Stroke Awareness Oregon exists to minimize death and disability from stroke through prevention education and to support the best life possible for stroke warriors and their loved ones.
Stroke Awareness Oregon will be the leader in promoting the reduction of stroke related death and disability through improved brain health, enhanced stroke recovery and rehabilitation through support for stroke warriors.
Stroke Awareness Oregon believes in maintaining the highest standards of ethics, respect, integrity, service to others, equity, confidentiality, accountability, compassion and excellence.
SAO is a non-profit created by physicians, stroke survivors, and community members, and it exists “to eliminate disability and death from stroke through awareness of causes, symptoms, and treatment, and through recovery support”. The fifth leading cause of death in Oregon and the greatest source of disability worldwide, stroke is a medical emergency by striking over 800,000 people nationwide each year. Stroke Awareness Oregon is making a difference in stroke outcomes and recovery through these four goals:
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These previews below offer a glimpse of heartfelt stories shared by families, helping us celebrate lives and inspire support.
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Our dedicated donors and partners generously contribute their time, financial resources, and heartfelt support to help us raise awareness, educate communities, and support every step of the recovery journey. Together, we create a network of hope and healing for stroke survivors and their families.
Our MVP Partners are essential supporters who help us expand education, prevention, and survivor resources.
Their commitment brings hope and real change to our community.
Thank you for your interest in Stroke Awareness Oregon! We look forward to connecting with you further.
You can reach the SAO team by phone, email, or in person at the SAO office in Bend, Oregon.
If you or a loved one are displaying signs of stroke, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Time = Brain!
by Jake Sheaffer
“I once threw a canister of my supplement powder at the wall and dented it. That’s something I can’t imagine ever doing before my stroke, but it’s just another part of my recovery to work on.”
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On an early October weekend in 2019, Alesha Goodman and her longtime boyfriend Drew hiked over 50 miles of rugged desert landscape in the Ochoco National Forest in Central Oregon. They were on a nine-day hunting trip they’d been planning for months. While Drew streaked up the steep slopes of sagebrush and loose rock, Alesha tarried behind breathing heavily, fighting the searing pain radiating from the base of her skull. An active thirty-four-year-old who frequented local gyms, walked her dog daily, and hiked on weekends, Alesha never suspected the severe neck pain and nausea she’d had for the past week and a half were signs of an impending stroke. And not just one stroke, but two. Two potentially fatal strokes that would occur within an hour of each other the day after she returned from the Ochocos.
An only child, Alesha was close to her parents and her grandmother who lived on her parents’ property later in life. As a kid, she delivered newspapers in her Bend, OR neighborhood, and in her spare time, she wrote children’s books for fun and read voraciously, prompting close friends to refer to her as a “living encyclopedia of odd information.”
On the Monday morning after she got home, Alesha sat in traffic at a parkway off -ramp, still in discomfort from the neck pain and the nausea. She had new symptoms, too, dizziness and feeling faint. Regardless of the pain, she readied herself for work, but she had an uneasy feeling about her job.
Over the weekend, Alesha had received multiple text messages from her employer, a jewelry company in Central Oregon, about an issue with her company email and password, but with no cell reception, she couldn’t respond to her manager’s concerns. After searching through Alesha’s desk for her email password and not finding it, but instead finding an important legal document she’d already dealt with but had not yet disclosed to her boss, the company hired a specialist to get around the digital safeguards. That day, Alesha was let go from her position.
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