Anna's story
Anna Young has a habit of helping people take difficult steps. When her brother was injured in a serious car crash, she moved home to Cincinnati to care for him. When her son was diagnosed with autism at age 2, she put her career on hold to stay at home.
But now Anna had to learn to walk for herself ― and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough.
One day, the 44-year-old sat down to watch TV and found the words on the screen were running together. She couldn’t understand them. Her husband, Steven Miller, asked what was wrong, but her thoughts blurred like the images on TV and she couldn’t answer him. He dialed 911.
At Christ Hospital and later the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, doctors explained she’d suffered a stroke. While she had stabilized, Anna found she couldn’t sit up from her hospital bed and could barely speak or move. Anna would need further care and healing time and for that, her family chose Trihealth Rehabilitation Hospital.
In the nearly four weeks that followed, a physician-led team of physical, recreation, speech and occupational therapists joined her own family to help Anna back to the life she worried she’d left behind.
Upon arrival at TriHealth, Anna’s right leg and arm barely worked. To sit up, least two people needed to help. At the hospital she wasn’t able to string together the right words to let them know she wanted to see her husband and son. The ability to talk hadn’t come back.
She was frustrated, but speech therapists at TriHealth began with the basics. They asked Anna to start saying simple words. Next, they gave her simple sentences, followed by complex sentences and conversations.
The more she talked, the more she improved. “I’m able to tell what’s on my mind now,” she said, “but it’s slower.”
Picking up on Anna’s angst, a recreation therapist stepped in with water color paints, paper and brushes. You progress toward a larger picture through small brush strokes, the therapist explained. Anna soon was painting with her left hand, since her dominant right had been weakened by the stroke. Her mood brightened. She felt some of her confidence return.
Physical therapists helped her find her physical strength at the TriHealth gym using specialized equipment. She clung to an overhead body weight support while she walked on a treadmill or up a ramp. The practice helped her recover her gait without putting too much pressure on her weakened legs.
She also practiced getting in and out of a machine designed to look like a car and performed strength training exercises on devices with pedals like bicycles. Occupational therapists gave her weight-bearing activities on a mat to provide pressure on her weakened arm and leg to improve nerve function. She used an arm skate to move her arm across a table to increase her strength. A specialized therapy mat ― a device with handle attachments that she used for left-hand support ― helped her regain her balance.
At first it was hard. For the walking and balance exercises, she was afraid of falling. But she was hanging onto the overhead weight support and walking up a ramp to mimic stairs. It just felt easier. She still couldn’t hold herself up, but she could feel it coming back. It was a turning point.
Then walking came back to Anna like painting and talking. A therapist asked her to start with one step or two. Then she stopped to sit down and rest. Next the therapist encouraged her each day to take a few more. “You can do it,” the therapist assured her. Within a week, it came back. She could walk down a hallway without a walker. She felt winded, but triumphant.
"I learned the difference between not liking your therapy and LOVING it,” she said.
Her husband and son were there to celebrate each step. Anna learned just how essential her life’s calling ― helping people move forward ― really was. “If my family wasn’t here every day, I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” she said. “My husband and my son are the driving force for me to do the best I can do.”
When she first arrived, Anna needed assistance going to the bathroom, bathing, dressing and standing up. Twenty-seven days later, she could stand. She could walk again. She could get in and out of a car alone if necessary. She could bathe herself. She needed only a little help dressing and going to the bathroom was, once again, a solo activity. While she wasn’t entirely back to her old self, she could talk again.
“I learned I am stronger than I thought I was,” she said.