.

What Is an Ischemic Pons Stroke?

The pons is a vital structure located in the brainstem, connecting the brain to the spinal cord. It plays a central role in:

• Motor control (movement)
• Balance and coordination
• Sleep regulation
• Facial sensation and expression
• Swallowing and eye movement
  

An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks the flow of oxygen-rich blood to part of the brain. When this happens in the pons, it disrupts many critical functions. Because the brainstem houses the nerve pathways to the rest of the body, even a small injury in this area can have major impacts.

Symptoms of a Pons Stroke

Symptoms may vary depending on the severity and exact location, but commonly include:

• Sudden weakness or paralysis (often on one side of the body)
• Slurred speech or difficulty speaking
• Trouble swallowing (dysphagia)
• Dizziness, balance issues, or vertigo
• Blurred or double vision
• Numbness or facial droop
• Difficulty with coordination or walking
  

Some patients remain fully conscious and aware but may be unable to move or speak — a condition known as locked-in syndrome in more severe cases.

Causes and Risk Factors

A pons stroke typically occurs due to:

• Blood clots (from atherosclerosis or embolism)
• Small vessel disease
• Heart conditions (like atrial fibrillation)
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Smoking or lifestyle-related risk factors
  

In some cases, the cause remains unknown and is labeled cryptogenic.

Rehabilitation After a Pons Stroke

Recovery depends on the extent of the damage and the survivor’s access to rehabilitation services, but most recoveries begin with:

1. Acute Hospital Care

Early medical intervention (often including clot-busting drugs) can limit damage if given within the right time window.

2. Physical Therapy

Essential for regaining strength, mobility, and balance. Walking, weight-bearing, and coordination exercises are introduced gradually and often adapted for brainstem-specific deficits.

3. Occupational Therapy

Focuses on relearning daily activities like dressing, feeding, and writing. Therapy may also include assistive devices and adaptive strategies for living independently.

4. Speech Therapy

Many pons stroke survivors experience dysarthria (slurred speech) or dysphagia (difficulty swallowing). A speech pathologist helps retrain these muscles and supports safe communication and nutrition.

5. Emotional and Mental Health Support

The emotional impact of a stroke in the pons can be profound. Survivors may face grief, frustration, identity loss, anxiety, or depression. Access to a counselor, psychologist, or support group can make a world of difference.

What Role Does Neuroplasticity Play?

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself after injury. It’s the foundation of stroke recovery. With consistent effort and practice, the brain can form new pathways to regain lost functions, especially when supported by:

• Repetition of tasks
• Visualizing movements
• Creativity (art, music, poetry, etc.)
• A supportive, encouraging environment
  

Mindset and Recovery

A stroke may slow you down, but it doesn’t mean you stop growing. Survivors who embrace curiosity, patience, and self-compassion often report greater resilience and personal growth after the stroke.

You don’t need to be relentlessly positive — you just need to believe there’s more ahead of you than behind you.

You Are Not Alone

Every recovery journey is different. Whether you’re in the early stages of rehab, years into recovery, or caring for someone who’s had a pons stroke, know this: support is available. You are not a burden. You are not broken. You are becoming.

If you’re looking for more guidance, you can explore narrated stroke recovery courses, community support, and personal coaching at RecoveryAfterStroke.com.

Healing After an Ischemic Pons Stroke: Thomas Graham’s Journey of Body, Mind & Spirit

At 66, Thomas Graham faced a sudden pons stroke. Discover how he rebuilt his life through mindset, rehab, emotional work, and poetry.

Thomas Graham‘s Book “Let’s go for a walk: Rebuilding body, mind and spirit after a stroke”
BGPUBLISHERS
Recovery After Stroke Patreon

Highlights:

00:00 Introduction and Acknowledgements
01:26 Thomas Graham’s Life Before the Stroke
11:51 Stress, Stroke, and the Power of Reflection
24:19 The Stroke Experience and Hospital Admission
26:07 Rehabilitation Journey
32:08 Road to Recovery: Determination, Neuroplasticity, and Hope
45:22 Redefining Strength: From Self-Reliance to Accepting Help
52:21 Emotional and Psychological Impact
59:37 Discovering Poetry as a Healing Tool
1:05:37 The Role of Mindset in Recovery
1:11:58 Thomas’s Book and Legacy
1:18:55 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript:

Introduction and Acknowledgements

Bill Gasiamis 0:00
Welcome, everyone and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Recovery After Stroke Podcast. Before we jump in, I want to give a half-hour thanks to all my Patreon supporters. Your ongoing contributions are the reason I can keep this going. And to those of you who’ve used the YouTube super thanks button. Thank you very much. Also that little heart icon under the video lets you tip the channel. Every bit of support helps me continue creating free content for the stroke community.

Bill Gasiamis 0:31
If you’re looking for something deeper on this journey, my book, The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened, is available on Amazon or at recoveryafterstroke.com/book, it’s been a companion for many stroke survivors navigating the hardest parts of recovery, especially when you need a bit of perspective and encouragement.

Bill Gasiamis 0:53
Now let’s talk about today’s guest, Thomas Graham. Was 66 years old, fit, active and enjoying life when an ischemic stroke in the pons of his brain stem changed everything in this conversation, Thomas opens up about how an unaddressed emotional trauma may have played a role, how rehab helped him reconnect his body, and how writing poetry became a lifeline in an honest, powerful reflection on healing that touches the body, mind and spirit. Let’s dive in. Thomas Graham, welcome to the podcast.

Thomas Graham’s Life Before the Ischemic Pons Stroke

Thomas Graham 1:26
Yeah, good to be here, Bill with you, and I only learnt about you and your podcast in January this year. So it’s all pretty recent for me, and you know, you’re doing a wonderful job so and you’re reaching out to the world and sharing all our stories. And that’s a very good thing.

Bill Gasiamis 1:52
Well, thank you for saying so, mate. Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before the stroke.

Thomas Graham 2:01
Well, I had my stroke at 66 so I basically had a pretty full life. You know, in 66 is, is quite a quite a good innings, and I was fit, able married. Settled in work, enjoying life, probably worked a bit too hard. You know, one of my weaknesses in those days that I was probably a little impatient a bit on the go, a lot, and then, you know, one day, who am I got the smack on the head.

Bill Gasiamis 3:02
So what kind of work were you doing?

Thomas Graham 3:07
Well, most of my life I’ve been in the cultural sector, so I’ve worked in a lot of my time in museums and and then I was also a public servant for a while, and then I decided, in around my late 50s, I wanted to try something completely different. So I started my own little small business building cat enclosures. So if you in Canberra, if you own a pet cat. It has to be on your property at all times. So I had a cat, and we moved into the one of these new suburbs that had that cat containment policy.

Thomas Graham 3:53
So the first enclosure I built was for my own cat, and it kind of opened up a new world for me, because, you know, I like the outdoors, I like animals, I like doing things with my hands. It require, required a bit of creativity and design and spatial design and and it had a a people element in that my clients were families or single people. And so I spent six years in in the back garden of of people in Canberra building these, getting closures so and I really enjoyed it. And my final job is when I was struck by stroke, it was quite extraordinary.

