Survivor Stories

It takes a warrior mentality to battle through stroke and recovery.

Survivor Stories

At Stroke Awareness Oregon, we call survivors of stroke “Warriors”.
It takes a warrior mentality to battle through stroke and recovery.

A Story of Hope –
Kim O’Kelley Leigh

View Kim’s story and the first five years of her journey
following her stroke.

To get in touch with Kim, email her at: kimmacc@yahoo.com

Kim’s book, Silent M.a.g.i.c. and Other Remedies is an award-winning finalist in the
self-help motivational category of the 2010 International Book Awards.

Orlena


Orlena 
had experienced a massive hemorrhagic stroke on the right side, one that less than 30 percent of people survive. Fortunately, the on-call doctor in the ER had worked with Dr. Gary Steinberg, a world-renowned expert on “moyamoya” disease at Stanford Hospital.

Stroke Hero: Julie explains how she took FAST action.


Julie Ritchie-Cody
 registered a bubbly 85-year woman at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center. When the woman returned the next day, Julie saw something was wrong and acted FAST.

Lawnae Hunter

Lawnae Hunter was soaking up the sunshine in the Turks and Caicos on December 14th, 2014 when she decided to join her nine-year-old granddaughter for the waterslid....

Asa

Asa was born in Austin, Texas, and moved to Bend for the warm summer days and the heavy powder ski slopes that surrounded the beautiful city. He was only a young man when his life changed overnight.

Bill

Living in Joseph, Oregon with Debbie his wife, Bill’s life was full. A real estate broker with an active social life and a thriving company…until Thursday October 24, 2014...

Your Donation Can Save a Life & Enhance
the Recovery of a Stroke Warrior!

SAO Contact

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!


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    Story Preview | A DRIVING FORCE – Alesha Goodman

    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.”

    ______________________________

    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.

    Purchase the Book to Learn More About Alesha’s Journey!