In just a few seconds - without warning - a stroke can shatter the life of its adult victim and radically affect the unsuspecting family. Confused, frightened, and completely unprepared, family members suddenly find themselves in the role of caregiver. What exactly happened? What to do? What to expect? Where to turn for help? How to cope? The questions come fast and furious but answers are hard to find. "After the Stroke" is the compelling account of Evelyn Shirk's courageous struggle to face these questions and to find her own answers as she accepted the challenge of caring for her husband, a victim of multiple strokes. At 61, Jay Shirk was a successful scholar with a bright and productive future - until he experienced a mild stroke, an 'ischemic attack'. During the next seventeen years, Evelyn, a professional scholar herself, faced the fear and uncertainty of never knowing when or if there would be another 'episode'. Her life became a roller-coaster ride of mixed emotions reaching new highs and lows as she and Jay began the hard, but rewarding, work of rehabilitation and recovery, only to see their progress dashed by the debilitating effects of subsequent strokes, further aggressive treatment, and eventual nursing home placement. "After the Stroke" chronicles the twists and turns of a white-knuckle ride that tested Evelyn's endurance, patience, and ingenuity as she faced tough choices and overcame the challenges of caring for a spouse whose helplessness increased with each new attack. Hers is a frank, yet uplifting account, a testament to the courage and determination of patients and caregivers who struggle each day to maintain dignity and quality of life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Shirk ( In Pursuit of Awareness ) here offers an affecting if uneven account of her husband Jay's gradual deterioration due to a series of strokes. Following an early stroke in 1979, Jay found he could speak only in a kind of poetry--the stroke had obliterated his ability to fit words into logical sentences, and impelled him to express himself in metaphor. Ten years later, he was bedridden, curled in the fetal position; he died this year. The book, written by a retired chair of philosophy at Hofstra University, is a strange hybrid of how-to and narrative. Shirk describes the struggle to cope with illness and exhaustion, financial stress and emotional upheavals; she also questions the life-and-death decisions required of care-givers, often with little guidance from myopic doctors, and the frequent failure of traditional medicine to consider quality of life when treating the terminally ill. The author may be a plodding stylist and a poor storyteller, but the tale fascinates even so. One of the most powerful moments: her husband's refusal to use a tape recorder to continue his ``writings.'' Clinging to his identity despite the momentous changes in his brain, he explained, ``Thoughts come from my head, across my feelings, and down the right arm to my pencil.'' While his wife may lack his poetic gift, her prose is fitting testimony to their experience.
Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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