Bill Gasiamis 4:55
Were you at work when it happened?

Thomas Graham 4:58
I had this that put in triple glazed windows, and I’d put in the cat door previously and build a tunnel and can enclosure. So, when they converted to triple glaze, they had, there was a problem with the installer around the cat door. So they had four goes at it. So by the time I got there, I’d actually sort of retired, in a sense, and it was, you know, I drove there like to all my other jobs that I’d done, it wasn’t a particularly difficult job. It was not a particularly strenuous job or onerous.

Thomas Graham 5:52
It was just making a a modification, and it was in the morning, probably around 11 o’clock, beautiful autumn day, and I suddenly felt strange in my head and I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. And so I thought, well, let me just go to my ute and I’ll have a cup of tea, and things will fade. And when I was climbing up into my ute, I felt like my limbs, my arms, were a bit heavy. And then so I had a flask, and I pour myself a cup of tea, and for some strange reason, I started talking to myself out loud, and I heard my speech was slurred.

Bill Gasiamis 6:54
Sorry for laughing.

Thomas Graham 6:56
Yeah, you can laugh. I’m laughing about it too you know.

Bill Gasiamis 7:00
I’m not laughing at you, but it is such a ridiculous thing, yeah, that you go through the motions and you decide, I mean, it’s such a it’s a brilliant thing, you decided, but it’s just ridiculous at the same time. And we’re going to start speaking out loud to try and work out what’s going on with me, right? It’s just, does not compute in my mind, even though I’ve said similar things like it just does not compute.

Bill Gasiamis 7:26
And I find that it’s like a nervous a nervous reaction, a nervous laugh and smile as you’re taking me through the story. So you start speaking out loud to try and what were you thinking when you started speaking out loud? I know what the result may have been, but what were you thinking like? How did you come up with that?

Thomas Graham 7:48
I have no idea, mate, yeah, you know, it’s just somewhere was happening to me. And it was a sensation in my head and my body that I’d never experienced before. It wasn’t painful. I wasn’t say I was scared or frightened. I was just kind of bewildered and I mean, I can say now I did not know what the symptoms of a stroke were at that point. So, so when I heard my speech was slurred, I thought, Well, look, let me find Bobby, my wife. And immediately she heard my slurred speech. She made the connection Thomas is having a stroke, and, I mean, even that was beyond my comprehension.

Thomas Graham 8:55
And she said “Well, I’ll call an ambulance.” And, you know, like, probably, like a typical bloke, I said, No, you come and pick me up now, fortunately, I said, you know, you come and pick me up. And we were only in a neighboring or two suburbs away. So I kind of computed in my head, by the time she got there, or ambulance got there, she would have got there sooner. So we just left everything my youth, my gear, knocked on the door, told my client, you know, I’ve gotta get out of here.

Thomas Graham 9:33
And my wife drove me to the hospital, and on the way, I had to stop, and I kind of had to vomit, you know, on the side of the road and at that point I I kind of just surrendered, in a way, to say, well, I don’t know what’s happening to. Me, but I’m going to hospital and when we arrived at emergency, my wife went in, found a triage nurse and said “You know, I think my husband’s having a stroke.” And she came out, and I was sitting in the front seat, and she opened the door, looked at me, and then just COVID.

Thomas Graham 10:22
And then there was this avalanche of medicos that just surrounded me and took me in and and started attending to me. So it was a bizarre, freakish, weird, strange experience all around that’s a of course, I didn’t know what the repercussions were in the next 24 – 48 hours.

Bill Gasiamis 11:16
Do they know what the cause of your specific stroke was?

Bill Gasiamis 10:57
Let’s pause for just a moment. If Thomas’s story is resonating with you. You’re not alone. His reflections on identity, trauma and creativity are just a reminder that stroke recovery isn’t just physical, it’s deeply emotional and personal. I want to take a moment to acknowledge my coaching clients. You’re showing up, doing the work and pushing through I see your effort and I’m proud of the way you’re showing up for your recovery. If these episodes have been helpful for you, you can help me keep them going by supporting through Patreon.

Bill Gasiamis 11:29
Just head to patreon.com/recoveryafterstroke, and you’ll be joining a community that believes a recovery isn’t just possible, it’s worth fighting for. Now let’s get back to Thomas as he shares how he began to rediscover his voice through poetry, and how even a locked-up hand can become a tool for healing.

Stress, Ischemic Pons Stroke, and the Power of Reflection

Thomas Graham 11:51
There I had an ischemic so in my ponds, which is the back of my skull with a spinal column joints, and I know you’ve had a couple of other guest who’s had a schemic in their ponds as well.

Bill Gasiamis 12:13
And do they know what caused the clot?

Thomas Graham 12:16
No, so I wasn’t anybody who had the typical profile of a stroke victim in terms of potential risks. I didn’t suffer from high blood pressure. My cholesterol level was in the normal range, and as you know, I hadn’t smoked, I wasn’t obese, I didn’t have diabetes, didn’t have a history of stroke, you know, my blood pressure was okay, and, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But age, of course, is respected for men, usually.

Bill Gasiamis 13:04
Sorry, I was going to say usually, I think age is a risk factor, because when somebody is older, they tend to have more medical conditions. So as you age, you know, in theory, you have more medical conditions, high blood pressure, cholesterol, issues or and I think they all go hand in hand, but I would have said that you’re at your age, 66 with no underlying, you know, causes, sitting there, no obesity, no smoking, no drinking, or, you know, almost retired, hardly working, not a lot of stress.

Bill Gasiamis 13:44
I think, you know, it may have been just something that occurred. They may say they don’t know where it came from. They may come named it cryptogenic. I don’t think age, though, was the one factor going against you that.

Thomas Graham 14:01
Yeah, I agree. But the one word you use there mate, so, you know, in the absence of the medicos being able to say, well, this is what caused it, you know, in hindsight, which is always a wonderful thing. I mean, you use the word stress. So I probably most likely was managed my life stresses, pure, poorly, so over years, probably decades. I was just all this energy that I just contained in me and constricted, literally constricted. So, you know, prior to my stroke, I used to go to bed with my fists and like, clenched on my whole body was, like, tight.

Bill Gasiamis 15:06
So why was that? Do you know why?

Thomas Graham 15:14
Well, as I said, a life, a lot, a long life, but probably containing a lot of negative emotions, not releasing them, not expressing them, always probably wanting to be in control. And and then over the decades, you know that just I just got tighter and tighter. And prior to my stroke, I did, I was suffering from a persistent headache, you know that? And I wasn’t someone who has suffered from migraines or anything like that. So I mean, one of my life factors, is that I’m an adopted person.

Thomas Graham 16:06
And so, you know, right from day one of my birth, when I was ripped away from my mother there’s been scars and trauma and that was never addressed. And you know, over time, those things build up as as you would, as you would acknowledge, because, you know, I’ve read your book and your story.

