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Richard Walters
Personal Trainer/Stroke Survivor
Topic: "The Wisdom of Hope, Inspiration,
and Courage!
OUR PHENOMENAL POTENTIAL!"
What I give over in my talk is so Powerful and Transformative...💪
We are all Powerful Beyond Belief!...we just need to learn how to tap into it!
Richard A. Walters, a 61 year old Jewish Personal Trainer, bodybuilder and runner had a major stroke. He couldn't talk , and his right side was paralyzed. Eight months post -stroke he ran the fourteen mile Polar Dash in Minneapolis. It was ten degrees below zero, twenty below with the windchill. Eleven months post -stroke he participated in the Pittsburgh Half Marathon. Fourteen months post -stroke he ran the EQT ten miler. His strength in the weight room returned, deadlifting, 275 lbs. for example. This is the story of hope, inspiration and courage!
Early Sunday morning on April 28, 2013 (Lag BaOmer) a week before I was scheduled to run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, I had a stroke.
My grandson Ushy (five years old) was the first of God's emissaries to save my life.
My wife, Marsha, normally sleeps in late Sunday mornings.
Ushy called Marsha on her cell phone and woke her up.
I was staggering into our bedroom, determined to take a shower, so I could get ready for work.
I started to strip down.
Marsha looked at me. It was like a stroke commercial.
"You're having a stroke! I'm calling 911."
I gestured with my hand, Get out! I'm a bodybuilder fitness freak, we don't get strokes!
I wasn't fully aware that I couldn't talk.
Wow, I really needed a shower. Needed to wake up and get ready for work.
I finished stripping down and headed for the bathroom.
"I mean it! I'm calling 911."
I locked myself in the bathroom, turned the water on in the shower and stepped in.
I started shampooing my hair.
The shampoo dripped into my eyes so I couldn't see.
I was feeling fatigued and weak.
I don't know why I feel so tired, got a lot of sleep on Shabbos.
I heard a knock on the door.
"Paramedics."
I'm taking a shower!
Since I couldn't talk they couldn't hear me.
So I shouted louder inside my head.
I'M TAKING A SHOWER! GO AWAY!
They still didn't hear me.
Then I heard my wife.
"Rick, open up the door!"
I'M TAKING A SHOWER!
I heard my wife trying to unlock the door.
The door opened and these 2 big guys who looked like police officers were coming into the bathroom.
That's enough!
I stepped out of the tub dripping wet, with shampoo dripping down my head and into my eyes.
I lunged at the door and slammed it shut against some resistance from the big police guys.
I'm very strong and teach self defense. These guys are lucky I'm naked and taking a shower.
"Rick, open the door."
I heard Marsha twisting a key in the door.
I shut off the water, stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel.
The big police guys were right there, with my wife behind them.
I pushed them to the side and headed for my underwear drawer.
This is embarrassing!
I put on my underwear and sweat pants.
Wow, I'm really feeling tired and weak.
The big guys grabbed me under my armpits and helped me down the stairs and into an ambulance.
I had no more fight in me.
"Mr. Walters, don't move. We're going to take some pictures of your brain."
Move? I am totally strapped in and too tired to do anything.
Just want to go to sleep, so stop talking to me and turn off that machine cause you're making a racket!
This was scary and embarrassing.
What will my neighbors think?
How ironic! Get Fit with Rich plastered all over my car.
This will spread like wild fire in the community. Man, I feel tired and weak!
When I woke up I was in my 'cell.'
I looked around.
Behind me to my left was a monitor beeping with what looked like little strobe lights pulsating.
Beep, beep, beep, pulse, pulse, pulse.
This is the worst disco I've ever heard!
Next to me was that classic hospital table that spins around so you can eat in bed without moving.
Pretty disgusting to have a bed pan sitting next to a pitcher of water with a plastic cup rolled up in more plastic.
My 'cell mate' was blasting the big screen 'low-life-idiot-nonsense' TV.
I mean BLASTING!
Normally, this would make me very angry.
I would have to restrain myself and tell myself that anger is akin to idol worship and I need to calm down and respectfully, politely, ask him to please turn it down.
I feel no emotion.
I lost my free will.
I can't talk, my body is restrained, needles and tubes are attached to all weird places on my body.
My right side is totally limp and feels dead like a mega shot of novocaine was injected into it.
I can hear my brain think.
It sounds like the clanking of a Purim gragger.
Little foggy bubbles are shooting at targets of things I am trying to remember.
I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! I am a useless prisoner trapped in jail.
I started to cry.
Hi, bubbles inside my head. You are upsetting me!
Crank, crank, crank, bubble, bubble...
I am trying to think clearly and you keep bubbling up and bursting at the targets of my thoughts.
YOU ARE ANNOYING! STOP IT!
Ok, I am going to stop resisting you and just relax and let your bubble waves put me to sleep.
Ahhh, that's better, I am so tired. Just need some peaceful, restful sleep.
"MR. WALTERS, I AM CANDY. I AM YOUR NURSE ON CALL TONIGHT."
B#%%^,!!!!! I am trying to sleep! Sorry Mom, I know I agreed to not use profanity in your blessed memory. But it's ingrained in me.
Remember when I was in kindergarten and the kids taught me how to sing Yankee Doodle Dandy with all F's?
I had no idea what it meant, but got in big trouble when I sang it, in front of you and Daddy in the doctor's office.
Remember that?
"If you need anything the call button is right here attached to your bed.
If you have to urinate, use that," she pointed to the table.
"I'll be back later with your meds."
Well, I did have to urinate.
The problem was I was too weak and exhausted to reach the table for the 'bathroom surrogate.'
I was able to hit the call button. But, by the time Candy came in, the pool of warm liquid had saturated my sheets.
I started to laugh and cry at the same.
I just peed my bed like a 2 year old.
Two female attendance came in.
They unhooked all of my attachments.
They rolled me over exposing all of my private parts and skillfully changed my sheets.
I just lost my dignity. I'm too weak and tired to feel embarrassed.
Just want to go back to sleep and enjoy the bubbles in my head.
