Right Hemisphere Stroke: A Victim Reflects on Rehabilitative Medicine

Right Hemisphere Stroke is an amazing surprise. Johnson has approached his topic with humor, intelligence, and good writing skills. The result is a sometimes-funny, always-informative, and touching memoir about the stroke he suffered when he was 38 years old. I read it to get some specific information about strokes. I didn't find the information for which I was searching, but happily read on, learning answers to questions I hadn't thought to ask. For instance, I found out stroke victims often suffer personality change. Johnson was lucky; his personality shifted from someone who cared little for others to a kinder, more affable person. This was only one of the benefits for his family. His wife now has a more considerate, attentive lover: "I could not plop over Judy in the traditional missionary manner; I had to entice her to come to me. Our sex now had a good deal of give and take rather than a one-sided domination." Of equal interest is how Johnson learned to function as a part of a hospital environment that seemed designed more to fulfill job descriptions than to meet patient needs. Yes, it would seem that meeting patient needs is the essential framework of medical workers' job descriptions, but there arises a perverse difference between the medical establishment's perception of the patients' needs and the needs perceived by the patients themselves. The doctors, nurses, therapists and diverse hospital staff are focused on getting the patient as close to recovery as possible (or, as Johnson found out, as close as they can get before the insurance runs out). Johnson learned to navigate the system both honestly and superficially, as the occasion demanded. In one instance, he observed that patients who were perceived as "religious" or "a family man" got more compassionate treatment, and so he put a framed photo of his son on his dresser top alongside a Gideon bible. Having the time to study his surroundings, he was thus able to construct ways to maximize the benefits of his hospitalization. Sometimes, this was as simple (yet excruciatingly difficult) as putting up with an unpleasant roommate in order to be labeled "a good patient." The unexplainable continues to fascinate me and pique my curiosity about the brain. I have an abiding interest in the spiritual episodes experienced during and after stroke by many sufferers, a topic Johnson touches upon lightly and with apology to "scientific" minds. The power of emotional memory is another of my interests, and in this regard, Johnson offers his ever-so-interesting version of anniversary disease: Each year on the anniversary of his stroke, he suffers transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). Johnson begins by saying "there are only two kinds of strokes, those that kill you and those that don't" and ends by quoting his wife's words of comfort to their son who longed for a happy ending: "We have yet to live our ending."