Bill Gasiamis 16:49
How old are you now?

Thomas Graham 16:51
I’m 68 now.

Bill Gasiamis 16:52
So, okay, so you’re an interesting guy. The people that I know in your vintage so that’s only 18 years older than me. They don’t have these types of discussions about holding onto trauma, about emotional turmoil, about, although they don’t talk about that kind of stuff. You’re very unique for somebody at your vintage. Like, what Boomer? Is it Boomer?

Thomas Graham 17:21
Well, a late Boomer, yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 17:22
Late Boomer, sort of at the end of the booming yeah generation. Those guys, man, they hold on to their trauma and their pain and their suffering, and they don’t tell anyone about it.

Bill Gasiamis 17:33
So that’s really interesting to hear it coming from yourself. I love it, by the way. It’s refreshing, even though I know that it might be difficult for you, it’s refreshing to hear somebody say “You know what, we can talk about these things, and that you’ve actually made the connection to what happened to you at 66 might have had some kind of a foundation from birth.”

Thomas Graham 18:05
It’s a good word there, foundation, so with that origin and yeah, look, I’ve been not when I was doing my Mr. Pet-Man, but prior to that, I spent about 10 years in in the adoption space. And so I’ve met a lot of adopted people, mothers who, you know, relinquished or gave away their children, and I was a bit of an activist in that space. So it’s not as if it’s suddenly dawned on me post stroke it. I’d worked in this space, and I’d seen the impact of so if I might just sort of briefly explain.

Thomas Graham 18:54
I mean, I was part of the closed adoption era, where, if your mother was single and pregnant, that in terms of society, was an absolute NO. Unlike today, we’re single parenthood, single motherhood is just taken as a norm, yeah. But in those days, the mothers were seen as ashamed and fallen woman, and the solution was to give their child away. And so I was given a new identity and a name.

Thomas Graham 19:38
And because I was part of the close adoption that was designed that I would never know nor ever be able to meet, who my mother was now that is a trauma for a newborn who is in a pre verbal kind of state without any, you know, cognitive development that comes with aging and things so and in a baby’s it’s all about sensory, you know, what’s inside? Emotional, all emotional, trust, here, touch, trust, feeling and that, and it was never addressed, because now I was given an a very caring, loving adopted family, of which I’m very grateful for.

Thomas Graham 20:38
But it was not something we could talk about in the household. And so it was always the strapped energy, you know. And when you went to school and I said, alright, well, draw, you know, draw a picture of your family. You know, for me, there was always this. And for other adopted people always this conflict and contradiction between the family we were given and the family that was taken away, and you kind of caught in the middle so, so that is, you know, I lived all my life with that. Now this is not an adoption podcast.

Bill Gasiamis 21:28
Very relevant, and it’s very relevant. It is really.

Thomas Graham 21:30
I certainly think that, and believe in my body, mind and spirit, that trapped, constricted, emotional trauma that could never be grieved, that loss that could never be grieved during my life, kind of just build up like a bloody volcano, you know, and then it exploded when I got the whack on their head.

Bill Gasiamis 22:02
And the words that you use are very interesting. The constricted tight. You know, if you’re constricting and tightening a blood vessel correct through your muscles, you’re decreasing its ability for blood to flow through, and therefore the blood might cause a clot to occur because it’s not flowing through freely and efficiently, and therefore that clock can get sent up into the head, and they may under the microscope, and it may under scanning situations. It be not obvious, and it might be cryptogenic, but what you’re describing makes complete sense. It makes perfect sense.

Thomas Graham 22:42
Yeah, that because, as I described earlier, you know, I was physically I was pretty healthy. You know, I ran marathons, mate, in my early age, I was known as Mr. Pet-Man. I was building things up and down. As I said, I wasn’t unfit, I wasn’t unwell, I wasn’t overweight, you know, and I sort of, I ate well, you know, the things you talk about in your in your book about nutrition and good sleep and but yes, there was just this, this kind of thing that was trapped inside of me and the good thing is that the stroke kind of released it.

Thomas Graham 23:35
It opened up a channel that I could kind of let it go, in a sense, and then work on not only my body to regain my last movement and things, but also to work on the emotional center and what you talk about or wrote about the heart. You know Heart Center and then for me also, you know, a bit of spirit, spiritual things, which for me lie in nature, you know, not necessarily, in a in a formal, traditional religious pathway.

The Ischemic Pons Stroke Experience and Hospital Admission

Thomas Graham 24:19
So it was, look, I would not wish a stroke on anybody, but I do get, you know, the sense of your book with the title, you know that it offers an opportunity to kind of reframe, recalibrate your life, to make it better for yourself and others.

Bill Gasiamis 24:52
So you woke so you eventually got to hospital, right? And they’ve treating you. They’ve discovered that you’ve had a stroke. You or your wife, Bobby, description was enough to get them looking in the right direction, and they got all the medical team out. They diagnosed you, and then how long did you spend in hospital?

Thomas Graham 25:16
Well, it took a while to because this is a time of COVID. And you know, I went for a CAT scan, it wasn’t obvious where, if I actually, they couldn’t locate the pinpoint where it was. And as you know, whether it’s ischemic or hemorrhagic, it makes a big difference in terms of getting the clot buster, thrombosis, you know, that medication and so the neurologist made the call to give me that plot Buster and, I was very fortunate to get to hospital within an hour.

Ischemic Pons Stroke Rehabilitation Journey

Thomas Graham 26:07
So for that medication to be effective, which is basically a blood thinners to diminish the damage, of course, in your instance, man that probably would have knocked you out permanently. So that took, and I think I only got to have an MRI scan about three days later because of all the COVID Nonsense, but then they could confirm, you know, it was ischemic, and the ponds and so the next morning, you know, I went into ward. I was there for a week. And you know, within 24 – 48 hours, I’d lost all mobility to my right sided, limbs, arm, hand, fingers, leg.

Thomas Graham 27:05
I mean, I could stand man. I could shuffle with support on either side. My arm was in a sling, my hand was frozen, my fingers were frozen, and that was bloody frightening. You know, that was, I don’t need to to explain to you, because, you know, you’ve probably gone through a little bit more grief and brain and you’ve had a few you didn’t do once you did a couple of times. So, yeah, frightening as hell to yeah, to be fully abled one day and just lining that hospital bed the next with sort of half a man, you know, in terms of mobility, it was very scary.

Bill Gasiamis 27:59
And then they realized that, and like they did with me, when they realized I couldn’t walk on or use my left arm correctly, admitted, They admitted me to rehab. Did you have a stint in rehab? Were you set to go to rehab for a period of time?

Thomas Graham 28:16
Yes, I went to after a week, we’re fortunate in in Canberra, they have a rehab hospital with full stroke survivors, so I was transferred there, and I spent another two weeks there, and that’s where we began with daily focus, intensive physiotherapy.

Bill Gasiamis 28:44
Were you excited about going to rehab?

