Patient Stories

Brian Borton, Oregon Stroke Center Patient

Life was very good for my wife, Karen, and I in the fall of 1999, and the future looked bright. I had just completed the paperwork to position myself for early retirement from my long and rewarding career as an elementary teacher, we had grand plans, and everything seemed wonderful. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the first weekend of autumn, all of that went up in flames. Not literally, I do thank God, but figuratively. Totally without warning, and with only suddenly slurred speech and a visiting neighbor’s repeated “Are you okay?” to indicate anything was wrong, I suffered a major stroke.

Six weeks later, after stays in three hospitals, I went home to resume life. Not at all the life I had known, nor the life I had anticipated, but a new kind of life, defined by disability and dependence, as the left side of my body was totally without strength. Accepting my new physical condition would have been easy, perhaps even understandable, however, it wasn’t my nature to settle for so limited an existence, and I could not accept so little from my Capricorn self. From the start, little by little, I have worked to regain my independence and my self-reliance.

With the hope that sharing my story might serve to encourage and motivate others who are facing what I have faced, I will relate part of my journey.

Though I remember none of it, Karen’s diary reveals that work began almost immediately to resurrect my paralyzed body. Hospital staff at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland sat me up within three days of my stroke. The first physical activity I can recall was learning to transfer into and out of a wheelchair. The praise I received for smooth transfers buoyed my spirits considerably. At that point, I had a very long rehabilitation ahead of me, and I still have far to go. Those transfers, the first independent movements with my weakened and paralyzed body, were a beginning.

I left the hospital and returned home on a stormy day in early November. What a blessing it was to find that a friend had installed sturdy handrails to allow me to climb the 15 steps from our sidewalk to our front door! For a long time, I took those steps like a toddler, getting both feet on a step before moving one foot to the next one. Eventually, though, I had the strength and the courage to try step-over-step walking. I’m working now to increase my speed and to lessen my grip on the handrails. Our friend had been busy inside, too, installing sturdy grab bars next to my toilet and outside my shower stall.

In the spring, following my return home, we worked hard to get me walking with a regular cane. I wore a sturdy gaitbelt, which Karen held securely. I began with just a few steps, left – right – left. I worked up to being able to go to the end of our neighbor’s low retaining wall and back, resting on the wall.

This walking was very tiring, and though Karen held me securely, I was fearful of tripping and falling. I lost interest and hadn’t been out in many months.

I began to think there had to be another way, one I could do with more confidence and with less help. I needed a way to walk that wouldn’t make me as fearful as striding up and down the sidewalk.

An idea came to me! I remembered the parallel bars in which I had walked during therapy at our local hospital. Maybe I needed something like parallel bars.

In May of 2001, we traveled to the East Coast. By the time we returned, my plans had materialized as a sturdy wooden walking frame in our back yard. It resembles a two-sided hitching rail for horses. It is approximately 40 feet from one end to the other, around the end, and back again. It runs from a few feet out our back door toward our limbless maple tree. Karen assists me through the back door and to where I can hold one rail. Going clockwise, I am able to walk around and around.

It was slow at first, my steps were very cautious, and my right hand, leather-gloved against the splinters, gripped the rail for all I was worth. At first, I half-walked, half-pulled myself around.

Before long, I began to wear a path in the grass. I kept at it until I was able to go around the frame eight times before stopping to rest. Then I would rest after my 16th loop, eventually reaching my goal of 25 times around, about 1000 feet.
Karen charts my walking on our calendar. What an exciting day it was, that first summer I achieved my first mile!

I love that this is independent activity. Once I’m out there, Karen with book, tea, telephone, and kitchen timer is free to sit in a chair and watch me. Sometimes, to keep me honest, she counts the loops.

Because I am more secure and walking much faster, I can now do as many as 33 loops in my 20 minutes. I hold the rails less firmly all the time, and there will come the time, I know, when I’ll be steady enough on my feet to walk without holding on. It’ll be a while longer, though, because our yard, despite my worn path, is uneven and mossy, and I worry about catching my toe and falling.

Struggling to overcome the effects of my stroke is the hardest work I have ever done, the most tiring, and the most frustrating, with improvements sometimes measured in the smallest of increments. I am determined, though, and I will keep working. I have places to go and things to do.

Like the phoenix, the mythical bird who rose from his own ashes, I, too, rise as I leave the wheelchair and cane behind, to stride into the future that I had every reason to believe was mine on that sunny autumn day. As I work and strive to regain as much of my former self as I can, my wife Karen and I refer to my recovery as “The Phoenix Project.”