RECOVERY
Insider look at stroke's progression
October 23, 2009
Diane Flacks
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor has a lot of experience talking about the stroke that made her famous, but her appearance in Toronto on Saturday is particularly important to her, she says.
After observing first-hand as a stroke ravaged her brain, she will be speaking to other people who have experienced brain damage, as well as to their families and caregivers.
"How do I bring myself forward with hope, inspiration, celebration – honouring what is going on when the brain is experiencing trauma; what we need and what I learned based on my experience?" she says of her appearance at the the MukiBaum Treatment Centre's Come To Your Senses Conference.
Taylor was doing neurological research in 1996 when a blood vessel in the left side of her brain exploded. At first, she was aware of changes without realizing what they meant.
As external sound disappeared from her perception, she noted with excitement that her auditory centre was being damaged. But the portion of her brain that registers fear – the amygdale – had not yet reacted.
She describes how her consciousness started shifting out of her formerly dominant (and now blood-filled) left brain – the organizing part of our minds, the planner, the language centre, the judger. Her conscious mind flowed into her right brain, the part that is in the present moment, with no concept of past or future; the life-force connected to all things.
The "we are" part of the brain took over the part that says "I am."
The chatter of details in her thoughts stopped. It was blissfully silent in her mind. She perceived the atoms in her hands as fully fluid and connected to the atoms of the wall. She was captivated by the magnificence of the energy around her. She felt expansive, enormous, peaceful, too big for her body to contain. She describes the feeling as nirvana.
It was when her right arm flopped useless to her side that she realized she was having a stroke.
She thought, "Wow, this is so cool. How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their brains from the inside out?"
In four hours, she deteriorated into an infant in a woman's body. She couldn't talk, walk or speak. But she was in there.
She had the stroke when she was 37. It took eight years for her brain to heal.
Her book about her experience, My Stroke of Insight, has been translated into 30 languages and is required reading at 180 medical colleges. She has spoken to groups as diverse as neurologists, churchgoers and city planners.
She laughs: "City planners? Sometimes it's, like, what's that about? We all have a brain, but city planners? How does that one fit?"
On the phone from her home in Indiana, freshly returned from a rejuvenating walk in the woods, she is funny and insightful. She sounds full of purpose.
"I did what I came back for," she says simply.
She gets great satisfaction in being able to answer a neurologist's most pressing question when examining a stroke victim: "Are you in there?"
"Yes, I really was in there," she says, "but they had to come in and find me."
Seamlessly, she switches to brain researcher.
"Yes, we don't want to give (patients) false hope, but by golly, if they are really in there, how do we do it differently to help escort them out?"
Taylor says the response from the medical community has been positive.
"Neurologists recognize the value of one of their own having this experience and coming back with something really constructive to say."
Tickets for Taylor's appearance are $50. www.cometoyoursensesconference.com.
Toronto Star