Thomas Graham 28:46
I was absolutely, man, absolutely I did not like hospital because, look, I’m an outdoor person, right? I like the fresh air. I like the open spaces. And it was the middle of winter, so in hospital, it, you know, with air conditioner was on. It was hot. My eyes got dried out, you know, the stale air, the lights were off and on. I didn’t have a window, you know, I was in this compliance space and like a hospital, is just 24 hours activity around you. You know that wake you up every four hours, and they you know all they need.

Thomas Graham 29:32
And then wake you up and ask you “Hello, Thomas ” you know. “Do you know what day it is” “What time it is now” of course, they testing your yes, because, as a stroke survivor, you you could have a well a relapse, or you could still deteriorate. So they just check in your cognitive ability, you know, but these, these simple inner questions that like, four o’clock in the morning, I’m not always welcome.

Bill Gasiamis 30:06
Do you know where you are? Do you know what day and time it is? Yes, it’s four in the morning. Leave me to sleep. Get away from there. I know exactly what you mean, and it’s so necessary, and they do such a great job, but it’s so annoying from a recovery perspective, it’s just so annoying. I hear you.

Thomas Graham 30:25
Yeah, I take, you know, I give full credit to all the nurses who looked after me because they were kind and generous and compassionate, and they were just tremendous.

Bill Gasiamis 30:41
So what were you do doing in rehab to learn how to walk again and use your right side? I had a lot of downtime at the beginning, they were what were they doing? At the beginning, they were assessing me, and they were trying to work out, how bad for lack of a better word, was my condition, so that they could make sure that I was safe and that they were giving me the right types of exercises. And all the nurses, all the all the physios and occupational therapists had all the information they needed about the risks associated to trying to get me on my feet.

Bill Gasiamis 31:25
And I was waiting around for a fair bit of that time. And at the beginning, I was doing rehab only short amounts of time, once a day, twice a day, for like 30 minutes. And then as my month of rehab continue to occur. I was having more and more rehab more often, and they were testing my ability to cope with that and see how far they could not push me, but how far they could take me. What was your rehab state like? When did you kind of start getting back on your feet and starting to feel like this was turning around?

Road to Recovery: Determination, Neuroplasticity, and Hope

Thomas Graham 32:08
Well, it started basically on the first, first and second days in the acute ward, you know, physio, the occupational therapist, you know, came and did an assessment around my speech and and cognition and whether I could drink water and because prior to that, I had this gooey gunji kind of thickened water. And then the physios, they got me on my feet and took me to a treadmill, put me in a harness, and I began my first slow, short steps, you know, within the first couple of days.

Thomas Graham 33:01
And then when I got to the rehab hospital, it was very intensive, five to six hours a day. We had a big gym. There were about 25 people in there at any one time, people stroke, some had other medical emergencies and it was a very humbling experience to be in a space With so many damaged bodies, but the determination of all those individuals to get back on their feet was very inspirational. And the camaraderie between people, you know, the support we gave each other was very touching. And so, you know, and then they had to focus on because my arm was in a sling.

Thomas Graham 34:09
So, and the first I had to hold out my arms like this for two seconds. Now, you think two seconds is nothing, yeah, couldn’t do it, you know, so, because it was all and then was your arms innocently, they scared that your sockets going to fall out, and that’s going to cause other problems. So, it was basically about working from the shoulder down to the arm, through the wrist, through the fingers. So with my arm in hand, they actually linked me up to some electronic device, FES, Functional Electronic Stimulation, I think.

Thomas Graham 34:57
That was quite amazing, because my hand was lame, but when the charge, electrical charge, went through my muscles, my hand opened, and when they switched off the charge, it closed. And that was the start of Neuroplasticity, which is another thing I’ve never heard of in my life before. Yeah, that this beautiful brain we have is capable, if something is broken down, other parts can do that rewiring, which, you know, it’s a term they use, can bring that function back.

Thomas Graham 35:46
So that an electrical stimulation of opening in closing, my hand got the brain act, you know, working again. So eventually I didn’t need the electrical stimulation. And then it was just as you would know, and others would know, hundreds and 1000s of repetitions of repeating a movement, slowly, slowly, slowly, and then also with the wrist, you know, I put my wrist on a on a rolled towel, and had to do this movement, you know, you start with three repetitions, and you’ve had it, and then you get to six, and you slowly build up.

Thomas Graham 36:32
So and, yeah, I had to do that with my arm, and I had to do with my leg, and I had to do that with my foot. And so just every day, just building up slowly and slowly, and then in my when I lay in my bed as well, with Therabands, you know, I was tied to the end of the bed and sort of do lifts and things so and look, I was, I suppose I was fortunate in the sense that I played a lot of sport in my life. I was physically active. My last job was building things. So exercise wasn’t foreign to me and so I kind of warmed to it.

Thomas Graham 36:32
Also I was on my when I got to rehab, they asked me, What were my goals. And I said “Well, I want to get home. I want to walk out of here, and I want to be able to feed myself with my right hand.” And I had no conception of how long that was going to take, and I just thought, well, whatever they asked me to do, I’ll do, because I wanted to sort of be mobile again and, and fortunately, my body responded well.

Thomas Graham 38:14
And getting that blockbuster injection way up front, probably made a gave me a good start, and with the treatment and the guidance and my determination, I am kind of the determined guy, and I was determined to get home, get on my feet and feed me myself again.

Bill Gasiamis 38:44
And it sounds like also, the fact that you’re always needed to keep active and busy was just another thing for you to just keep doing your you had, you had heaps of downtime. You may as well make it useful. And also, it sounds like in the book that you sent me, that you wrote, which we’re going to talk about in a little while, you spoke about your therapists, Elise, Emma and Mel, it says if you had built quite a relationship with your therapist, and you had a rapport going and that they were extremely important in that recovery as well.

Thomas Graham 39:22
Very much. So, I mean, I’m sure you would have experienced it, and also a lot of other stroke survivors, when it hits you, you’re in shock, you know, you’re in deep shock. And then, and I was in kind of disbelief as well. And now, how the hell did this thing happened to me, and I’m lying here and I’ve lost out my mobility to my body, you know.

Thomas Graham 39:46
So when Elise, the young physiotherapist, came to my bedside and said Tom, let’s go for a walk, which became the title of my book, which. I never even thought I’d be writing a book at that point, that when I was sitting with disbelief, she instilled belief that you can do this and we can help you. So that was so powerful for me in my, still choke up a bit when I, you know, speak about it, because it was so powerful that, when I was sort of broken and vulnerable, just yeah, and shocked that someone would come and say that.

Thomas Graham 40:52
She didn’t come and say “Well, you know, this is the list that you gotta work through.” And she just said, Let’s go for a walk. And that just touched me, because mighty powerful and so and they were, and, you know, that young person just believing in me installed that self belief. And it was that sort of spark that said, Well, I’ve gotta do this, you know, I’ve just gotta do this.

