By Steve Boorstein

cialis Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; white-space: normal;”>My name is Steve Boorstein, and I will be writing a series of pieces on illness and disease — and medical marijuana (MM). 

I am a 56 year-old stroke survivor. People tend to freeze up when they hear that someone has had a stroke, and rightly so: Stroke has a bad reputation and it can be devastating, but it’s not always bad news … Life-changing and epic for sure, but not always negative.
I was hit on the slopes of Vail in 2006 by a snowboarder that did not stop! I woke from a concussion with my son, Ben, standing over me. “Are you okay, can you get up?” I slowly began to rise, but could not put pressure on my upper body. I was diagnosed with a dislocated shoulder and carted down the mountain on a toboggan. My first such ride in fifty years of skiing. Upon further examination, I had suffered four cracked ribs, a concussion, a “floater” in my left eye (that’s still with me), the shoulder dislocation—and, unbeknownst to me at the time—a tear, or dissection, in my right carotid artery caused by a whiplash from the hit. I was wearing a helmet, which obviously, did not save me from whiplash.
I nursed my injuries for a few months and found my way back to the slope, excited to be skiing again! I was stiff and unsure, and eventually took a fall. I “caught” a ski pole and snapped my shoulder back, which hurt like hell and brought me to tears, but minutes later discovered that the spazzy fall had actually jerked my shoulder so hard that it broke down the scar tissue and loosened my shoulder. I had newfound mobility and range of motion!
I continued to ski for the next few weeks, getting more sure-footed as the days passed. On my last ski day at Snowmass, I came down with a terrible headache and numbness in my left arm. Over the next few days, I experienced five TIA’s (Transient ischemic Attacks), with the exact same symptoms. I’d had a history of migraine headaches, so I figured they were associated. I attributed the numbness in my arm to nerve damage from the shoulder dislocation. I came to find out that these symptoms were actually “mini-strokes,” precursors to a full-blown stroke.
On the day of the last TIA, my wife drove me to the hospital emergency room where I was diagnosed with multiple clots in my brain. Long story short, a blood clot had formed on the flap of the tear in the carotid artery and it was starting to break off, one micro-piece at a time. The Doc offered me two choices; check-in to the ICU for a week or so and go on Coumadin, a strong blood thinner, for as much as a year until the clot dissolves; or have a stent put in the carotid to “compress” the clot and open the blockage: The stent being the safest and most benign way back to good health. I chose the stent procedure.
During the stent insertion, which finds its way up to the carotid through the femoral artery, my carotid went into extreme spasm because I had no plaque to “coat” the artery when the stent was inserted. The spasms broke part of the clot loose and little pieces found their way into my brain during the procedure. I felt a ripple surge through the left side of my body as I lay on the operating table. I awoke in recovery with a massive headache and was given strong painkillers.
A few hours later, settled into the ICU, I found out that I was paralyzed on the left side, from fingertip to shoulder, and had lost most of my vision in the left eye. Further testing revealed that I could not add 2+2 or tie my shoe — or even remember how to tie my shoe. It was quite a shock, but I was alive and I could speak, so it wasn’t all bad news!
After four weeks of lying on my sofa, unable to read, play guitar, work the computer, or watch TV, I became depressed. Most stroke survivors opt for anti-depressants around this time, but I couldn’t relate to that protocol. I was stiff, my body was in shock, and I had a raging case of cabin fever because I only left the house to be chauffeured to rehab and acupuncture. Life sucked and I was losing it. This was a prison sentence for an active person like me.
I’ve used cannabis most of my adult life, but had never really thought about it as medication before: Certainly, not in terms of improving my health, mental or physical. However, I have always considered the use of cannabis to be a catalyst or springboard to creativity and effective attitude adjustment. I began researching the effects of cannabis on blood thinners and anything I could find on cannabis and stroke. I used extreme magnifiers to see the articles on the computer. After much effort — and a two-hour nap — I decided to try one “hit or dose” of cannabis for my depression and body shock.
This is the honest truth: ten minutes after I took one hit, I was off the couch with more spring to my step than anytime since my stroke. I began to juggle three balls, as I had been a decent juggler before the stroke. Not surprisingly, I could not juggle three, two, or even one ball. In fact, I could not even catch a ball in my left hand. Everything that hit my flat, lifeless hand fell off. I decided to lower my expectations, and tried simply just to toss the ball from my right hand to my left, but could not catch and hold even one ball in my gimpy left hand.
I did, however, spend twenty minutes at this pursuit, actually moving my body to chase the fallen balls, one at a time. I was exhausted when I finished and promptly collapsed onto the couch for a three-hour nap! When I woke, I realized that I could actually move my body to do more than just physical therapy! I felt reconnected to my body. This experience changed my life and rocked my world.
Follow my rehabilitation and exploits in the next issue! Thanks for reading and caring.
Steve is a clothing-care expert, writer, and an avid tennis player. The biography/memoir about his stroke, and those of fourteen other survivors, aptly titled “Different Strokes,” will be available October 2011, by Skyhorse Publishing.