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Ruth Tatham. M.D
His book begins in April, 2008, or a "great day". Frank was a young, healthy man with a lovely wife and a little son. He had picked up his son from preschool and as they trotted off to have haircuts, Frank thought cheerfully about a phone call he just received that day confirming a new job, a job to work with kids with mental and physical disabilities.
That night, Frank had a stroke, and his life changed forever: the stroke robbed him of the ability to communicate. Frank Austin was now a victim of Aphasia, which varies from an inability to speak, to read, to comprehend what is said to you, to being unable to read or difficulty understanding numbers. Frank learned the hard way that while aphasic people may have lost the ability to communicate with words, most are perfectly bright mentally and now face a hostile world which often believes that lack of normal speech means you have lost the ability to think as well.
Austin uses a variety of ways to relearn communication. His inherent optimism helped him overcome his loss of self-worth; gently, he introduces the reader to himself, and now and then to his previous belief in a powerful, loving God who has never failed him. However, this is not a religious book but a story of a man's rise up and over terrible adversity. Many different approaches are used as he tells of his personal story...with a growing awareness of how alone an aphasic stroke survivor really is.
When Frank couldn't find speech practice conversational groups to help him, he started one, as a coffee and conversational group, in Elmira, ON. Frank gives great credit to his wife, Jennifer, whose life was also turned upside down. Unquestionably, the degree to which Frank Austin rehabilitated was in measure due to her help, her sensible, practical help...which made Frank's life as the father of a young child, and a giver of help to other stroke survivors, a possibility.
I recommend the book highly - to any family member or friend of any one with aphasia, and communication problems, whether from a stroke or other brain injury. This book would be a regular morale booster. It should NOT be read in one sitting. It should be read a few pages at a time. The help it gives is best digested in small pieces. Right now, I'm thinking how useful this book would have been to me over 60 years ago when I was a young medical student, encountering aphasic patients for the first time, feeling helpless when trying to communicate with obviously intelligent people who were separated from me by the wall of silence that had resulted from a sudden, catastrophic loss of some brain functions!
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