Bill Gasiamis 41:19
What about Bobby? How did she involve herself? Because I know that my wife, when I was at rehab, was dealing with a really shit time in her life. Her mum had just passed away. Her dad was physically disabled, so they had to, the three sisters had to help out in the care of him, because he went from having somebody an in house caregiver to nobody living with him. And my wife was also dealing with me, having had brain surgery and not being able to walk, being in rehab. So she was coming in and out, and it was really good to see her.

Bill Gasiamis 41:57
I knew that she had a lot on her plate. Okay, all of my issues, all of the issues with losing her mum and her dad, being alone at home, but it was a really important part of my recovery, seeing her coming, checking up on me, making sure that I had what I needed, encouraging me, pushing me around in the Wheelchair, which she loves to do, push me around. How did Bobby get involved? How did she kind of step into that role?

Thomas Graham 42:31
Yeah, man. Well, as you know, having those close supports is so, so important, and so Bobby’s witnessed my whole journey, you know, from, basically from the first hour, because she was the one I phoned, and she was the one that picked me up and took me to hospital and witnessed every step of my journey. So, you know when, and I sort of mentioned this. You know, when I fell down, she stood up. And that was amazing. So, and also a lot of other friends and and colleagues also, and family you know, offered that support.

Thomas Graham 43:18
So, and I suppose I was also conscious that I didn’t want to be burdensome to Bobby or to others, so I sort of felt that I had a responsibility to do as much as I could to get myself on my feet and active again, because others depended on me, and I’m sure as a father, you could align with those sentiments as well. So that was the bit of a also motivation.

Bill Gasiamis 44:08
With the burdensome thing, that’s interesting, because I had those thoughts as well. But reflecting back now, I know that we’ll have people very early on in their recovery thinking they don’t want to be a burden either, but say that stroke causes you some deficits where you’re not walking the same way as before, you’re not using your left arm the same way I was before. Whatever the situation is, you don’t it’s not necessarily that you’re burdensome to that person all the time, immediately.

Bill Gasiamis 44:42
I think that is a lovely sentiment to have, that you don’t want to be a burden for somebody else, on somebody else. And I think even if you’re physically disabled, it’s important to be the most best version of that new. Version of yourself that you can so that the the burden, so to speak, that you think that you’re going to be on another person is diminished, so that you can reduce it, so that you can be somewhat independent, so that you can be somewhat capable, even though it’s difficult and hard and it doesn’t look like it looked before.

Redefining Strength: From Self-Reliance to Accepting Help

Bill Gasiamis 45:22
So, that you’re also a member of your caregivers community, so that they’re caring for you, but you’re caring for yourself as well, and you’re also doing the best that you can to be less burdensome. And I really don’t like that term, but I get where you’re coming from, and it’s a sentiment that I held. I just want to give people this idea that you’re not a burden, and you can improve your situation.

Bill Gasiamis 45:54
And you can decrease the amount of reliance, I suppose, on other people, very, very often, you can decrease the amount of reliance and after a long amount of time, sometimes it’ll take longer than we would appreciate or like or want. But things can improve, they can get better. You can find adaptations that will make life less burdensome on other people?

Thomas Graham 46:25
Great clarity there, man and yes, I do not want to project upon people who have not necessarily recovered as well or they might have, you know, ongoing deficits, to see themselves as a bird. Because, if that’s your current status, you know that’s, that’s what it is. And so when I used in the context of the word, I suppose I was using it. I found it difficult to ask for help.

Bill Gasiamis 47:06
Okay.

Thomas Graham 47:07
So in that sense, you feel you burden, yes, because you can’t do it yourself. But as you would know, and I’ve seen since my stroke, that asking for help is not necessarily a weakness. It can help because they they’re wonderful people out there that are willing and able to help you, and you don’t see you as a burden, but I kind of might have seen myself as a bird.

Bill Gasiamis 47:43
That sounds like a big breakthrough for you in that time, asking for help.

Thomas Graham 47:48
Yeah, asking for help, because I always and it, and it probably also something that came out of the adoption world, where I always felt that I had to be very independent and very capable, because I kind of fell alone a lot of the time, you know, so and I had to be super resourceful so being vulnerable at in those early days, equated with, I’m on a burden here, so, but in fact, that was just my own mindset, and not necessarily.

Bill Gasiamis 48:37
True.

Thomas Graham 48:37
A true. Yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 48:40
Fair enough, I totally appreciate that I know exactly what you mean. So what was the hardest part in rehab for you? Which exercises were the hardest?

Thomas Graham 48:55
Many, many, you know, just.

Bill Gasiamis 48:58
Standing on my feet, and, you know, there’s exercise they do is they tell you to stand on your feet and close your eyes. That’s a weird one, because balance, just the balance thing, goes out and then trust, you have to trust that it’s not one of those games where they’re going to let you go to fall on the ground, which, I know it’s not right, but that’s felt really, what’s the word like, or really unsettling to close my eyes and try and stand on my own two feet?

Thomas Graham 49:31
Yeah, I suppose in those early days, was to clasp and open. So when we got our breakfast, we had a little 100 mil, or 200 mil, little jar of milk, you know, to put on the porridge and to grasp that in a hand, and then to open the cap, because to grip and to turn. My right hand was so, so difficult, and I didn’t want to kind of put it in my teeth and just, you know, as a workaround, I kind of and I remember when I could do that and just pour that milk into the porridge.

Thomas Graham 50:18
Also to lift the spoon to my mouth, because, as you would know, you know, movement is one thing, control and precision is another thing. So, you’re shaking and moving. So yeah, they were, I suppose, for me, was my last strength and stamina, and I still weak, I’m still working on my right leg. So then loss of strength, particularly, you know, when I was so able, and probably as a man, as a bloke, I found that challenging at times, and probably still do. Bobby is probably stronger than me these days.

Bill Gasiamis 51:07
Be careful. So I know what you mean, because I’m a tradie as well. So I have a painting company, and I’ve had to really step back from being on the tools, because my left leg, although they hold me up really well these days, my legs and my arm and they still, it still has a tendency to fatigue, and under fatigue behave in ways that I don’t want it to behave. And I mentioned in a couple of my episodes previous to this, that I let go of a ladder on the way up to the first level of a scaffold. Recently, I didn’t let go, because I wanted to, in my hand, just let go, and I fell backwards onto my back.

Bill Gasiamis 51:44
I injured myself. It wasn’t too dramatic in the end, but I was bruised and battered for about two weeks, and I couldn’t sleep, and it could have been a lot worse. So I know what you mean, because it does play on my mind, and I have this guilt thing now. It’s, it’s not real guilt. It’s just man guilt. You know that I can’t be physical and I can’t be on the tools while the other boys are and I need to step up, step off, more than I have, and run the administrative side of the business and keep them running, and bring them the support that they need to get the job done.

Ischemic Pons Stroke: The Emotional and Psychological Impact

Bill Gasiamis 52:21
But I’m struggling with the identity change, because it’s, I’ve always been physical. I’ve done it for 20 years in my own business, played sport. I’m going to went to the gym, did all that kind of stuff. And I recently went to the gym, and I had a couple of injuries, one in my shoulder like a little tear, and one in my knee and and I kind of insisted on continuing to go back, but every time I went back, all I did was aggravate those two injuries, and then there was no point in going back, but then feeling bad that I couldn’t go back.

