Come along on the real life stroke recovery story of Mack Lowell. Witness his long journey back and the physical and mental trials he faces along the road to recovery. (Editor’s note: Any treatment undertaken to combat a medical problem has varied results for different individuals. The experiences portrayed here are those of Mack Lowell and would be different from the experiences of other stroke patients. A conversation with your doctor is the best way to determine the appropriate course of treatment for you or a loved one.)
By: Jean Johnson for Heart1
Part One
The crow’s feet around Mack Lowell’s blue-green eyes remind you of a Hopi corn planter’s, and what skin on his face that shows above his full beard is tanned and leathery. It’s not surprising that he looks like a lizard. Since the late sixties he’s hiked the Grand Canyon, Colorado Plateau, and greater American West from the Wind Rivers to the Bitterroots. He’s been to the Brooks Range in Alaska as well and even managed a trip to the Himalayas at one point where he hiked up to Everett base camp – all the while smoking his beloved tobacco, not to mention swigging a half dozen beers in the evening whenever he got a chance.
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Learn the signs of stroke:
1. Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
2. Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
3. Trouble seeing in one or both eyes
4. Trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
5. Sudden severe headaches with no known cause
According to the American Stroke Society you should call 9-1-1 immediately if you experience these symptoms. Time lost is brain lost.
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The incidentals of life – a trailer on a scrap of land outside of the Flagstaff full of maps and books, hiking and skiing equipment, tunes, a stereo nice enough to ruin your hearing, and a self-funded major medical policy – were managed via his permanent seasonal job with the Forest Service. Lowell spent the past 25 years working from May to November on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon shoving slash around and clearing fire lines with a John Deere cat. He’s packed a lot of living into his 61 years. Lean as a rail at close to 6 feet, he was still going early in March – enjoying a good season of downhill skiing compliments of one of Northern Arizona’s better snow years.Still going on his vices too. Coffee and cigs in the morning to get going, and beer and cigs come nightfall to wind down. That combined with a diet heavy on white-flour starches and proteins, and light on the fruits and veggies set him up for disaster. Lowell wasn’t a bad cook as far as his repertoire went. Made mean omelets and great quesadillas. The only slicing and dicing that went on, though, was what the makers of store bought salsa did for him at the factory. And like so many of us, he loved his chips with their hydrogenated fats, not to mention his sweet, creamy butter.
He might have gotten by with the dietary indiscretions given all the exercise he did, but when he found out his blood pressure was high in a routine physical for his Forest Service job, he put off following up on the problem for months. Lowell with his bachelor’s of science in History might be educated when it comes to political affairs, but his understanding of the perils of hypertension was sorely lacking.
It was Saturday night, and the long-time bachelor had just loaded his CD player with a Dylan, Eric Clapton, the Doors, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Grateful Dead. The usual crowd of lifelong friends that stopped by most evenings was off doing other things, and so Lowell watched the evening light play over the San Francisco Peaks and thumbed a well-worn copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s letters. Since the writer’s death by suicide earlier in the year, Lowell had been revisiting Thompson’s irreverent commentaries on life in post-modern America.
Dwellers on the edge might not share middle class norms and inclinations, but as first Thompson and then Lowell discovered, when push comes to shove and the bodies with which we all get around in the world break down, each of us in our time must face the system’s way of dealing with declining health. Thompson, for his part, hung on the best he could until problems related to a knee replacement finally took him to the brink. As far as Lowell’s story goes, it’s been equally horrific.
The Doors were belting out Riders on the Storm, and Lowell felt funny so he thought he’d go in and get some aspirin. He never made it across the living room. Unable to figure out what was happening but knowing he needed help, he kept trying to get up and reach the phone. As he put it, “every time I’d try to get up, I’d crash and burn again. Finally I just lay there face down and slammed my right fist into the floor over and over again.”
The tears common to stroke patients overtake Lowell without a moment’s notice these days, and his blue-green eyes turned a watery turquoise. “I knew it was serious, and I figured I deserved it because of my vices.”
(Continued in Part Two)
