Dr Oz and Oprah

(Best Syndication News) Sometimes nurses and other health care professionals lose track and forget about the patient’s feelings and needs, but Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor reminded them on the Oprah Winfrey show Tuesday. Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist scientist who specializes in how the brain works, had a stroke back in 1996. The world as she knew it changed forever.

Initially Jill was unaware of what happened. She even went on her exercise machine and worked out. But the headache she woke-up with didn’t disappear and her symptoms got worse. Finally after she realized her left arm was paralyzed, she understood that she was having a stroke.

Oprah first interviewed Taylor on her Oprah's Soul Series and on Dr. Oz's Oprah & Friends XM Radio shows. Her book, My Stroke of Insight, describes her experience and her recovery.

Left and Right Side of the Brain

Taylor considerers herself better off today than she was before the stroke. Before the event she was uptight and always worried about the future. “The left hemisphere got wiped-out along with its functions, but the right was OK,” Taylor said. The right hemisphere is right “now in the present moment”. “The right hemisphere thinks in pictures”. It is our “being”.

The left hemisphere is quite different. It thinks about the past and the future and has a “to do” list. That side is about doing things and thinks in language. This is why she had trouble talking on the phone to a co-worker.

“The two hemispheres just think differently,” she explained. “So when I lost my left hemisphere I lost my past and I lost my future.” She was still capable of being in the present moment, and in a weird way that was relaxing for her.

Two Types Of Strokes

There are two types of strokes. One stroke is where the brain bleeds, like the one Taylor had. The other can be more devastating and is caused by a blood clotting. When a clot forms the brain loses access to the blood and the oxygen the blood carries. That part of the brain dies.

Taylor remembers her rehabilitation and says she was comfortable. She began to think and live in the present without regrets about the past or fears about the future. She is happier now than before.

Lessons For Health Care Professionals

She was not completely aware but remembers the way the nurses made her feel. Some nurses came into the room and routinely took notes and monitored the equipment. They were cold and that is the way she remembers them. Others came into the room and interacted with her. They brought a warmth with them.

Her mother, G G, curled up with her daughter. Although she didn’t know who her mother was, it was a welcome sensation.

Later Jill realized that she had to let go of her past; she would never be the same again. "All I wanted her to do was be able to do the routine things that made life independent and she wasn't going to be dependent on somebody always being there," she told Oprah.

Quick Way To Screen For Stroke

The brain has various regions that control various parts of the body. Dr Mehmet Oz said that you can narrow down a couple brain locations by asking the patient to raise both of your hands in the air and by smile at the same time. Then ask the sufferer to repeat a simple sentence. “If someone is not quite with it, those are the three ways to check them out,” Dr Oz said.

If you suspect a stroke, call 911 immediately. “if you get to a stroke center within three hours they can pump medication in that will bust the blood clot and then you will have less debilitation after the fact,” Jill told the audience.

My Stroke of Insight Book

Jill did a lot of sleeping and she was unable to pick out voices from the background noise while recuperating. The alternative, she says, was to zone out and stay within her right hemisphere's limited consciousness. "I was experiencing bliss and euphoria. I was happy," she says.

She had to make a conscious effort to gain back her left hemisphere skills like language. “My Stroke of Insight” took eight years to finish and describes her journey back. Her book is a New York Times Best Seller.

By Julie Marcus
Best Syndication News Entertainment Writer