Bill Gasiamis 52:57
I feel like I need to ring or contact the gym owner and say to him, listen, this is why I haven’t been back. I mean, some strange stuff goes on, yeah. And the reality is, is that I need to let my muscles heal before I do more strenuous physical work. And I need to definitely not be on ladders, especially, you know, tall ladders above a couple of feet off the ground. It’s not worth it at all. But try telling my brain that.

Thomas Graham 53:27
Yeah, we had a leak in the roof recently, and and the resistant, you know, I wanted to get the ladder out and climb onto the roof, and I just had to say, No, I can’t do that. But the urge to do it, because that’s what I would have done in the past, just climb up, look at it, see what could be fixed. And so, yeah, you use the word identity. We we have to develop a new sense of self and capability.

Thomas Graham 54:03
You know, what we capable of, and what we not and the not. It doesn’t mean that we necessarily deficient in any way. It’s just that new reality. But that’s kind of hard to grasp. And I suppose, you know, I’ve become more open to, to asking for help, maybe now, and not feeling diminished by that.

Bill Gasiamis 54:03
The emotional work that you talking about, that you did earlier, did that? Was that happening consistently before the stroke, and then did it ramp up after the stroke? Or was it just something that you’ve been doing for a little while? How did that look?

Thomas Graham 54:49
Well, look, I’ve done a in I’ve done a lot of emotional work in. In the past, in groups, privately, you know, doing various courses on things. But I think it ramped up those strokes, definitely, because, as I mentioned earlier, kind of something freed up in my brain.

Bill Gasiamis 55:23
I called it my head switched off. I called it my head just switched off, and it made space for my chest. And what was in my chest, my heart to kind of express itself, yeah, and previously, it was my head getting in the way, stopping the expression from happening correct. And I just felt like there was. I felt this weird sensation in my chest, and at some stage I realized it was my heart, like I knew my heart was there.

Bill Gasiamis 55:49
But I actually felt it so bizarre after the head went offline and I couldn’t I didn’t have the same cognitive ability and energy to stifle that voice that the heart was trying to express all this time, correct?

Thomas Graham 56:11
Yeah. So you know our our minds, and you know they’re important because they let us do all kinds of wonderful things, but when they dominate and they shut out heart and spirit, well that’s when we run into a few problems, as you would know, as I would know as well. So, yeah, there was a freeing in some sense. Yeah, no. So for me, and also for I think the central message for me is a stroke is a massive blow or an expression or statement to slow down, you know, slow down.

Thomas Graham 57:03
Slow doesn’t mean it’s bad or it’s it’s going to cause you problems, because everything in life is fast forward. You know, fast forward. And you would know that in business and life and social media and I know right up front I said I was probably very impatient. So impatience is also about a being, wanting everything to be fast or and perfect. Maybe you know, perfectionism as well is a was a thing for me.

Thomas Graham 57:41
So to just having to simplify and slow down, kind of did open up the heart and the spirit to kind of recalibrate what the hell I was doing with my life and and that’s been a positive experience, you know, the sort of the learnings and the uncoverings and the opportunities and things that have that have emerged.

Bill Gasiamis 58:17
Probably hard as well, though Some stages, because it’s bringing up rawness and emotions that you have to deal with that you’re not equipped to deal with. So I imagine there was a bit of a “Oh my gosh, this is really tough and difficult, but the reward comes after facing those emotional, dark places, doesn’t it like it really comes you really get rewarded for doing the hard yards and getting the work done” and kind of expelling those, I would describe them as expelling those like locked.

Thomas Graham 58:52
Demons.

Bill Gasiamis 58:52
Yeah, demons, emotions, yeah, something like that.

Thomas Graham 58:57
Yeah, and for men, I mean, you’re right in the beginning, you said “Men don’t really talk about this stuff and emotions.” So, you know, I’ve made a few public talks and things during the process. So early on, I was emotionally kind of vulnerable, and my emotional regulation was a little bit over, all over the place. So, I’d either be quite tearful and then maybe I’d laugh just without reason.

Discovering Poetry as a Healing Tool

Thomas Graham 59:37
So you know, when you standing in public, and you either doing those things, you know, laughing or crying. It’s, it exposes yourself so and but as you mentioned, you grow from that, and your strength by that. So it’s a kind of a weird thing where you, when you very vulnerable, you actually building inner strength as well.

Bill Gasiamis 1:00:10
So, men really would do want to cry. They just, they haven’t got around to it yet. They will cry when they’re right. The timing is right. Hopefully before it’s really dramatic, like it was for us. You described using your hand again, walking unaided, writing poetry. Which of those were like the best moment for you? Was it? I mean, like, as if you can put them into the best category, you know, one, two and three, like you really can’t, but we, which is the most sort of outstanding moment for you.

Thomas Graham 1:00:51
I would like to group them together, because it’s kind of like full body experience, when the body, mind and spirit just come together, and it can be, I think my ability to walk again, you know, to just go outside and, of course it was slower, and it’s the stride is not fluid and smooth and it’s and then the distance is shorter and, but just that ability to to just have that stroll, you know, and just feel oneself in motion again, without supports, and once again.

Thomas Graham 1:01:46
I acknowledge that not everybody might have reached that point in their recovery. So, yes, so I acknowledge that, but for me, that motion and then I’m an introvert, right? So for me to express myself deep inside, you know that heartfelt things that you’ve written about and talk about, I had to find an an avenue to express that without just jumping up and down and talking to people and getting on stage and like a comedian or whatever that’s that’s not me so, so that’s where the that’s where the poetry writing came in, right?

Thomas Graham 1:02:47
Because I had this profound experience, and I could reason about it and rationalize about it, and I could give you the steps about how to do all this exercise and describe Neuroplasticity to you and the brain rewiring. But that didn’t really touch my heart, right, or tap into my spirit. So the catalyst was there in that is in hospital. There was an academic from local university. It was offering a poetry writing workshop in wellness and well-being, and this was in my first week. And so I signed up. I mean, I’ve always liked writing and journaling and things.

Thomas Graham 1:03:41
So there was a small group of us there. And once again, you know, we’d all lost something in terms of our physical nature. You know, some people with their totally supported by a wheelchair, you know, mechanical wheelchair, some of suffering from dementia or Alzheimers. They were losing their capacity to be aware of themselves and things. And I was there in that, you know, sitting in a wheelchair with my arm in a sling, and because we more than our physical miss, you know, we got our heart, we got feelings, we got emotions.

Thomas Graham 1:04:35
We got intuition, we all wanted to express what we had lost in some way, and poetry was the way of doing that. So in those days, all I could do was type with my one finger into my bone, and because I was compromised in that things. That to be short, I couldn’t write a long essay. So my compromised and the opportunity to get creative I’ve poetry kind of came to me as a way of being able to express my state of being and this new person I had to, you know, get associated with. And so in the course of my recovery, I discontinued that.

