Michael's Story
Michael Kirk, 39, runs a cleaning company in Miami and enjoys expressing his creativity through art. Born with a heart condition and diagnosed with heart failure the year prior, Michael wasn’t experiencing any symptoms and doesn’t remember anything remarkable about the day he had a stroke, until it was happening. After work, Michael returned to his apartment. While sitting down, he realized his body wasn’t working properly—his hand started flailing out of control, hitting himself in the face. Confused, he laid down on the floor. Michael remembers someone knocking on the door, but he couldn’t move to open it. Fortunately, the friend who stopped by realized something was wrong and called 911.
Emergency services transported Michael to Palmetto General Hospital. Michael recalls arriving at the hospital, then nothing. “When I got there, everything went white. When I woke up two and half weeks later, I was in a hospital bed,” Michael said.
Doctors explained that a blocked artery in Michael’s brain had caused a stroke. He had left-sided weakness and couldn’t walk. Additionally, Michael’s thinking felt jumbled and he couldn’t do basic tasks like dressing himself. Now stabilized, Michael chose to transition to West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital to focus on regaining his strength, mobility and independence.
“When I met with the doctor and team at West Gables, I didn’t have specific goals because I didn’t know what to expect or what progress I could make. I just knew that I wanted to be better,” Michael said.
The team got to work. Physical therapy focused on increasing Michael’s strength, endurance and coordination in his left leg with repeated sit to stands and squats to prepare his leg muscles for walking. After a few days of conditioning, Michael’s therapists guided him into a support harness connected to a track on the ceiling in the therapy gym. With his body weight supported from above, Michael safely took his first steps since the stroke.
“Planning and strategizing with my therapists was the perfect combination for success, it felt so good,” Michael said about the milestone.
Soon, Michael was stepping forward and backward over a cone and lifting his foot for repeated cone taps while standing, further honing his coordination and balance.
Meantime, occupational therapy focused on Michael’s upper body rehabilitation by using electrical stimulation to wake up the nerves and increase blood flow to the muscles in his left arm. This therapy was successful in helping Michael move his wrist and fingers again. He soon progressed to reaching, grasping, releasing and strengthening activities with his left hand and arm. While Michael was gaining strength, occupational therapy also taught him energy-saving techniques which allowed him to get dressed independently. The team included cleaning tasks and art projects in his therapy activities to prepare Michael to return to work and the creative pursuits meaningful in his life.
To improve his cognitive skills, Michael’s speech-language pathologist directed him in using writing, repetition, association and visualization strategies to help remember information in his daily life. Michael also worked on slow and deliberate pronunciation of words to improve speech.
“All the therapy staff were very motivational, encouraging and challenging. They helped me understand myself and what I went through, and taught me new strategies to get back to my life,” Michael shared.
After 19 days at West Gables Rehabilitation Hospital, Michael was able to independently complete all self-care activities and he walked out of the hospital with the support of a four-pointed cane. He plans to continue building strength with outpatient therapy and looks forward to returning to his work and art.