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Bay Area stroke survivor, husband form nonprofit to help other stroke victims rebuild their lives

By Sharon Chin

/ CBS San Francisco

A Peninsula husband and wife are playing a critical part in helping people rebuild their lives following strokes.

Nearly 800,000 people have a stroke every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For survivors, it's a leading cause of disability.

Debra Meyerson and Steve Zuckerman have shared many adventures, including long sabbaticals and living on a sailboat for a year, but they also dreamed of biking across the country. How they accomplished that is part of their inspirational story of helping stroke survivors.

It began in 2010, when Meyerson suffered a severe stroke and ended up in the hospital while on a family vacation in Lake Tahoe. The symptoms developed slowly, and that night, she went to sleep with slurred speech and some physical limitations.

"By 8 o'clock in the morning, she couldn't speak at all and was totally paralyzed on the right side," Zuckerman recalled. "That was scary."

Meyerson showed determination in physical, occupational and speech therapy. She relearned how to speak.
      
"I am going to do everything possible to get better," she recalled. 

But she didn't regain the use of her right arm, and she had aphasia, a language disorder caused by brain damage, which did not affect her intelligence but did make it hard to use language.

She had to give up her tenured teaching job at Stanford.

"Three years after my stroke, I'm really depressed," Meyerson said.

"It triggered an identity crisis, 'Who am I now?'" said Zuckerman. "But Deb being Deb, said, 'I'm still an academic. I'm going to write a book about all this,' and started the process."

It took five years, but Meyerson did what others thought impossible: she co-wrote Identity Theft with her family's support.

The first edition was released in 2019. The research book includes stories of survivors like Manny Gigante, who had a stroke 21 years ago, and what he learned from Meyerson and Zuckerman helped lift his depression.

"There was no hope," Gigante said. "But I was able to tap into the communities and recognize, when I'm connected with others, that's when I'm the best."

The book also helped retired Pennsylvania writer and editor Mukul Pandya through his identity crisis.

"Identity Theft saved my life," Pandya said. "Deb helped me realize that recovery is not about going back to who I used to be  ... It means adjusting to the new normal, accepting your current capabilities after stroke and with it, building a meaningful life around it."

Today, Pandya serves on the board of Stroke Onward, the nonprofit Meyerson and Zuckerman founded in 2019 to help survivors navigate the emotional journey to live full lives.

And eventually, they organized Stroke Across America in 2022, riding 4,500 miles in a 100-day cross-country trip in a custom tandem bicycle.

Along the route, they shone a light on stroke recovery and aphasia at 16 community events.

"We figured we could do this trip, which was something we wanted to do, but use it to raise awareness," Zuckerman said.

"I loved it," Meyerson added.

Stroke Onward launched the Stroke Monologues in 2024 - live storytelling about survivors' real-life challenges.

The nonprofit also introduced Stroke Onward Community Circle, a free online community of hundreds of survivors, care partners, and medical professionals working to provide more emotional recovery support, all with one key message:
      
"Hope and meaning and purpose," Meyerson stated.

"People can find meaning and purpose in their lives at whatever level of disability or ability they have," said Zuckerman.

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