The Role of Mindset in Ischemic Pons Stroke Recovery

Thomas Graham 1:05:37
So I’ve written a lot of poems, many of them nature based or nature inspired, and they have really helped me to find a balance and a stillness and a connection with with sort of life’s vitality and and to build a bit of optimism, you know, because we kind of need, we need To, to remain positive and optimistic despite our situation, which and everyone would be different, yeah, and everyone in a different stage of of their their recovery. But as you wrote or writing your book, to have that, that positive mindset and a proactive mindset is so critical to to our healing.

Bill Gasiamis 1:06:47
When I was writing the book, I needed to put the chapters in an order, not for any reason, but anyone can jump into any one of the chapters in my book and start their journey there like they don’t have to be the nutrition part of the journey, or they don’t have to be at the emotional part of the journey, like they can jump in anywhere. Any one of those little chapters is perfect, and then you can work on the other steps in my version of what recovery looked like for for the people who I interviewed and for me.

Bill Gasiamis 1:07:20
But I’ve come to realize that putting mindset as the first chapter was more than a fluke. It was really the most important thing if you have a mindset that’s not supportive of recovery after a stroke, it forget about doing emotional work, forget about doing exercise, forget about doing Neuroplasticity, forget about any of that stuff. Like nothing happens if your mindset is not correct. And I’m not talking about woo, 100% positive all the time. I’m talking about the majority of the time, inherently positive, and then sometimes depressed and upset.

Bill Gasiamis 1:08:09
Every negative emotion you want to use to describe that, that’s perfectly fine. But overall, the hypothesis of your way forward has to start with my way forward has to start with a recovery mindset and curiosity so that I can find ways and be curious about things that I’ve never been curious about before, so that you can stumble into ideas like poetry that resonate, you know, and your poetry repair, for example, the one that you wrote that you called repair, I mean, it’s so poetic. It’s so simple. It’s lift, repetitions.

Bill Gasiamis 1:08:55
Raise, weaken the limbs over and over again. Lift willing muscles to move, to respond, to find their neural connection to fire and ignite familiar movement. Lift, lift, lift. So what people don’t who are listening to that may not realize is that those words along the same repetition at the same time is firing off additional neural pathways and patterns so that more likely, so that you have a more like a more possibility that the connections the new firings will stick and will support recovery. I was doing that when I was lying in my bed.

Bill Gasiamis 1:09:40
Instead of saying the words, I was imagining myself walking, and then when I was walking, I was firing off the same neurons again. So in downtime, I was firing off those neurons by imagining it, and in uptime, I was firing those neurons by physically doing it. So they had double the rehabilitation. At half the price. I mean, it was awesome, and that’s kind of what your words do. They offer double the rehabilitation with half the energy. Because doing that, it requires an amount of energy, but talking about it requires way less energy, and gets you similar outcomes.

Thomas Graham 1:10:18
Yeah, mind you, I think you nailed it there, and in many, many of the things you said there. And I mean just coming back to your book as well, yes, you’re having your first chapter as you know, getting the mindset right, absolutely spot on and beautiful. And if you think about where the medicos focus, and they focus on the physical they do. And that’s your chapter seven, so, but without that mindset. And yes, as you said, you have bad days.

Thomas Graham 1:10:56
You know, you have shit days. You have days where things just don’t necessarily work that well, but you stay the course, you know, and with a positive mindset and with that reinforcement, whether it’s visualization or some other form of creative expression, yeah, kind of just build that resilience, you know, to keep going.

Bill Gasiamis 1:11:22
It’s exactly what you said. It’s like reinforcement. It’s like, how do you reinforce with minimum, minimal effort, the thing that you just physically tried to do to heal and to regain and to and to achieve, right? So it’s like, how do you reinforce it? Come up with your own creative way. For some people, it might be painting a walking scene. It might be painting a it might be doing a a meditation. It might be doing using your imagination. It might be writing whatever it is.

Thomas’s Book and Legacy

Thomas Graham 1:11:58
Yeah, because just one on that point, if I might just interrupt it, we all have different learning styles, right? So some are visual, some are auditory, some are verbal, some are physical, some are logical, so it’s whatever one that suits you at that time, you know, pull it in, draw it and use it.

Bill Gasiamis 1:12:21
So why did you write the book, Let’s Go For A Walk: Rebuilding Body, Mind and Spirit After A Stroke. So I wrote my book because I had all these ideas. Speaking about them all over the place was a bit difficult because it’s fragmented and you don’t really take people through the entire journey that you would love to take them on. A book helps to organize all those ideas and take people through a real journey, right? What was your thinking behind that? I mean, it’s a great cover, by the way.

Thomas Graham 1:12:49
Bobby, my wife, she did it from my design. And that’s her name, Slubber Danka, full name, we shortened it to Bobby.

Bill Gasiamis 1:13:00
I mean, it’s very well illustrated. I love the little and those of color, you know.

Thomas Graham 1:13:07
Yeah those are when she was sitting waiting for me, and when I went into outpatient rehab and I couldn’t drive and so she drove me, and she used to sit and watch me, and then go to the cafe and then to sketch. So these are actual sketches from a visual journal, or daily journal at the time, and they, there’s a little bit of quirky sense of humor amongst them as well.

Bill Gasiamis 1:13:33
And she was going on quite a journey as well with you. Like, yeah, she’s going through this whole thing with you. Like, properly, yeah.

Thomas Graham 1:13:40
So, why did I? I was kind of, it was such a profound experience, and as you would have experienced from your, you know, you’ve had multiple strokes and and it’s so life changing and so profound that to make sense of it, first for myself, and then getting towards the end of it, I just thought because, as you’ve Bobby, she sent short emails to people in the beginning, the first three weeks, when I was out of it, and then I sort of did these, this journal in a key milestones, like six weeks, three months, six months, one year, and then Post that year I started writing poetry.

Thomas Graham 1:14:41
And then I wanted to kind of draw a line and say “Well, look, this is this phase that I’ve got through” and the book kind of came out of that to say, alright, we put it all together, and I can then draw a line, and then I can start my new life as it were, and so that’s how it was, was put together, and I always wanted to write a book, but I never imagined, not in my wildest dreams or my worst nightmares, that it would be about a stroke, and my stroke.

Bill Gasiamis 1:15:32
Yeah.

Thomas Graham 1:15:34
I don’t have to say, because you’ve expressed very eloquently in your writing and your podcast. How you know you neither did you ever think you’d write a book, and you’d never thought you’d have a podcast, and you never thought you’d be this advocate for strokes. So you know these are those, as those unexpected is the term used outcomes and possibilities and options and joyful activities. You know that our bodies are compromised in some way.

Thomas Graham 1:16:15
You know we’re not physically what we were, and we probably never be, but we are so much more now and in touching into our hearts and our spirit. But I also think it’s very critical. And as you close in your book, you know, stumbling into purpose you start, you need that positive mindset, or engaged mindset upfront and it and at the end, a new purpose emerges, or a new meaning, and that’s what we gotta take and build on.

