After a stroke in 2010, Debra Meyerson ’79, SM ’80, was paralyzed on the best facet of her physique and wanted months of speech remedy earlier than she was in a position to produce even the best of phrases. Right now, she’s talking out about stroke restoration—particularly the psychological well being and emotional points of therapeutic, which she says don’t obtain sufficient assist from the health-care system. Final summer season she led a crew of cyclists on a cross-country journey to convey consideration to this trigger.
A tenured professor of organizational habits at Stanford College on the time of her stroke, Meyerson was decided to regain the whole lot she had misplaced. Whereas she noticed nice enhancements in her strolling and speech, the stroke left her with aphasia, a situation that causes speech impairment.
In consequence, Meyerson realized she wouldn’t be capable to resume her former function within the classroom, the place she had centered on gender and variety. That disappointment led her to jot down a e book—Id Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke, launched in 2019.
“The emotional journey is so essential, and there’s not sufficient emphasis positioned on that,” says Meyerson, who earned bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in administration at MIT earlier than finishing her PhD at Stanford. “Restoration is greater than rehabilitation.”
Engaged on her e book helped Meyerson navigate her personal private identification disaster, she says. Given her challenges with aphasia, she had assist writing it—from her husband, Steve Zuckerman, author Sally Collings, and her three children. Her eldest son, Danny Zuckerman, served as coauthor. The e book particulars her personal experiences and contains tutorial analysis and the tales of 25 different folks recovering from a stroke or related situation. In documenting them, she acknowledged a typical thread. “Not one of the folks we interviewed had been given any steering for the emotional journey of rebuilding identification,” explains her husband, who helps when aphasia prevents her from discovering phrases. “We speak loads about goal, and addressing that hole within the system grew to become Deb’s goal.”
Meyerson, now an adjunct professor at Stanford, knew there was extra work to be carried out, so she and Zuckerman began a nonprofit referred to as Stroke Onward to lift consciousness and promote change within the medical mannequin for stroke restoration. The 4,500-mile ocean-to-ocean bike trip throughout the US in the summertime of 2022 was their newest effort. Household, buddies, and fellow stroke survivors joined them for some or the entire journey.
“MIT taught me massive issues [are] attainable,” Meyerson says.