Thomas Graham 1:16:58
And that’s what you doing, by opening our stories to the world through your podcast and to other survivors and carers, yes, and also the medicos, who I believe, do need to hear our stories, because they play a very important role. But once we spit out of the system, we kind of depended on ourselves and each other to keep going, and to build our lives and our futures.

Bill Gasiamis 1:17:41
Yeah, I completely agree with that mate, like stumbling into purpose. That was the, probably one of my more favorite chapters, because it was the one you can never plan. You can’t really plan that chapter. Doesn’t matter what you read, what you do, and then you just, one day, you just go “Oh, I think helping share stroke survivor stories” creating this community, doing a podcast, writing a book “Oh, my God. I think I’ve found my purpose in life, something I could latch onto for the rest of my life.” Like as if my kids are not part of that.

Bill Gasiamis 1:18:18
Of course, they are, but they’ve left home so they don’t feel the same amount of space that my purpose was created around before they’ve left a little bit of a void, because they’re adults now, and they found their own way, and they’re growing, and they’ve flown the coop, so to speak. So I had to come up with another way, and what a perfect way to build, to develop a purpose was, through my own recovery, I was part of that purpose. It’s not just about the other people.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Bill Gasiamis 1:18:55
You can’t be. I can’t make my purpose only about helping you and everyone else, I have to be part of that. If it’s not giving back to me, then it’s not really purposeful. It’s some kind of ego trip that you’re doing. Yeah, and I’m not interested in doing an ego trip. What I did was it was selfish. I started with me. I want to meet stroke survivors so I can learn from them. And then I realized that it doesn’t work like that. It’s a reciprocal relationship that you have with people, and together, we grow and our purposes develop and evolve, and we overcome and then we help other people.

Bill Gasiamis 1:19:34
You know, what’s really cool about this, Thomas, is that people at every level of stroke in their journey have found us when I say us, I mean, you me every stroke survivor who I’ve interviewed, and they’re even finding that podcast in hospital while they are recovering from a stroke that they just had in their hospital bed. And mean that was the ideal for me. If I could reach people really early on in their journey, that was the ideal and that, and we’ve done that together, I couldn’t have done it on my own, because without people joining me on the podcast, there’s no podcast.

Bill Gasiamis 1:20:14
Me, talking about it to by myself is boring, you know. So that’s what was really cool about it. I love that you wrote the book. I love that you’ve gone on this journey. I love that you’re a late Boomer who’s talking the language of, you know, a Gen Z person or a millennial. It’s just fantastic to hear because it’s uncommon, and my parents are only my mum is only 10 years older than you, and we don’t talk about what happened in her life in the past.

Bill Gasiamis 1:20:52
They’ve been through some harsh stuff. They just allude to it. They exude love and support and all that kind of stuff. But they’ve never done their own work. You can tell when you have when you ask the wrong question about a certain topic. You know, things just divert.

Thomas Graham 1:21:11
Yeah, well, I grew up like that where there was no freedom of expression to talk about your inner feelings. So, you know, they went within, suppressed, repressed, and then and over the years, they build up, build up, build up. And then, you know, the explosion. So, yeah. And I, you know, we never too old to learn or to unlearn.

Thomas Graham 1:21:11
Important as well, because some of the things we have to learn – unlearn, you know, the things that trap us and confuse us and shackle us, so it’s learning and unlearning. And also, just lost my train of thought there for a moment, a stroke moment. What was I about to say?

Bill Gasiamis 1:22:13
You were talking about unlearning.

Thomas Graham 1:22:15
Yeah, unlearning and learning and, yeah, it’s escapes me, mate. Sorry.

Bill Gasiamis 1:22:24
That’s alright.

Thomas Graham 1:22:25
Yeah, but you know, that’s what it was, when I was lying in that hospital bed, it would have been wonderful if I had known about your podcast, because for me, it’s been a bit of a solitary journey, and I’m kind of self independent. So, you know, and because it was so lady overwhelming, I kept it, but I do now, you know, say to people, cos I heard it through David Rowland, he told me about your podcast. He’s, you’ve interviewed him twice.

Bill Gasiamis 1:23:08
Yeah, he’s awesome, David.

Thomas Graham 1:23:09
He’s another man he’s a psychologist. He’s also a nature lover, like I am. He also writes poetry and he loves to dance, because movement is and so now I am going out there to talk about my book and stroke, and in all those conversations, I say to people tap into Bill’s podcast, cos he got because he has the you know, you have up to nearly 400.

Bill Gasiamis 1:23:45
350.

Thomas Graham 1:23:46
You know, and each one of those is you’ll find somebody that you have a an alignment with in the people that you’ve, you’ve spoken to. So I agree. It’s yeah, what you know, what you’re doing, is really at the top draw.

Bill Gasiamis 1:24:07
Man, thank you very much. Man, I really appreciate the feedback. Look, I love your book. I love your story. If people want to get a copy, they can go to Amazon, any one of the Amazon stores, type in your name, Thomas Graham, Let’s Go For A Walk, into the search bar, and that will come up. I know you don’t have social media and all that kind of stuff, but we will have the link to the book in the show notes.

Thomas Graham 1:24:36
Just one, just two things. So the Kindle version is through Amazon. If you want a prince version, then it’s through my wife’s website, which is bgpublishers.com.au. I’ll send you that link. So, yeah.

Bill Gasiamis 1:24:55
Okay.

Thomas Graham 1:24:58
So the Kindle through Amazon, through my wife’s website.

Bill Gasiamis 1:25:04
Okay, alright, lovely. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, reaching out. I really appreciated our conversation mate and all the best with your recovery going forward.

Thomas Graham 1:25:15
Thanks very much, Bill. Best of luck for you. I think you’re aiming for 1000 podcasts, keep going, mate keep going.

Bill Gasiamis 1:25:26
And that wraps up today’s conversation with Thomas Graham, from suffering an unexpected ischemic stroke in the ponds to regaining movement, facing long held emotional wounds and discovering poetry as a healing tool, Thomas’s story is a reminder that transformation after stroke is possible in ways we don’t always expect to everyone who stuck with the episode, and especially those of you who listened through the ads. Thank you so much. I know ads can be a bit of a nuisance, but your support helps keep this podcast sustainable and free for others who need it.

Bill Gasiamis 1:25:58
If this episode struck a chord, hit like, leave a comment or subscribe on the YouTube channel. I really want to get above 10,000 subscriptions this year, and we’re at about 5,600 at the moment. And if you’re listening on Apple podcast or Spotify, a quick five-star review really helps others, other stroke survivors, that is, discover these important conversations and remember The Unexpected Way That A Stroke Became The Best Thing That Happened, is available now.

Bill Gasiamis 1:26:28
You’ll find it at recoveryafterstroke.com/book, or by searching my name, Bill Gasiamis on Amazon. Thank you again for being here. Keep going, you are doing better than you think. See you on the next episode.

Intro 1:26:43
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The post How Thomas Graham Rewired His Life After a Pons Stroke appeared first on Recovery After Stroke.